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| Saint Sophrony the Athonite. |
Experience shows every man that in order to arrive at pure prayer it is essential to free the mind from burdensome preoccupation with material possessions.
At first
one argues: 'How can I liberate myself completely from things? Through my body
I am a material thing myself, and the life of this body of mine is inevitably
bound up with the material. So does it mean that I must let myself die?' ... No, it is
not like that. Wise ascetic effort consists in reducing to a minimum the
material needs without the satisfaction of which it would be impossible to
keep alive. But the measure of these needs differs in every case."?
Contemporary man has not been able to organize his life in such a way as to allow himself sufficient leisure - free time - for prayer and the contemplation of Divine Being. The reason for this is covetousness, that passion which St. Paul called 'idolatry' and St. John Climacus 'the daughter of unbelief ... blasphemy against the Gospel, a turning aside from God' .
True Christian 'poverty' is
unknown and uncomprehended by the world. And if we go on to say that this
spirit of non-acquisition grows and develops until it embraces not only the
material but 'intellectual' possessions too, to the majority of people this
will seem madness. Men regard their learning as spiritual riches, not
suspecting the existence of a higher knowledge and riches quite incomparable,
since they bring with them a deep peace. In pursuing material comfort men have
lost spiritual comfort. The materialistic dynamism which dominates our century
is rapidly acquiring a demoniacal character; which is not surprising, since it
is nothing else but the dynamics of sin.
The love of possessing
banishes love for God and one's fellow-man. People do not see this, and do not
want to understand that their unrighteous aspirations are the source of the
sufferings of the whole world. St. John Climacus says: 'Love of money (that is, cupidity) is 'called the root of all
evil' and this is indeed so, for covetousness gives rise to theft, envy,
separations, enmities ... cruelty, hatred, murder and wars."!
Therefore, to break free from
the bondage of petty cares, in order to purify our minds and allow our spirits
to delight in a truly imperial liberty - or, more exactly, in a God-like
liberty - renunciation of this sphere, too, is essential, for, as St. John
Climacus says: “The "poor" man prays with a pure mind ... He who has
tasted of celestial delights finds it easy to despise earthly pleasures ... He
who is free from the acquisitive spirit is master of the world ... Everything
he possesses he considers nothing worth and when he owns nothing he does not
grieve but lives as though he had possessions”.
In the poem, the letter
addressed To Vitilian from his sons, St. Gregory of Nazianzus writes:
'By his first birth, of flesh and blood, man arrives on earth and quickly
disappears; then comes the second birth, of the Holy Spirit, when the light
[from on high] descends on him as he is washed by the water [of baptism]. The
third [birth] through tears and suffering makes clean [God's] image in us which
has been obscured by evil. The first of these [births] we have from our
fathers, the second from God, but of the third we ourselves are the authors,
appearing to the world like a grateful light'.
From this we understand that
the last birth is a crowning one. Man, having received the gift of grace which
has illuminated for him both the divine life and his own fall, by means of
painful effort adheres (without possibility of retraction) to the good. It is
this deliberate decision to choose and cling to the divine good which is the
very heart of the Christian ascetic life. Its symptoms are a deep
dissatisfaction of the spirit with all that is on earth, and a 'nostalgia' for
God, a longing for God and a fiery seeking after Him.
This, I think, is expressed in
the words of Staretz Silouan:
'My soul yearns after the
Lord,and I seek Him with tears.
How could I not seek Thee? For
Thou first didst seek me
And gavest me to delight in
Thy Holy Spirit,
And my soul fell to loving
Thee.'
Reference:
Truth and
Life. Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov). Essex 2014.