Their Hearts Shall Live Forever

The

Ladder

Divine Ascent

Table of Contents for this Dot System

Enticements towards the World After We’ve Left the World
On Mortification
Advice to Matthew
The Discernment of the Saints
The Hidden Vices in Virtues
Discerning the Will of God
On Evil Spirits
A Proper Disposition Towards the Learned and Unlearned Teachers
Evil is not Natural
Focus
On Watchfulness
On Those Who Are Spiritual and Those Who Watch Them
The Struggle of Despondency
St. John’s Question Posed While Seeing a Vision of Light
How Do I Understand the Demons’ Attack?
A Note on the Jesus Prayer (?)
On the Reading of the Scriptures
Step 28 – On Prayer
The Various “Forms” of Prayer
Method/Order/Construction of One’s Prayer
The Prayers of the Grateful and Ungrateful
Do Not Be Late For Prayer
Fulfill the Request of Prayer for Another
Do not be Proud in thinking that Your Prayer is Efficacious because of You
Do Not Stop Praying if you Sense God’s Grace, It May Never Happen Again
Various Personal Dispositions Towards Prayer
On Dispassion
The Beginning of Love

The Ladder of Divine Ascent

Step 1 - On Renunciation of Life................................................................ 73

Step 2 - On Detachment.............................................................................. 81

Step 3 - On Exile.......................................................................................... 85

Step 4 - On Obedience................................................................................. 91

Step 5 - On Penitence.................................................................................. 121

Step 6 - On Remembrance of Death............................................................ 132

Step 7 - On Mourning.................................................................................. 136

Step 8 - On Placidity and Meekness............................................................ 146

Step 9 - On Malice....................................................................................... 152

Step 10 - On Slander...................................................................................... 155

Step 11 - On Talkativeness and Silence......................................................... 158

Step 12 - On Falsehood................................................................................. 160

Step 13 - On Despondency............................................................................ 162

Step 14 - On Gluttony................................................................................... 165

Step 15 - On Chastity.................................................................................... 171

Step 16 - On Avarice..................................................................................... 187

Step 17 - On Poverty..................................................................................... 189

Step 18 - On Sensitivity................................................................................. 191

Step 19 - On Sleep, Prayer and the Singing of Psalms.................................. 194

Step 20 - On Alertness................................................................................... 196

Step 21 - On Unmanly Fears.......................................................................... 199

Step 22 - On Vainglory.................................................................................. 201

Step 23 - On Pride......................................................................................... 207

Step 24 - On Meekness, Simplicity, Guilelessness and Wickedness............. 214

Step 25 - On Humility.................................................................................... 218

Step 26 - On Discernment.............................................................................. 229

A Brief Summary of All the Preceding Steps.................................................. 256

Step 27 - On Stillness..................................................................................... 261

Step 28 - On Prayer........................................................................................ 274

Step 29 - On Dispassion................................................................................. 282

Step 30 - On Faith, Hope and Love............................................................... 286

Enticements towards the World After We’ve Left the World

[W]e manage for some time to live away from our relatives. We practice a little piety, compunction, self-control. And then the empty thoughts come tramping toward us, seeking to turn us back to the places we knew. They tell us what a lesson we are, what an example, what a help to those who witnessed our former wicked deeds. If we happen to be articulate and well informed, they assure us that we could be rescuers of souls and teachers to the world. They tell us all this so that we might scatter t sea the treasures we have assembled while in port. So we had better imitate Lot, and certainly not his wife. The soul turning back to the regions from which it came will be like the salt that has lost savor, indeed like that famous pillar. Run from Egypt, run and do not turn back. The heart yearning for the land there will never see Jerusalem, the land of dispassion. (86)

On Mortification

The beginning of the mortification both of the soul’s will and also of the body’s members is hard. The halfway stage is sometimes difficult, sometimes not. But the end is liberation from the senses and freedom from pain. (92)

Advice to Matthew

Fight to escape your own cleverness. If you do, then you will find salvation and an uprightness through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (21)

The Discernment of the Saints

Demons once heaped praise on one of the most discerning of the brothers. They even appeared to him in visible form. But this very wise man spoke to them as follows: “if you cease to praise me by way of the thoughts of my heart, I shall consider myself to be great and outstanding because of the fact that you have left me. But if you continue to praise me, I must deduce from such praise that I am very impure indeed, since every proudhearted man is unclean before the Lord. So leave me, and I shall become great, or else praise me, and with your help I shall earn more humility.” Struck by this dilemma, they vanished. (221)

The Hidden Vices in Virtues

When we draw water from a well, it can happen that we inadvertently also bring up a frog. When we acquire virtues we can sometimes find ourselves involved with the vices which are imperceptibly interwoven with them. What I mean is this. Gluttony can be caught up with hospitality; lust with love; cunning with discernment; malice with prudence; duplicity, procrastination, slovenliness, stubbornness, wilfulness, and disobedience with meekness; refusal to learn with silence; conceit with joy; laziness with hope; nasty condemnation with love again; despondency and indolence with tranquility; sarcasm with chastity; familiarity with lowliness. And behind all the virtues follows vainglory as a slave, or rather a poison, for everything. (237)

Discerning the Will of God

Those who wish to discover the will of God must begin by mortifying their own will. Then having prayed in faith and simplicity, all malice spent, they should turn humbly and in confidence to the fathers or even the brothers and they should accept their counsel, as though from God Himself, even when that counsel goes against the grain, even when the advice comes from those who do not seem very spiritual. God, after all, is not unjust. He will not lead astray the souls who, trusting and guileless, yield in lowliness to the advice and decision of their neighbour. Even if those consulted are stupid, God immaterially and invisibly speaks through them and anyone who faithfully submits to this norm will be filled with humility. If a man can express on a harp whatever ails him, surely a rational mind and a reasonable soul can provide better teaching than something inanimate.

Yet this perfect and easy rule is rejected by many for reasons of pride. Instead they have sought to discover the will of God by their own resources and within themselves and have then proceeded to offer us numerous and different opinions on this whole issue. (244-245)

On Evil Spirits

The wickedness of the evil spirits is truly astounding and it is something not witnessed by many, and indeed even those few who appreciate it see it only in part. How is it, for instance, that when we are living in luxury and abundance we can keep vigil and remain awake, whereas while fasting and wearing ourselves down with toil we are wretchedly overcome by sleep? Why is it that our hearts grow calloused when we are dwelling alone in silence, and yet compunction may be stirred in us when we are involved with others? How is it that dreams tempt us when we are hungry and omit to do so when we are full? Amid want we become gloomy and incapable of compunction, while after some wine we grow happy and are quite able to be contrite. (Anyone who, with God’s help, can shed light on this ought to do so, for the sake of the unenlightened. For we really are unilluminated where all this is concerned.) But switches of this sort, of course, do not always come from demons. In my own case – and for reasons I do not understand – I too experienced this kind of change as a result of the temperament which I have been given and my burden of grubby and greedy flesh. (246-247)

A Proper Disposition Towards the Learned and Unlearned Teachers

Do not be a harsh critic of those who resort to eloquence to teach many important things, but who have few actions to match their words. For edifying words have often compensated for lack deeds. All of us do not get an equal share of every good, and for some the word is mightier than the deed and vice versa for others. (251)

Evil is not Natural

God neither caused nor created evil and, therefore, those who assert that certain passions come naturally to the soul are quite wrong. What they fail to realize is that we have taken natural attributes of our own and turned them into passions. For instance, the seed which we have for the sake of procreating children is abused by us for the sake of fornication. Nature has provided us with anger as something to be turned against the serpent, but we have turned it against our neighbour. We have a natural urge to excel in virtue, but instead we compete in evil. Nature stirs within us the desire for glory, but that glory is of a heavenly kind. It is natural for us to be arrogant – against the demons. Joy is ours by nature, but it should be joy on account of the Lord and for the sake of doing good to our neighbour. Nature has given us resentment, but that ought to be against the enemy of our souls. We have a natural desire for food, but not for profligacy. (251)

Focus

A condemned man on his way to execution does not discuss the theatre. A man genuinely lamenting his sins will never pander to his stomach. (257)

On Watchfulness

Keep track of the exact condition of each passion and of each virtue, and you will know exactly how you are making progress. (259)

O solitary monk, watch out for the hour of the wild beasts, because if you do not, then you will be unable to get ready the appropriate traps. (265)

Keep a special watch for the one spirit that unfailingly attacks you whether you stand, walk, sit, stir, get up, pray or sleep. (272)

On Those Who Are Spiritual and Those Who Watch Them

Spirits have no thought for what is material, and those who have become immaterial in a material body will pay no attention to food, for the former know nothing of it and the latter need no promise of it; the former are unconcerned about money and chattels and the latter are heedless of the malice of the evil spirits. In those dwelling above, there is no yearning for the visible creation, while those on earth below have no longing for what can be sensed, because the former never cease to make progress in love and the latter will never cease to imitate them. The former know well the value of their progress; the latter understand their own love and longing for the ascent to heaven. The former will desist only when they rise to the realm of the Seraphim; the latter will grow tired only when they come at last to be angels. Blessed is he who hopes; thrice blessed is he who lives to see the promise of being an angel. (264)

The Struggle of Despondency

A monk practicing stillness and struggling against despondency is often harmed, for the time given to prayer and contemplation is wasted in the tricks and wrestlings needed to fight his problem. (267)

St. John’s Question Posed While Seeing a Vision of Light

The first task of stillness is disengagement from every affair good and bad, since concern with the former leads on to the latter. Second is urgent prayer. Third is inviolable activity of the heart. And just as you have to know the alphabet if you are to read books, so if you have missed out on the first task, you cannot enter upon the other two.

I myself was occupied with the second of these tasks and entered the intermediate stage. A light came to me when I was thirsting and I asked there what the Lord was before He took visible form. The angel could not tell me because he was not permitted to do so. So I asked him: “In what state is He now?” and the answer was that He was in the state appropriate to Him, though not to us. “What is the nature of the standing or sitting at the right hand of the Father?” I asked. “Such mysteries cannot be taken in by the human ear,” he replied. Then I pleaded with him right then to bring me where my heart was longing to go, but he said that the time was not yet ripe, since the fire of incorruption was not yet mighty enough within me. And whether during all this, I was in the body or out of it, I cannot rightly say. (268)

How Do I Understand the Demons’ Attack?

But there is no better proof of the failure of the demons than the violence with which they attack us. (268)

A Note on the Jesus Prayer (?)

Let the remembrance of Jesus be present with your every breath. (270)

On the Reading of the Scriptures

Light and recollection come to the mind by way of reading the Scriptures. The words are those of the Holy Spirit, and they provide guidance to the readers. Let your reading be a preliminary to action, since you are a doer. Put the words into practice, and then further reading will be unnecessary. Try to be enlightened by the words of salvation through your labours and not from books. And until you have acquired spiritual power, do not read works that have various levels of meaning since, being obscure, they may bring darkness over the weak. (272-273)

Step 28 – On Prayer

Prayer is by nature a dialog and a union of man with God. Its effect is to hold the world together. It achieves a reconciliation with God.

Prayer is the mother and daughter of tears. It is an expiation of sin, a bridge across temptation, a bulwark against affliction. It wipes out conflict, is the work of angels, and is the nourishment of all bodiless beings. Prayer is future gladness, action without end, wellspring of virtues, source of grace, hidden progress, food of the soul, enlightenment of the mind, an axe against despair, hope demonstrated, sorrow done away with. It is wealth for monks, treasure of hermits, anger diminished. It is a mirror of progress, a demonstration of success, evidence of one's condition, the future revealed, a sign of glory. For the man who really prays it is the court, the judgment hall, the tribunal of the Lord—and this prior to the judgment that is to come.

Let us arise and pay heed to what that holy queen of the virtues cries out to us in a loud voice, saying: " 'Come to me, all of you who labor and are weighed down, and I will give you rest. Take upon yourselves my yoke, and you will find rest for your souls' (Matt: 11:28-29), and a balm for the blows that fall on you. 'For my yoke is easy' (ibid. 30) and is a remedy for great sins."

Those of us wishing to stand before our King and God and to speak with Him should not rush into this without some preparation, lest it should happen that—seeing us from afar without arms and without the dress appropriate to those who appear before the king – He should command His servants and his slaves to lay hold of us, to drive us out of his sight, to tear up our petition and to throw them in our faces.

When you set out to appear before the Lord, let the garment of your soul be woven throughout with the wrongs no longer remembered. Otherwise, prayer will be useless to you.

Pray in all simplicity. The publican and the prodigal son were reconciled to God by a single utterance.

The attitude of prayer is the same for all, but there are many kinds of prayer and many different prayers. Some talk and deal with God as with a friend and master, lifting their praises and requests to Him not for themselves but for others. Some look for greater spiritual treasures and glory and for greater assurance in their prayers. Some beg to be freed entirely from their adversary. Some look for rank and others for relief from all their debts. Some seek freedom from gaol or for charges against them to be dropped.

But heartfelt thanksgiving should have first place in our book of prayer. Next should be confession and genuine contrition of soul. After that should come our request to the universal King. This method of prayer is best, as one of the brothers was told by an angel of the Lord.

If you ever found yourself having to appear before a human judge, you may use that as an example of how to conduct yourself in prayer. Perhaps you have never stood before a judge nor witnessed a cross-examination. In that case, take your cue from the way patients appeal to surgeons prior to an operation or a cautery.

In your prayers there is no need for high-flown words, for it is the simple and unsophisticated babblings of children that have more often won the heart of the Father in heaven.

Try not to talk excessively in your prayer, in case your mind is distracted by the search for words. One word from the publican sufficed to placate God, and a single utterance saved the thief. Talkative prayer frequently distracts the mind and deludes it, whereas brevity makes for concentration.

If it happens that, as you pray, some word evokes delight or remorse within you, linger over it; for at that moment our guardian angel is praying with us.

However pure you may be, do not be forward in your dealings with God. Approach Him rather in all humility, and you will be given still more boldness. And even if you have climbed the whole ladder of the virtues, pray still for the forgiveness of sins. Heed Paul’s cry regarding sinners “of whom I am the first”.

Oil and salt are the condiments of food: chastity and tears give flight to prayer.

If you are clothed in gentleness and in freedom from anger, you will find it no trouble to free your mind from captivity.

Until we have acquired true prayer, we are like those who introduce children to walking.

Make the effort to raise up, or rather, to enclose your mind within the words of your prayer; and if, like a child, it gets tired and falters, raise it up again. The mind, after all, is naturally unstable, but the God who can do everything can also give it firm endurance. Persevere in this, therefore, and do not grow weary; and He Who sets a boundary to the sea of the mind will come to you too during your prayer and will say, “Thus far shall you come and no further.” Spirit cannot be bound, but where He is found everything yields to the Creator of spirit.

If you have ever seen the Sun, you will be able to converse with Him in an appropriate way. But if you have not, then how can you truly talk to Him?

The beginning of prayer is the expulsion of distractions from the very start by a single thought; the middles stage is the concentration on what is being said or thought; its conclusion is rapture in the Lord.

Prayer brings one sort of joy to those living in community, and another to those praying in stillness. Elation is sometimes characterized of the former, but humility is always to be found in the latter.

If you are careful to train your mind never to wander, it will stay by you even at mealtimes. But if you allow it to stray freely, then you will never have it beside you. “I would prefer to speak five words with my understanding” and so on, says the mighty practitioner of great and high prayer. But prayer of this sort is foreign to infant souls, and so because of our imperfection we need quantity as well as quality in the words of our prayer, the former making a way for the latter, in accordance with the saying about giving prayer to him who prays resolutely, albeit impurely and laboriously (1 Sam. 2:9).

There is a difference between the tarnish of prayer, it[‘s] disappearance, the robbery of it, and its defilement. Prayer is tarnished when we stand before God, our minds seething with irrelevancies. It disappears when we are led off into useless cares. It is robbed when our thoughts stray without our realization of the fact. And it is defiled when we are in any way under attack.

If we happen not to be alone at the time of prayer, let us form within ourselves the demeanor of someone who prays. But if the servants of praise are not sharing our company, we may openly put on the appearance of those at prayer. For among the weak, the mind often conforms to the body.

Total contrition is necessary for everyone, but particularly for those who have come to the King to obtain forgiveness of their sins. While we are still in prison, let us listen to him who told Peter to put on the garment of obedience, to shed his own wishes, and, having been stripped of them, to come close to the Lord in prayer, seeking only His will. Then you will receive the God Who takes the helm of your soul and pilots you safely.

Rise from love of the world and love of pleasure. Put care aside, strip your mind, refuse your body. Prayer, after all, is a turning away from the world, visible and invisible. What have I in heaven? Nothing. What have I longed for on earth besides You? Nothing except to simply cling always to you in undistracted prayer. Wealth pleases some, glory others, possessions others, but what I want is to cling to God and to put the hopes of my dispassion in Him.

Faith gives wings to prayer, and without it no one can fly upward to heaven.

Those of us who are swept by passion must ceaselessly pray to the Lord, for all the passionate have advanced from passion to dispassion.

Even if the judge has no fear of God, yet because a soul widowed from God by sin and by a fall disturbs Him, He will take revenge on the body, the soul’s adversary, and on the spirits who declare war on her.

Our good Redeemer, by speedily granting what is asked, draws to His love those who are grateful. But He keeps ungrateful souls praying a long time before Him, hungering and thirsting for what they want, since a badly trained dog rushes off as soon as it is given bread and leaves the giver behind.

After a long spell of prayer, do not say that nothing has been gained, for you have already achieved something. For, after all, what higher good is there then to cling to the Lord and to persevere in unceasing union with Him?

A convicted man does not fear his sentence as much as a zealous man the time of prayer. So if he is shrewd and sensible, he will remember this and will therefore be able to avoid reproach, anger, anxiety, concerns, affliction, satiety, temptations and distractions.

Get ready for your set time of prayer by unceasing prayer in your soul. In this way, you will soon make progress. I have observed that those who were outstanding in obedience and who tried as far as possible to keep in mind the thought of God were in full control of their minds and wept copiously as soon as they stood in prayer, for holy obedience had prepared them for this.

One can be held back and distracted by the singing of psalms in a congregation. This does not happen when one is a solitary. However, despondency can assail the latter, while in the former situation the brethren can give help by their zeal.

War reveals the love of a soldier for his king, and the time and practice of prayer show up a monk’s love for God. So your prayer shows where you stand. Indeed, theologians say that prayer is a monks mirror.

Someone who is occupied with some task and continues with it at the hour of prayer is being fooled by the demons, for these thieves aim to steal one hour after another from us.

Do not refuse a request to pray for the soul of another, even when you yourself lack the gift of prayer. For often the very faith of the person making the request will evoke the saving contrition of the one who is to offer the prayer.

Do not become conceited when you have prayed for others and have been heard, for it is their faith which has been active and efficacious.

A child is examined each day without fail regarding what he has learned from his teacher. And it is reasonable to ask that there be a reckoning of each prayer we have undertaken, in order that we may have an idea of the power we have received from God. And when you have prayed soberly, you will soon have to cope with bouts of ill temper, something our enemies aim for.

Every virtuous act we do – and this is particularly true of prayer – should be done with great sensitivity. A soul prays with sensitivity when it has overcome anger.

Whatever is obtained as a result of long and persistent prayer will remain.

When a man has found the Lord, he no longer has to use words when he is praying, for the Spirit Himself will intercede for him with groans that cannot be uttered.

Do not form sensory images during prayer, for distraction will certainly follow.

The confident expectation of gaining that for which one is begging will show up during prayer. Confidence is doubt absent. Confidence is proof of the uncertain.

If prayer is a matter of concern to you, then show yourself to be merciful. Monks will receive a hundredfold if they are merciful, and they will receive everything else in the world to come.

When fire comes to dwell in the heart it resurrects prayer; and after prayer has been revived and taken up into heaven, a descent of fire takes place into the upper chamber of the soul.

Some claim that prayer is better than the remembrance of death. But for my part, my praise goes out to the two natures in one person.

When a good horse is mounted, it warms up and quickens its pace. The singing of psalms is the pace and a determined mind is the horse. It scents the battle from afar, is ready for it and dominates the scene.

It would be very wrong to snatch water from the mouth of a thirsty person. Worse, however, is the case of a soul that is praying with compunction and is snatched away from its task before it has completed its longed-for prayer.

Do not stop praying as long as, by God’s grace, the fire and the water have not been exhausted, for it may happen that never again in your whole life will you have such a chance to ask for the forgiveness of your sins.

A man with a taste for prayer may defile his mind with one careless word, and then at prayer he will not get what he wants in the way he used to.

To keep a regular watch over the heart is one thing; to guard the heart by means of the mind is another for the mind is the ruler and high priest offering spiritual sacrifices to Christ. When heaven’s holy fire lays hold of the former, it burns them because they still lack purification. This is what one of those endowed with the title of Theologian tells us. But as for the latter, it enlightens them in proportion to the perfection they have achieved. It is one and the same fire that is called that which consumes and that which illuminates. Hence the reason why some emerge from prayer as from a blazing furnace and as though having been relieved of all material defilements. Others come forth as if they were resplendent with light and clothed in a garment of joy and humility. But as for those who emerge without having experienced either of these effects, I would say that they have prayed in a bodily, not to say a Jewish, manner, and not spiritually.

A body changes in its activity as a result of contact with another body. How therefore could there be no change in someone who with innocent hands has touched the Body of God?

We may note that our all-good King, like some earthly monarch, sometimes distributes His gifts to His soldiers Himself, sometimes through a friend or a slave, and sometimes in a hidden way. But certainly it will be in accordance with the garment of humility worn by each of us.

A man stands before an earthly monarch. But he turns his face away and talks to the enemies of the king, and the king will be offended. In the same way, the Lord will be offended by someone who at prayer time turns away toward unclean thoughts. SO if the dog keeps coming, drive him off with a stick and never give into him, however much he may persist.

Ask with tears, seek with obedience, knock with patience. For so it goes that he “who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.”

In your prayers be careful not to beg too much on behalf of the opposite sex, for the enemy may come at you from the unprotected side.

Do not insist on confessing your carnal acts in detail, since you might become a traitor to yourself.

The hour of prayer is no time for thinking over necessities, nor even spiritual tasks, because you may lose the better part.

Hold on to the staff of prayer and you will not fall. And even a fall will not be fatal, since prayer is a devout coercion of God.

The value of prayer can be guessed from the way the demons attack us during services in church, and its fruit may be inferred from the victory over the enemy. “By this I know You are on my side because the enemy will not come to gloat over me” in the hour of battle. “I cried out with all my heart,” said the psalmist. He is referring to body, soul, and spirit, and where the last two are gathered, God is in the midst of them.

We are not all the same, either in body or soul. Some profit from singing the psalms quickly, others from doing so slowly, the one fighting distractions, the other coping with ignorance.

If you are always in dialog with the King in regard to your enemies, take heart whenever they attack you. A long struggle will not be necessary for you, for they will soon give up of their own accord. These unholy beings are afraid that you may earn a crown as a result of your battle against them through prayer, and besides, when scourged by prayer they will run away as though from fire.

Always be brave, and God will teach you your prayer.

You cannot learn to see just because someone tells you to do so. For that, you require your own natural power of sight. In the same way, you cannot discover from the teaching of others the beauty of prayer. Prayer has its own special teacher in God, who “teaches man knowledge.” He grants the prayer of him who prays. And He blesses the years of the just. (274-281)

The Various “Forms” of Prayer

Method/Order/Construction of One’s Prayer

The Prayers of the Grateful and Ungrateful

Do Not Be Late For Prayer

Someone who is occupied with some task and continues with it at the hour of prayer is being fooled by the demons, for these thieves aim to steal one hour after another from us. (278)

Fulfill the Request of Prayer for Another

Do not be Proud in thinking that Your Prayer is Efficacious because of You

Do not become conceited when you have prayed for others and have been heard, for it is their faith which has been active and efficacious. (278)

Do Not Stop Praying if you Sense God’s Grace, It May Never Happen Again

Various Personal Dispositions Towards Prayer

We are not all the same, either in body or soul. Some profit from singing the psalms quickly, others from doing so slowly, the one fighting distractions, the other coping with ignorance. (281)

On Dispassion

Think of dispassion as a kind of celestial palace, a palace of the King of Heaven. Think of the numerous mansions as so many dwelling places within this city. Think of the forgiveness of sins as being the fortifying wall of this Jerusalem. O my brothers, we should run to enter the bridal chamber of this palace, and if some burden of past habits or the passage of time should impede us, what a disaster for us! Let us at least take up residence in one of the mansions near the bridal chamber. But if we begin to falter or weaken, we ought to ensure that at least we are inside the walls, since the man who does not get there before the end, who does not climb the wall, must camp out in the desert. This is the reason for the prayer of the man who said: “By my God will I climb a wall.” Another, as if in the person of God Himself, says: “Is it not your sins that separate you and Me?”

Friends, let us break through this wall of separation, this wall that in our disobedience we built to our own harm. Let us look there for the forgiveness of our sins, since there is no one in hell who can pardon us. Brothers, let us commit ourselves to this, for our names are on the lists of the devout. There must be no talk of “a lapse,” “there is not time,” or “a burden.” To everyone who has received the Lord in Baptism, “He has given the power to become children of God.” “’Be still and know that I am God’ and am Dispassion,” He says. To Him be glory forever and ever. Amen. (284-285)

The Beginning of Love

The growth of fear is the starting point of love, and total purity is the foundation for theology. (288)