My beloved spiritual children in Christ Our Only True God and Our Only True Savior,
CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE. Ο ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΕΝ ΤΩ ΜΕΣΩ ΗΜΩΝ! ΚΑΙ ΗΝ ΚΑΙ ΕΣΤΙ ΚΑΙ ΕΣΤΑΙ.

ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY (Part III)
By Father Dumitru Staniloae [Romanian Orthodox Theologian]

The fact that the object of asceticism isn't only the cleansing of the passions, but also the simultaneous acquiring of the virtues, shows once again that asceticism isn't something negative, but a fortification of our nature. In the course of asceticism, by prolonged endeavor, vicious habits are suppressed and virtuous ones planted in our nature, and much tenacity is needed to stop our old ways from springing up again and to consolidate good, new habits.

In this general characterization of asceticism, we should also mention one of its formal aspects. Asceticism follows a definite road, an order and a series of steps which must not be overlooked. It is a precise discipline which takes into consideration the laws of the normal development of the spiritual life, as well as the principles of faith. Such a battle according to law means that its road is established according to a well-grounded logic. This fact also sheds light on the final phase of the spiritual life.

To mystical union with God, which asceticism leads to, does not stand at the beck and call of everybody at any given time. It's something altogether different from the confused emotional states one can get himself into by choice or chance. ["The Mystical Union with God is beyond present psychological emotion. I. Hausherr writes: 'In fact, mysticism ends by going beyond suffering and human joy, beyond that which is called common consolation and spiritual desolation, to a region where human words lose more and more their original meaning, in order to no longer keep but a value of analogy. There doesn't exist only an apophaticism for intellectual knowledge, but also one for mystical psychology, when to put it the way Diadochos does, a unity of spiritual feeling is reestablished", Op. cit, p. 38]. After travelling the ascetical road where each moment is placed, not without reason, in its place, the mind must go through the stage of the knowledge of the Logoi of created things, as Saint Maximus the Confessor says. Only after it has gone does it enter into the light of mystical union and knowledge. This phase of the knowledge of the existent Logoi and of the surpassing of them is also itself a rung on the ladder of asceticism. It is evident that the mystical union with God, situated at the very top of this ascent, is not something irrational, but suprarational. It's not a state won as a result of the debilitation of reason or of an ignorance of the reasons of things, the Logoi, but after the surpassing of all the possibilities of reason; it is brought to its supreme force and insight, as well as to the complete knowledge of the rational meaning of things...

"...Christian asceticism isn't a artificial and one-sided technique, which by itself produces the living of the mystical union with God. Such a false asceticism has as a consequence a false coronation that is characterized by the following signs:

It implies no moral condition whatsoever, but it is matter of temperament.
Ecstasy is sought for its own sake, as a supreme purpose.
This kind of ecstasy is sterile, if not degrading; a person doesn't come out of it either more instructed, or better (morally).
This ecstasy is like "a hand reaching into a void, and coming out with nothing."

Christianity considers that the direct vision of God can't be reached without the grace given by Him; the reception of this grace requires a moral perfection of the whole of human nature by ceaseless divine help. A purely human training to awaken some unknown "sleeping power" isn't enough. In Christianity, God doesn't have a nature like an object which we can conquer by human foray directed by clever tactics. He is a Person and as such, without an initiative on His part, He can't be known. For this self-revelation of God in a mystical union we have to make ourselves worthy by being sincere, clean and good; because He is above an offensive which uses force or slyness. So Christian Asceticism is a road illumined not only by reason, but by faith too, and by prayer and the help of God. It's a road along which our whole nature is purified from sin and is morally fortified. (To be continued)

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"Glory Be To GOD For All Things!"--Saint John Chrysostom

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With sincere agape in His Holy Diakonia,
The sinner and unworthy servant of God

+Father George