John Climacus

St Neilos the Ascetic, Philokalia
Morality

St Neilos on Ascetic Discourses in the Philokalia

08/16/2023 Bruce Strom 0

St Neilos contrasts the holy men “who live for the soul alone, turning away from the body and its wants,” the holy men who have no need to flatter the wealthy because they live simply, to those of us who, “instead of courageously struggling against our difficulties, come fawning to the wealthy, like puppies wagging their tails in the hope of being tossed a bare bone or some crumbs. To get what we want, we can them benefactors and protectors of Christians, attributing every virtue to them, even though they may be utterly wicked.” […]

St Maximus the Confessor
Morality

St Maximus the Confessor, Commentary on the Lords Prayer

08/09/2023 Bruce Strom 3

We seek deification in the Lord’s Prayer, the model prayer, which starts out, Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed by Thy Name, so we are exhorted to Love God, and understand how we stand in His Kingdom, and continues as we pray how we should live our lives, repenting of all, forgiving everyone, no exceptions. Once we understand how we must repent of all our transgressions, no exceptions, and forgive everyone, so God will forgive us, and not withhold forgiveness from anyone, lest God withholds His forgiveness of us[9], then we can better listen to the teachings of St Maximus against self-love, this affections of one’s self that is the root of all evil, the desperate lust to pleasure, often mere moments of pleasure that often leads to years of suffering for us and those around us. This self-love and lust for pleasure to avoid life’s pain instead tyrannizes the lives of those close to us. […]

St Maximus the Confessor
Morality

St Maximus the Confessor, Roman Catholic and Orthodox Saint

08/09/2023 Bruce Strom 2

St Maximus teaches us that if we truly Love God, this love is a great blessing that binds God and man together, and as much as is possible for man, Christ incarnate, the perfect deified man, will manifest Himself in the deified man to God. St. Maximus says this clearer in another writing: “Love makes man god, and reveals and manifests God as man, through the single and identical purpose and activity of the will of both.” […]

Ladder of Divine Ascent Steps 8 9 SMALL Anger Remembrance of Wrongs
Ladder of Divine Ascent

St John Climacus, Ladder of Divine Ascent, Freedom from Anger, Meekness, Remembrance of Wrongs, Steps 8 and 9

04/28/2023 Bruce Strom 3

A recurring theme is the Ladder of Divine Ascent is the climb is not a one-time conversion vaulting us to the top of the ladder, but is rather a process, a changing of habits, that we practice for the rest of our lives, ever climbing, until we reach the great IMAX theater in the sky with screens forty feet wide and forty feet tall that replays  the major events in our lives at the end of days.
Step 8.23. “The beginning of blessed patience is to accept dishonor with sorrow and bitterness of soul. The middle stage is to be free from pain in the midst of these things. But perfection, if it is possible, is to regard dishonor as praise. Let the first rejoice; let the second be strong; blessed is the third, for he exults in the Lord.” […]

Ladder of Divine Ascent, SMALL Steps 6,7, 13
Ladder of Divine Ascent

Ladder of Divine Ascent, Remembrance of Death, Joy Making Mourning, and Despondency, Steps 6,7, & 13

04/07/2023 Bruce Strom 1

St John Climacus continues:
Step 6.3. “Fear of death” “comes from disobedience, but trembling at death is a sign of unrepented sins.” Those who fear death the most are the disobedient who live only to party, who live for today, who live for themselves, and do not live for others, they are the unrepentant who tremble at death’s gates. Even “Christ fears death, but does not tremble,” so He can show us that he is both God and man.
Step 6.24. “It is impossible, someone says, impossible to spend the present day devoutly unless we regard it as the last of our whole life.” […]

Pinocchio
Literature and Myths

The Original Pinocchio, Deeply Repentant, Unlike the Disney and Jordan Peterson Pinocchio

03/03/2023 Bruce Strom 0

The original Pinocchio was very different from the happy-go-lucky Disney and Jordan Peterson Pinocchio. Although the Disney movie included the most memorable most memorable stories of the original, the short length of the movie fails to render the deeply penitential tone of the original, which emphasizes how daily struggle is needed to replace bad habit with good habits, how salvation and spiritual growth is never instantaneous but is rather a life long-term process, where for every two steps forward we take one step backwards. The original rebellious Pinocchio was much more of a rogue than the pleasant Disney, he is a juvenile delinquent from the moment he has been carved. […]

Ladder Of Divine Ascent Step 4 Obedience
Ladder of Divine Ascent

Ladder of Divine Ascent, St John Climacus, Rung 4 on Obedience

02/22/2023 Bruce Strom 2

Obedience precedes repentance in the Ladder of Divine Ascent. Without obedience, there is no repentance. With repentance comes obedience. When we sinned, we did not obey; now we repent, and obey. It is interesting that in the Decalogue the commandment of honor our father and our mother, and all those in authority, connects the commands to Love God with all our heart and with all of our soul and with all of our everything to the commands to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Step 4.3 As John Climacus teaches us, in obedience we renounce our desires, what we want, what we need: “Obedience is unquestioning movement, voluntary death, a life free of curiosity, carefree danger, unprepared defense before God, fearlessness of death, a safe voyage, a sleeper’s progress. Obedience is the tomb of the will and the resurrection of humility.” […]

St Nicodemus No Jokes or Laugh
Command 8 Do Not Bear False Witness

St Nicodemus: Can Christians Laugh and Joke?

02/03/2023 Bruce Strom 2

St Nicodemus teaches us that the speech of Christians who laugh at ribald jokes “is corrupted, since they fill their speech with obscene, indecent, shameless, and meretricious words.” Likewise, regarding Christians who laugh at ribald jokes, “their thought is corrupted.” “Just as their words are crude and lewd, so also the thoughts and ideas in their souls are crude and lewd.” “Speech is a mirror, image, and imprint of the thoughts and inner disposition of the heart.” “He who utters obscene words churns up filth, mud and manure, which is spread first to himself, and then to those who hear it.” […]

St John Climacus, Ladder of Divine Ascent, On Detachment, Exile, and Pilgrimage, Steps 2 and 3
Ladder of Divine Ascent

St John Climacus, Ladder of Divine Ascent, On Detachment, Exile, and Pilgrimage, Steps 2 and 3

01/20/2023 Bruce Strom 1

St John Climacus wrote the Ladder of Divine Ascent as a handbook for monks living the monastic life, cut off from the world, in the isolation of the Egyptian desert monasteries, in a world before global communications where the monk could easily call his family on the monastery phone. In […]

Biblical Interpretation

Do Christians Need To Go To Church? Which Type of Church Should You Attend?

08/19/2022 Bruce Strom 1

St Augustine’s memorable reflection on our question appear in his Confessions, which is really one of the first testimonials. St Augustine tells us the story of Victorinus, a philosopher who studies the Gospels and the Church Fathers but declines to attend services, asking “Do the walls of the Church make you a Christian?” Victorinus was a learned man, an erudite pagan Platonic philosopher, the Word of the Lord spoke directly to him from the page, perhaps he felt intellectually superior to many simple Christians he knew.

In the words of St Augustine, in his studies Victorinus became “resolute, he was seized by the fear that Christ might deny him before the holy angels if he was too faint-hearted to acknowledge Christ before men, and he felt himself guilty of a great crime in being ashamed of the sacraments instituted by the Word of God in his lowly state.” […]