ORTHODOX SPIRITUALITY: ON PENITENCE

My beloved brothers and sisters in Christ Our Only True Lord, God and Savior,

CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE.

ORTHODOX SPIRITUALITY: ON PENITENCE
By Saint John Climacus

REPENTANCE is the RENEWAL OF BAPTISM and is a contract with God for a fresh start in life. Repentance goes shopping for humility and is ever distrustful of bodily comfort. Repentance is critical awareness and a sure watch over oneself. Repentance is the daughter of hope and the refusal to despair. (The penitent stands guilty–but disgraced.) Repentance IS RECONCILIATION WITH THE LORD by the performance of good deeds which are the opposites of the sins. It is THE PURIFICATION OF CONSCIENCE and the voluntary endurance of affliction. The penitent deals out his own punishment, for repentance is the fierce persecution of the stomach and the flogging of the soul into intense awareness…

"…The sad humility of penitents is one thing. The reproach of conscience of those who are still sinners is another. The blessed treasure of humility that, with God’s help, the perfect manage to attain is yet another. And we should be in no hurry to find words adequate to this third kind of humility, for our effort will be useless. But a sign of the second kind is the perfect bearing of indignity…

"…Do not be surprised if you fall every day and do not surrender. Stand your ground bravely. As you may be sure that your Guardian Angel will respect your endurance. A fresh, warm wound is easier to heal than those that are old, neglected, and festering, and that need extensive treatment, surgery, bandaging, and cauterization. Long neglect can render many of them incurable. However, all things are possible with God (Matthew 19:26).

God IS MERCIFUL BEFORE A FALL, inexorable after–so the demons say. And when you have sinned, pay no attention to him who says in regard to minor failings: "If only you had not committed that major fault! This is nothing by comparison." The truth is that very often small gifts soften by comparison." The truth is that very often small gifts soften the great anger of the Judge.

He who really keeps track of what he has done will consider as lost every day during which he did not mourn, regardless of whatever good he may happen to have done. Let no one who grieves for his sins expect reassurance at the hour of death There can be no assurance about the unknown. "Spare me before I depart from here, unsure of my salvation" (Psalm 38:14).

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there the chains of sin are let loose; where there is real humility, all bonds are made free; but those without the one or the other should not be deceived: they are in bondage. Those living in the world, and they alone, are without these two assurances, especially the first, unless, through almsgiving, some so run their race that they know at the moment of death how much they have gained…We ought to be on our guard, in case our conscience has stopped troubling us, not so much because of its being clear but because of its being immersed in sin.

A proof of our having been delivered from our failings is the unceasing acknowledgment of our indebtedness. Nothing equals the mercy of God or surpasses it. TO DESPAIR IS THEREFORE TO INFLICT DEATH ON ONESELF. A sign of true repentance is THE ADMISSION THAT ALL OUR TROUBLES AND MORE BESIDE, WHETHER VISIBLE OR NOT, WERE RICHLY DESERVED…

"…If you have no courage, if you are lazy, then lapses that occur after entering religious life are heard to bear. They wipe out the hope of dispassion and they make us imagine that true blessedness is simply to rise from the pit of sin. But note well that we neve return by the road on which we strayed, but rather by a different and a shorter route. [Resources: The Ladder of Divine Ascent]

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"Glory Be To GOD
For
All Things!"
+ Saint John Chrysostomos

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With sincere agape in Christ’s Divine and Glorious Diakonia (Ministry),
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
+ Father George