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Welcome back, everybody, to our study with the latter divine ascent by St. John Klimakus, and we are picking up with step number 27 on stillness, and we are coming to the end of it, just another page or so, before we segue into the step on prayer. And two, obviously, are intimately linked together, but nonetheless, it'll be interesting to see how John develops it. In fact, he starts this evening by talking about prayer specifically, and how it's tied to the stillness. So again, page 230, number 68. Faith is the wing of prayer. Without it, my prayer will return again to my bosom. Faith is the unshaken firmness of the soul, unmoved by any adversity. A believer is not one who thinks that God can do everything, but one who believes that he will obtain all things. Faith is the agent of things unhooked for, and the thief proved this. The mother of faith is hardship and honest heart. The latter makes faith constant, and the former builds it up. Faith is the mother of Hezekus, or if he does not believe, how can he practice stillness? It's an awful lot in this first paragraph for us to think about and to pray about. But simply at the beginning, faith is the wing of prayer. And without it, our prayer returns to ourself that faith, our capacity to see beyond the limits of what is corporeal, of the natural world, to comprehend that which is divine. This is the source of our prayer, and the wing of our prayer that lifts it up. And without it, if our faith is lacking, then John tells us our prayer will return to us, bearing no fruit. And we don't often and perhaps as often talk about the theological virtues, faith, hope, and love. And one of the reasons they're called theological is because they have God as their end. And so of the virtues, we should be praying for these particular gifts, these particular virtues, perhaps more than anything else, especially if they ultimately bring us to what it is that we desire. And so John tells us faith does exactly this. It brings our prayer to the place where we desire to go, brings it to the heart of God. It's unshaken firmness of the soul, unmoved by any adversity. We've often talked about this, but it's good to hear John say it explicitly, that faith is not shaken by the vacillations of our time or history, the chaos of the age or the day, or even the things that are much more personal to us, failure or illness, that it again allows us to see through and see beyond these things to what is really the source of our identity, where our real hope is to be found. A believer is not one who thinks that God can do everything. This is a very important one, I think, in terms of our prayer life, because often it is our prayer, our prayer is a reflection of our hope that God would change certain realities in our day-to-day life, and that He would take away certain crosses from us. Whereas faith reveals to us that we will obtain all things in God, and so whatever cross we bear, or whatever path that God chooses to call us to walk in His providence, should be embraced without any fear or anxiety, that we hold in the greatest confidence, the love of God, to bring us to all things in Him. And He will obtain all things. Faith is the agent of things unhooked for, and the thief proved this. So faith opens our eyes to see what we could not even begin to imagine for ourselves, very much like this thief. He knew his guilt that his punishment was deserved, and yet faith allows him to cry out to the Lord in His moment of desperation, to hope against hope, if you will. Remember me in your kingdom that it allows him to make this expression of faith, that then brings him something that he could never have imagined hoping for, that he would come to experience the fullness of his desire, that very day. The mother of faith is hardship and an honest heart. So the perfecting of faith comes through what we often will seek to avoid the most within our life, the hardship, the affliction that we often will experience. And when we get into St. Isaac the Syrian, he moves into this very quickly within his writings, telling us that affliction is part of the spiritual life for us as men and women of faith, that there is a perfecting and a deepening of our faith that comes through it, and that without it, and without this kind of testing, our faith is never forged as it were in the fire. And so John is saying something similar here. The mother of faith is hardship, that the hardship, the crosses that we experience in this life lead us to turn toward God and to cling to him with greater strength. And he says an honest heart. So humility is also something that is necessary as well for the perfecting of this faith. So long as we hold on to the illusion that we are self-sufficient, or that we can accomplish things in the spiritual life as well as in our worldly pursuits outside of the grace of God, we're never going to walk that path of faith. It's always going to be weak. In the moment that it is tested for us, again, when we experience failure, then times our faith will weaken or disappear altogether. He tells us the latter that is an honest heart makes faith constant, and the former builds it up. So affliction strengthens it, but our honesty of heart, our humility allows it to be present within our hearts with a kind of constancy. Though we never lose sight of our need for God. And so this always keeps our faith present and active within our life. It's the mother of Hézakist. So how without faith does an individual remove himself from everything within the world, every worldly kind of consolation, and no longer seeks within the corporeal world for the fulfillment of his life or identity, and has really no great concern even for, or fear for his body, but is driven simply by fear for his soul, for his soul's well-being. And so how is a Hézakist who seeks to nourish himself on prayer and on what God gives him within that stillness? Isaac the Syrian says it begins to bubble up within us, like the living waters when we enter into that stillness, that what the truths of God and the presence of God emerges for us in the stillness. How's a person enter into this without faith? Eventually they will, I think, fall into a kind of despair or despondency, which John has told us many times, is the great danger for the Hézakist. So faith, you know, as we are preparing to enter into our discussion of prayer and looking here, you know, the final teachings on stillness that help prepare this soil, if you will, for a deep prayer life. We have to pray that God gives us the faith to remain in it and to allow it to be deep and in the ways that he describes. There's a lot there in paragraph 68. Anybody have any comments or thoughts about what John says? Number 69. He who is chained up in prison fears the judge who sentences him, but the hermit in his cell begets fear of the Lord. And the tribunal was not so terrifying to the former as the throne of the judge is to the latter. You need great fear for stillness, excellent man, because nothing else is so effective in dispelling despondency. The convict is continually looking to see when the judge will come to the prison. The true worker wonders when the angel of death will come. A burden of sorrow fetters the form, but the fountain of tears binds the latter. So you need great fear for stillness. So this constant remembrance of death and judgment that we await that moment to see God face to face. But when we will also stand illumined, where all that we've said and done will be present to all. And to live one's life in that reality gives rise, John tells us to a fountain of tears that are cleansing. And we've talked about this many times in the past. Fear of God is often a stumbling block for individuals. Why is it so necessary? And part of it is how John describes it here for us. It focuses us in a particular way where we're able to direct our attention to what is above nature, what is beyond simply what we see with our eyes, to that which endures to eternity. But it also gives weight and significance to our life. When we see our life in the light of Christ, then every action, every thought becomes frayed with destiny, filled with destiny. And so it leads us to look at our life through the lens of this relationship with God with a kind of constancy. Eventually, through the fountain of tears that John speaks of, one would hope that fear would give way to the purest of love, that one would be driven forward by desire for the Lord. And the longing, the urgent longing to know the fullness of his love, where it's no longer fear of the judgment, but rather a longing for the beloved. Number seven, bring out the staff of patience, and the dogs will soon stop their insolence. Patience is an unbroken labor of the soul, which is never shaken by deserved or undeserved blows. The patient man is a faultless worker who turns his faults into victory. So it's interesting, John brings into our discussion here the virtue of patience. And it's, you know, John is always very colorful again, in his description that he describes it as if it was the staff to drive away, you know, pesky dogs, as it were. And similarly, it drives away insolence from us laziness or negligence in our lives. And as well as us endure the blows that come to our ego in life, you know, the insults, the rebukes of others, and John says whether they're deserved or undeserved, that patience allows us to make our way through them and allow them again to shape the mind and the heart, to humble us where they need to, or to deepen and solidify our faith. Patience is the limitation of suffering that is accepted day by day. So it's a beautiful way of putting it, the limitation of suffering that is accepted day by day. Often we add to our suffering, because of our lack of patience, when we're able to face certain things with a kind of holy resignation and be able to take up the cross of the day, then we allow it to do its work and are strengthened by that patience and the faith that allows us to do that. If we are unable to embrace the days suffering, then we begin to look forward with a fearful heart of not only our capacity to endure such things, but that God will provide us with the grace that is needed for the day at hand. The suffering of this day is enough for us to attend to, the scriptures tell us. So we are to be anxious about what we are to eat or what we are to wear. You know, such things will be provided through our labors, of course, but we are not meant to allow it to become a source of distraction for us or make us pull our thoughts off of the moment, whereas patience allows us to do that. We serve the providence of God in the, sometimes the harshness of day-to-day life or the harshness of a particular moment. And when we can say yes and bear that, then we make our way through it and make our way through it graciously and are able to move forward. Again, having greater and greater trust in God as we do so. I think this is part of the reason the Father's always tell us not to be complainers either. And complainers don't have patience. They're always griping about this or that thing and how hard it is or how miserable it's making their life. And so it keeps them from living. Whereas if we were able to sort of take hold of the day and even its hardships, recognizing that God is present in them and to do so with it kind of maintaining that stillness of heart and that prayerfulness, then those moments can be for us. Every bit is fruitful as any other that seemed pleasurable to us or that seemed to be fruitful in some ways, in some fashion, in some ways even more fruitful for us. Anthony writes, there's a tension though between a situation that is wrong, which should be made right and waiting in patience. Right. Justice is something that love demands. And so if we see an evil that is being done to another, of course we do not sit on our hands and do nothing as we see another suffering. But I think in the warp and wolf of day-to-day life, in the moment, there are thousands of moments throughout the course of the day where we are given this opportunity to say yes to God or no to Him, to take hold of the grace to embrace the moment or to let that moment pass us by. And that can be simply maintaining the stillness that John is talking about here so that there is this constant remembrance of God, that we are able to face the things that come to us with patience, move through them, see the presence of God in them, and not be distracted. And I think more often than not, we become agitated by one thing after another. And we lose that patience, and so then we lose that stillness apart as well as the capacity to pray. And I think the model for us, the standard for us, is Christ Himself. The one who suffers so many indignities beyond, I think, our grass. From the humbling of Himself in the incarnation, but the rejection of His own people, the indignities that He's separate. But even to the patience that God Himself shows us, that love to so fully, without condition, given so much compassion, and yet we make so many different things in our life, idols, that we give our attention to. We forget God in the moment. We become impatient with our life and the circumstances. And so we gripe against Him and we get tired of waiting. We're like Israelites. We build our own idols out of bold, because we're tired of waiting for Moses upon the mountain. And the next thing we're turning away from God. And we do this in thousands of little ways, not only great ways. And sometimes it's simply in turning our thoughts away from the Lord. Okay, so like Abraham had a promise that took a long time to realize. Yes. But the promise that has been given to us is far greater. And the grace that has been given to us already is something that allows us to experience that reality in the here and now, that we are made sons and daughters of God, heirs of the kingdom, that we are given the grace of God to love as He loves, to be merciful as He is merciful. We are nourished upon it within the Eucharist. And so our level of patience should match what it is that we are given from moment to moment, the spirit that dwells within us as well as the body, blood, soul, and divinity of the Lord that we receive in the Holy Eucharist. What patience should this reality produce within the heart? You know, I think there's a part of us that shrinks back and revolt, because we can always come up with so many examples in our day-to-day life that give rise to their own patience, where we want to let a person have it, or throw up our hands and say, "I've had enough. I'm done." And the Gospel and the Fathers don't allow us the ease of doing that. Let's see, where do I live off? Patience lays us on, all excuses and all attention to ourself. And so this comes back to what we were just talking about, that there is always going to be something within us that wants to free us from the charge of the Gospel. Free us from the charge to love as Christ loves. And so John tells us it sets aside all of these excuses, no matter how reasonable they might seem in our minds, that what we are called to is the perfect patience of Christ. The worker needs patience more than his food, because the one brings him a crown, while the other may bring him ruin. So the worker, if you see in the footnote, their number 18 is the Hezekus. So the Hezekus needs patience more than his food, that he needs not to become impatient in the stillness and in the silence, not to doubt that God is going to nourish him or draw him to himself. And he needs this kind of patience more than he needs food. And so if he seeks to satisfy himself on an emotional level, on a physical level, by being overly attentive or concerned about the next meal, then he's already stepped away from his primary vocation, which is to allow himself to be nourished upon God and nourished upon the silence and the stillness itself. Father Marty writes, be self-controlled and so reminded for the sake of your prayers, 1 Peter 4-7, self-controlled and so reminded. So clear-headed and understanding our vocation and but also controlled, that we aren't tossed about upon the waves of day-to-day life. The patient man has died long before he is placed in the tomb, having made it his cell his tomb. So the Hezekus has already said as it were goodbye to the world that his focus is upon the Lord and seeking him in the stillness and the silence. He's made his cell, the place where he's going to remain and not seek for life outside of what God has called him to. That there is nothing greater for him in his mind than what he could find in his cell. And there's a kind of, what do they call it, wanderlust that is in us at times where we want to go to different places, see different things, thinking that we will be enriched by the experience our life will be enriched by it. And so we're driven here and there and the Hezekus can be the same. He can lose faith that staying in his cell and engaging in this still, engaging God in this stillness is the richest and most life-giving thing that he could do. And often we have a similar problem of staying within the mind and the heart and focused upon God, that we redirect our attention elsewhere. And so we're flitting about whether it's in our minds or from person to person or traveling from place to place. And so the Hezekus becomes really a powerful model for us not only of patience but of stability, of remaining in the moment, in the place where God has placed us trusting that there's providence in that. Hope engenders patience and so does mourning. And he who has neither is slave to despondency. So if one doesn't have hope then the patience that is necessary to stay within the cell will disappear or it will seem as though it offers nothing. And if one does not mourn over one's sin, one loses the motivation again to stay within that cell and to be attentive to the internal life. And so when one loses both of these things that are such profound sources of motivation for us, the next step is despondency, the kind of spiritual sadness, boredom, lack of trust that this spiritual path is going to bear fruit for us. Jolie's iPad, it's hard when you're accused of something you didn't do or say not to defend yourself. Absolutely. And but that's probably the most fruitful thing for us again in terms of perfecting our faith, perfecting our patience and humility. It's to be accused of something that one did not do and not to jump up immediately to defend our integrity in the eyes of others. And you've probably remembered the stories from the Abrogateenas of monks taking upon themselves, the blame or the punishment. John gives a couple examples of this as well, that one will take upon the penance and the punishment due to another monk or because he was falsely accused. And only later will the truth come forward. Sometimes the monk is kicked out of the monastery because of the accusations. And so again, Christ for us is always the standard and the model, who is more innocent, who could claim innocence more than Christ and yet did not defend himself, did not say a word of defense upon his behalf, even when being mocked upon the cross itself. Okay, number 71. Christ warrior should know what foes to parry from a distance and which to fight at close quarters. So this is an interesting little teaching that when we engage in spiritual warfare and we see a kind of demonic provocation or something that potentially could lead us into sin or become a distraction for us, there are certain ones that we have to be aggressive with in the sense of striking them down immediately. And there are others that we seek to distance ourselves from them as much as we can, to flee from them. But a smart warrior is going to know that the enemy he's going up against is one that by his prayer, fasting vigils, he can overcome. Or if there is an enemy that's strong, he's going to keep his distance and simply remain in the silence of his prayer and stay as connected to God as he possibly can. That there are certain and even in terms of living in the world, you know, Saint Philip Nearia I've mentioned said in this struggle for purity and the struggle against lust, the coward is the victor that this is the one who flees, he said, the one who runs away from circumstances that could put him to the test. And that would be a similar thing would be true for the Hezekus that he would not want to put himself in an occasion where perhaps he would be overcome by despondency or by anger for some reason. And so he would stay close to the self cell, you know, in his work. He would, you know, keep his focus upon that, not what others are doing and so forth, so on and so forth. Sometimes the combat has earned a crown. Sometimes refusal has made men recrobate. So, you know, sometimes our willingness to engage in a battle, even when the threat to us seems so great, and yet we enter into it with this trust in God and fight with all of our strength, it can win a crown. But if we show a lack of courage and a lack of fidelity, then it can make us reprobate in the eyes of God that we did not even make an effort. We simply succumb to the temptation when it comes to us. Remember always that image, nobody likes to go up against a plucky fighter. And so we want to be courageous in the battle, knowing again who it is that fights with us and what weapons we've been given. Sometimes, I'm sorry, the next sentence, it is not feasible to lay down precepts in such matters, for we do not all have the same character or dispositions. So, John doesn't go further than what he said here in regards to engaging fiercely in that battle and in the combat, because he knows that everybody has a different character disposition, you know, natural weaknesses, flaws, as well as passions that they struggle with. And so, he's not going to come over detail about it, which is a good thing. I think that we should remain between one's spiritual father or mother and being able to talk through the particular temptations and battles that one faces on a given day. We can't approach even having something like this called the latter. We have to be very careful about it because it's not setting up something programmatic for us. The fathers, through their ascetic life, were able to reveal common struggles that we have internally and how we wage the battle against them. But not every person is the same. And so, we can't come up with an overly programmatic spiritual role or discipline for every person to follow it. That's to ignore the uniqueness of the individual. And that can be a big temptation in our day or in the popularization of spirituality or religion itself to want to synthesize things in order that it can be understood and embraced by all. And that goes sort of contrary to our understanding of the human person. Each person is a mystery and has to be treated in that way, that everybody has their unique experiences, crosses, weaknesses, strengths, sorrows that they've experienced. And so, whoever is a spiritual father or mother has to be attentive to those things so that you're not just putting something indiscriminately before another as something to take out in an unmeasured or in a thoughtless fashion. So, we don't want to overly literalize this image of the latter for ourselves. You know, in reality, we're fighting with all these things throughout the whole of our life. And we're seeking to deepen and perfect our virtue, our prayer, but always to overcome our attachment to the things of the world or the things that lead us to sin. So, it's interesting. You know, the fathers have a, you know, a profound personalism there. You know, they knew the uniqueness of the individual person and that had to be respected. It's number 72. There is one spirit on which you should keep a vigilant eye. He is the one who assails you unceasingly during your standing, walking, sitting, movement, rising, prayer, and sleep. Now, in general, one might say that this is simply the evil one, that he's unresting, that whatever it is that we might be doing or saying or even when we're sleeping, we have to be vigilant about this one. But I think we could all also interpret it as our self, as our ego, that we've often talked about this, that there is a kind of almost muscle memory with our ego. It snaps back into place and wants to be the center of reality for us. We want to make ourselves the center, even of the spiritual life. And so we take ourselves into all of these different circumstances, standing, walking, sitting, any movement, rising, prayer, sleep. It's us. And we have to be vigilant because we can betray our own selves and do the very things that we hate and have set ourselves against. And so we have to be vigilant against the evil one, but we also have to be vigilant against the Anthony writes in his note their ego is the false self. And is despondency a false remorse? I think so. Or it's rooted in the false self that is not being fulfilled. Or things that is not being fulfilled by the life that God has led one to embrace. And so this deep sadness begins to emerge. But, you know, ego gives rise to being glory, pride, these are always the things that bring us down so swiftly, no matter what the circumstances might be. Number 73. Not all loaves of the heavenly wheat of this spiritual food have the same appearance. On the course of stillness, the preeminent ever practice, I'm sorry, the preeminent ever practice the following activity within themselves. I beheld the Lord ever before me. But others, in your patience, possess ye your souls. Some watch and pray others prepare thy works for thy death. Some I was brought low and he saved some the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the future glory. And others always have in mind the words lest he snatch you away and there be none to deliver you. For all run, but one receives the prize without effort. So interesting. Those are all wonderful reasons to run that are set before us here. The one example after another that John gives us. But one receives the prize without effort. And I think that one is the humble individual. He who humbles himself will be exalted. He who recognizes on a fundamental level that Christ is Lord and places all of his or her trust in him. And it is then again that we are lifted up. Without effort. Yes, because it's Carol my paper writes that it's a good question because it is letting go of control or it's letting go of an illusion. It's entrusting ourselves to the Lord, but it's simply truthful living is living in the truth. So it's not this profound asceticism or renunciation. It's simply acknowledging the truth about who we are and who Christ is to us. And so that's why Christ says he who humbles himself will be exalted. If we humble ourselves we will be like a parent lifting up their child to look at them face to face. The child has no effort, makes no effort in that engagement. Any other questions? Yes, Kate writes, "I'm really blown away by the simplicity of this. How many times have I complicated the spiritual life?" Yes, I couldn't agree with you more and I think about that almost every day about how complicated we make the faith, religiosity, we make our own lives, how complicated we make our relationships with others and how complicated we make our turning to the Lord are simply remembering him from moment to moment. You know, one of the things that always annoyed me in grad school and even in studying theology is that you'd read these books and it's almost like the authors purposely make them incomprehensible. I think I've mentioned this before, the one writer that was big when I was in seminary was Hans Urs von Balthasar and his original writing that he, original language he wrote in was German. But so you'd have these like paragraph long sentences and you'd go round in circles and you'd have to read like 300 pages and then you'd get to a paragraph where you'd say, "Aha, okay, I get what he's saying." And he was held up as this figure of brilliance and he watched. He had this almost photographic memory, this extraordinary knowledge of spirituality and theology and he could synthesize it all. But who, who were to keep our eyes on is Christ who lays before us this simple path. In fact, he is the path. It is in loving him and having faith in him that we are, are brought to the kingdom. And we, we often make it complicated. You know, even in talking to God ourselves, what am I supposed to do with my life? And is this agonizing question? And we turn that into, we morph it into our relationship with God. And so what we do, we, we convince ourselves that this is the will and the providence of God. And so we take upon these things that crush us and crush our lives, make them ever so complicated, fill us with anxiety and fear when what alone is necessary is this simple life and love and trust in the Lord. And we seek our identity, our dignity, our purpose and what we have, what we achieve, what we can say or what we can teach, all these different things that use so much time and energy that often have nothing to do with the gospel or the church at all. You know, the things that the church produces these high color, these vibrant color glossy booklets that they send out and, you know, one document after another that nobody reads, what we need is this simple evangelization, the gospel. And what we need is saints who are living it. And we're talking about it incessantly. And you know, I've talked about this before, you know, the whole seminary experience is sort of along those lines, you know, you're being prepared professionally to carry out a role. And I'm sorry, you know, it's if they want to prepare you better professionally, they'd be better off teaching you how to be a plumber and electrician and how to do finance is you do a heck of a lot better in a parish and serve your parish better if you had knowledge of those few things and save a lot of money in the process. But I want to turn to one of the comments here, because David writes, I wasted years reading books and talking to people on discernment, which always was a lab branch of paths on a retreat, an old Jesuit priest made it easy in one minute. Does this lead me closer to God or away from God? Our intellect often gets us lost and like a rocking chair giving us something something to do but going nowhere, right? Beautifully put. And somebody put bullseye and I would agree with that, because I think it's true, the time, the energy, the anxiety that goes into things that we think that we need to live a life that is pleasing. When it takes an instant, a fraction of a moment, you know, to turn the mind into heart to God in love. You remember the, I've mentioned the cod of unknowing, a great book to read by one of the English mystics. And that's what he said. He said, it takes, you know, in his, he puts it in this kind of scientific language of his own day, he said, an atom of a moment. So he says, the smallest fraction of a moment is all it takes to turn the mind and the heart to God in love. And so to say, Jesus, to say God in an instant brings us to where we need to be. And one does not have to have a doctorate to understand that. In fact, our cleverness gets in our way, you know, because we make up new ways for ourselves to think about how you know, the church can be renewed or what we need to do to renew the church. Well, the way the church is renewed is by people loving Christ and giving themselves over to him. It's renewed from within and it's renewed from within our own hearts. It's not by coming up with a new program for parishes and, you know, nothing like that at all. And so the Goss, you know, we often laugh here about only needing a couple of books, the scripture, the latter, and a few others. And again, that's, it's true. I mean, for the fathers, their nourishment was the scriptures. That was their spiritual reading. And these desert monks didn't have, you know, degrees. Well, some of them did. But it's not as though that they, you know, that degree was going to do the many good living in a cave in the desert. You know, they understood that pretty quickly. And there was a sister that worked that I worked with for many years and she was probably 30 years my elder. And she said, you know, we spend the first 30, first 30 or 40 years of our life collecting things and the last 30 or 40 seeking to get rid of them before we die. And again, she's right, right on the money. We're desperately seeking after things to elevate ourselves or to improve our lives where we have him within our own arts. A couple of comments here, Anthony writes, there's a proverb in Islam. There are as many ways to God as there are breaths in his creature. Right. And Anthony writes, for your information, it was college professors and lords who from late scholasticism through Reformation and the spirit of attitude too, who caused us so many problems. Anthony, you're always causing trouble. Well, it's funny, you know, it's, you know, people will use this term, Jesuitical. And, you know, I don't want to be mean to Jesuits, but it's become like it has negative connotations, which is to sort of twist things up, complicate things or, you know, to be sort of conniving in some way. And we can approach the faith life in that way, calculate, you know, that we're in our cleverness, calculating this path to others. And what it makes us is Huxter's of religion, of the faith. You know, we start selling something that we don't believe ourselves, and that hasn't had any impact upon us at all. You know, ask yourself how many priests out there, no depression or anxiety or struggle with their faith. No deep isolation. Because, you know, being a priest isn't about having a degree or being able to give a great homily. It's about knowing Christ and serving his flock. And, you know, those things you don't learn from books. Same thing with prayer. And it's interesting, John will say that in his step on prayer, you know, all of this, you don't learn from books, you learn by praying. That's how you learn how to pray. So we're going to leave off here. Okay, number 74, I believe. I'm listening here. Okay, number 74. He who makes progress works not only when away, but when asleep as well. So even in their dreams, some snubbed the demons who approached them by admonishing a dissolute women concerning chastity. But do not expect visits and do not prepare for them beforehand, because the state of stillness is perfectly simple and free. So the more one is transformed in this stillness, the simpler that one's focus becomes on on Christ. Then it begins that relationship and the grace of it permeates every fire or barbie, whether awake or sleep, which is a comforting thought that the more that we've interiorized this love for the Lord, and this remembrance of the Lord, and the desire to please him, then even in our sleep, our minds are set upon him so much so that John says that some of these individuals will be fighting off temptations that emerge on an unconscious level when they're sleeping. That's an extraordinary thing to wake up praying with prayers on your lips, or to have something like that take place. It's almost like a person who begins to dream in a foreign language that they're studying, and that's often a big moment for them, because then it says the study of that language has really permeated on a deep level. They're thinking in that way, and for one who has learned this language of love, of humility, of self-sacrifice, that it permeates us so deeply that it touches the unconscious, and we begin to see signs of that, what comes forward in our dreams, or even praying when we're first awake in the morning. No one intending to build a tower and sell of stillness will approach this work without first sitting down and counting the cost, and he will feel his way by prayer, considering whether he has within him the necessary means of completing it, so that he should not lay the foundation and then become the laughingstock of his enemies and an obstacle to other workers. So for the hesekist, the counting the cost is looking to see if one has engaged in the spiritual battle for purity of art, one has overcome the passions, but also that one has engaged and fostered this unceasing prayer and simplicity that we've been talking about. So one has to sit down before entering into the life of the hesekist, in other words, into this radical kind of stillness of the hermit, that to enter into that without this kind of purity of art and humility, one is destined to fail at it and after return to the monastery. And so we have to think well about how we are living our life, and for all of us living in the world, you know, I think similarly, before we open our mouth and speak about things of the faith or engage others, you know, we have to look deeply and to ask ourselves, do we love Christ? Do we pray, you know, as our minds and our hearts set upon him or very much on the things of this world. Number 75, I'm sorry, number 76, examine the sweetness you feel in your soul, less to be compounded craftily by cruel physicians or rather treacherous ones. So examine even the sweetness that you feel in your soul, the consolation that you might experience at a given moment in times of prayer, because across the board, the fathers tell us is that what we want to cling to when we do, and our given experience constellations, our given constellations by God, is that we cling to the faith that they produce. So if we experience the kind of sweetness in our prayer, we allow it to lead us forward and deeper measure into that prayer to stay focused upon Christ. If we become focused upon the sweetness of it, and become enamored with that and want to reproduce it, is when we can be let astray. And this is what John is saying here, that we can be guided by those who use this in a crafty way, and he describes them as cruel physicians and treacherous ones. So they make use of these constellations or the sweetness of the spiritual life or the life of virtue to get us to over focus upon them, and to make them an end in themselves, rather than to thank God for them, and to continue along the path that he's called us to. And in our day and age, when there is a lot of attention that is given to experience or the affective level of the spiritual life, of having constellations or wanting them in the spiritual life, this is a very important teaching that they do come to us, and to God undoubtedly does stir the flame of desire within us by giving us constellations certain sweetness at times when needed, but do not cling to them as an end in themselves. So we can be thankful and grateful, but don't open ourselves to this kind of deceit. So that brings us to surprisingly a 30. There's so much in these sayings to meditate upon, and so always good to go back and reflect upon them. The same will be true on the step-on prayer, absolutely beautiful, but we don't want to rush it. So we might only have one or two steps left, but it's probably going to take us six months to make our way through it. So okay, folks, any final comments, questions? Again, we are moving on to the ascetical homilies of Isaac after this. So you want to make sure you get a copy of that, and maybe in the next email that goes out, we'll put a link to the publisher where you can get it. Okay, and the monks, by the way, sent a heartfelt thank you to everyone who donated a book. They were ecstatic about it, and now that they can have a copy in front of them as we're going through it. So thank you on their behalf. Thank you so much for your generosity to them, ever so grateful. So when we close, as always, with the our Father, and even the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen, our Father, who our Kingdom, hallowed be thy name, thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen. The Lord be with you. May I want to God bless you, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Go in peace. God bless everybody.
