Spiritual Homilies 1 part 35/36

But if illness should press upon you, do not be weighed down, nor if anything else difficult befalls you; but raise up your mind nobly, offering thanks to God even in the midst of painful circumstances — to Him who thinks thoughts wiser than men's, and things which it is not possible, nor easy, for men to discover.

Show mercy to those who are afflicted, and ask for help from God on behalf of men;

for He will grant the grace to His friend who asks, and will provide assistance to those afflicted, wishing to make His power known to men, so that, having come to knowledge, they may ascend to God and enjoy eternal blessedness, when the Son of God shall come, restoring good things to the righteous.

It is good always to be fearful, and not to trust in oneself in every way, lest one be evilly submerged.

For he who supposes that he is doing well is not as he imagines himself to be.

Rather, then, let him always entreat God, that He Himself may become his guide and way and mind and discernment and interpreter;

and until he finds Christ within himself, let him not trust in himself at all.

Just as when someone is delivered from the danger of a ship, so as to be brought safely through, he has no concern for what is in the ship, because of his fear of the sea, so also the Christian ought always, for God's sake, to be fearful and not to be complacent.

Let him who wishes to be saved strive to know what God wills.

Let him who loves God force himself, that he may love his neighbor also.

Let him be humble before God and men, always attending to his heart and resisting evil thoughts.

And whenever you shift there your vigor into feasting and the relaxations of drinking bouts, away from the mind's own delights, of which there is never satiety, count sufficient for the body only what is needful, and do not hasten to food beforehand, before even the time for supper has come.

Let bread be your supper, and let the herbs of the earth take the lead, and the fruits in season from trees.

Go to your food calmly and steadily, not displaying a ravenous gluttony;

and be neither a devourer of flesh nor a lover of wine, unless the healing of some sickness leads you to these.

But instead of the pleasures found in these things, choose the joys found in divine words and hymns, and in the wisdom supplied to you by God.

Let heavenly concern always lead you up toward heaven;

and leave aside your many anxieties about the body, being confident in your hopes toward God, that he will supply for you the necessary things in full measure: nourishment for life, covering for the body, and defenses against the winter cold;

for indeed all the earth belongs to your King, and whatever grows out of the earth.

He cares exceedingly for his own servants, and attends to them just as he does his own shrines and temples.

For this reason, do not fear sicknesses excessively, nor the onset of old age expected in the course of time;

for sickness too will cease, whenever it seems good to your King, and whenever this is good for your soul; and as for your old age, he will shelter it, wrapping it about, as it were with wings, in divine power.

Knowing these things, be of good courage even against the strong sicknesses of the soul, like a man who, as the finest contender in the stadium, unflinchingly endures his toils with strength, and do not let your soul be greatly weighed down by grief.

But if sickness should press upon you, do not be weighed down, nor if any other hardship befalls you; but raise up a noble mind, offering thanks to God even in the midst of toilsome matters, since he devises things wiser than what men devise, and things which it is neither possible nor easy for men to discover.

Show mercy to those who are afflicted, and ask for God's help on behalf of men;

for he will grant grace to his friend who asks, and will provide help to those who are afflicted, wishing to make his power known to men, so that, having come to knowledge, they may ascend to God and enjoy eternal blessedness, when the Son of God comes, restoring good things to the righteous.

It is good always to be afraid and not to trust oneself in every way, lest one be evilly submerged.

For he who supposes that he is doing well is not as he imagines.

Rather, then, let him always call upon God, that God himself may become his guide and way and mind and discernment and interpreter;

and until he finds Christ within himself, let him not trust himself at all.

Just as when someone is delivered from the peril of a ship in order to be brought safely through, he has no concern for the things aboard the ship, because of his fear of the sea, so too the Christian ought always, for God's sake, to be fearful and not to be contemptuous of danger.

Let him who wishes to be saved strive to know what God wills.

This is the will of God:

Let him who loves God force himself, that he may love his neighbor also.

Let him be humble before God and men, always attending to his heart and resisting evil thoughts.

And whenever one attends to this, he must always be in fear, and full of love and humility, and be concerned about how he may please the Lord, and how to war against the old man.

But he who is without such care, and has a heart set loose and at ease, stands still in his oldness; he has not yet begun to strive, and does not know how to war.

It is good, then, always to be in fear, and to seek understanding and help from the Lord, so that one may be able to be saved through the Lord.

The word of truth, proclaimed by the spiritual heralds of truth, is preached and spoken to the children of the kingdom, as the Lord says:

To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom, but to the rest in parables; and somewhere else also:

My mystery is for me and for the sons of my house.

Hearing, then, the word of the kingdom, and shedding tears and weeping, let us not remain content in our own tears and weeping and in our own hearing, as though we had thereby grasped the truth, and having heard, had also known the will of God.

For there are other ears and other eyes and other weepings and another mind and another soul — that is, the very divine and heavenly Spirit, which hears and weeps and prays and knows and truly does the will of God.

For to the apostles the Lord, promising a great gift, said:

I go, and I will send to you the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, that he may be with you forever.

He will hear, and will teach all things, and will guide you into all the truth.

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now;

but when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will teach you all that I have spoken to you, and will guide you into all truth.

He, then, will pray; he will weep.

For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with unutterable groanings.

For the Spirit alone knows the will of God;

for no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.

If I do not go away, the Comforter will not come.

It is expedient for you that I go away; and again:

I go, and I am coming to you, and again I will see you, and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you.

For at that time the apostles, seeing his flesh, since the power of the Spirit had not yet come upon them, supposed that they were being abandoned by the Lord, because he was being separated from them.

But having ascended, and having seated his body at the right hand of the majesty of God, and having been worshiped by all the heavenly powers and angels and principalities and authorities, then he sent to them, according to his promise, the Comforting Spirit on the day of Pentecost; and thus the power of the Comforting Spirit, coming into their souls, came to rest there, the eyes of their heart having been unveiled, and the veil of wickedness having been completely removed from them, and their passions abolished. Then, at last, made wise by the Spirit and having become perfect, they truly recognized how to do the will of God through the Spirit, and became teachers and guides of men, the Spirit guiding them into all truth as one who had taken the lead and reigned over their souls.

We, therefore, whenever we hear the word of God and weep, let us call upon the Lord, and with undoubting faith expect him, that the Spirit which truly hears and prays according to the will of God may come within us.

For when the soul's own beauties and fruits — namely prayer and weeping, or love, or obedience, or faith, and the rest of the practices of the virtues — are mingled and share in the communion of the Spirit, and, like incense cast into fire, yield a rich fragrance, then we truly conduct our lives according to the will of God, and accomplish all things with holiness.

For without the Holy Spirit no one recognizes the will of God.

[She has her own] conduct and occupation and manner of life according to her own will; but when she is joined and united with her husband, thereafter she is under the will of her husband and his mastery, and even though she has her own rules and her own will, she is enslaved to her own husband, and does not walk according to her own will.

In the same way, the soul also has its own will and its own rules and its own works; but when it is deemed worthy to be joined with the heavenly husband Christ, it is subjected to the law of its husband, doing not its own will, but that of its own bridegroom, Christ.

But if it disobeys and contradicts and does not obey the law of the husband, neither being in communion with him nor pleasing him, nor following according to the will of the Spirit, nor coming into agreement with grace, it suffers as Moses there ordained in type:

But if she disobeys, it says, and contradicts her husband and does not yield to him, he places both hands upon her face and casts her out of his house.

The soul, then, that is not subject to the Spirit is cast out from the heavenly house of the Father, as useless and unfit.

But just as in this life, when a bride is joined to her husband, there are dances and tambourines and festivities and feasts, and treasures are stored up in their house, in the same way also, when a soul has been deemed worthy to be joined to the heavenly King Christ, all the spiritual and heavenly good things are laid up within, in the house of her body.

For the body is the house of the heavenly Bridegroom and of the bride-soul.

There also are the heavenly laws of the Spirit, where the mystical and ineffable communion of the Spirit's holiness takes place within.

There the feasts and dances of the heavenly powers are celebrated, and there the hidden heavenly treasures of wisdom are laid up; there are the garments of the light of the Godhead; there the manifold and precious crowns of the divine Spirit are fully furnished; and, simply put, all their wealth and abundance is stored up within, in the house of the body of the Bridegroom Christ and of the bride-soul.

Therefore, whenever you hear about spiritual communion and dances and feasts, do not, carried along by a carnal mindset, conceive of anything material or earthly;

for we take these as certain shadows and examples, because it is not otherwise possible to give impressions of the spiritual mysteries;

for all those spiritual and heavenly things are ineffable and indescribable, and unseen by carnal eyes; but to a holy and faithful soul coming to comprehension there come the communion of the Holy Spirit, and the garments, and the heavenly treasures, and the laws, and the dances and feasts of the holy angels.

They are known only to the one who has received them by experience and has been deemed worthy to attain them; but for the uninitiated it is impossible to understand or comprehend them, except only to receive them by faith with reverence, for they are beyond human understanding;

for the spiritual and heavenly things — the aforementioned good things of the mysteries of the Spirit — are not of this age.

Therefore, listen reverently concerning God and concerning spiritual mysteries, receiving them by faith, until you yourself are deemed worthy, through believing, to attain these things also; and then you will know, by experience itself, with the eyes of the soul, of what good things and of what mysteries the souls of Christians are deemed worthy even from now.

For in the resurrection the body itself also will be deemed worthy to attain these things, seeing them and holding them, when it too becomes spirit.

For this reason we recount those spiritual mysteries by means of visible parables and examples that can be seen, for the exhortation and eagerness of the souls who receive the word with faith and reverence, so that, having heard the promise of the spiritual good things of which the souls of the saints are deemed worthy even from now, they may be zealous and may believe, so as to become partakers of these mysteries.

For the Lord, instructing his own disciples and demonstrating the truth, said:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven — in speaking of poverty, he at once signified also the kingdom.

For this soul is deemed worthy to become the bride of Christ, and this one inherits the kingdom—the Lord himself—she who becomes poor in spirit; this is the comely and beautiful and pleasing and fitting bride for the bridegroom Christ, the soul that is poor in spirit.

For the one who is not poor in spirit does not fit him.

For she is neither comely nor beautiful, but unlike him, and turns out to be unsightly.

Like things are everywhere fitted to like: the beautiful to the beautiful, and the rotten to the rotten.

A harlot cannot dwell together with a chaste woman, for she is unlike her; nor can a disorderly and worthless woman live together with a devout and reverent man—for they are discordant with one another—but each cleaves to its like: the worthless to the worthless, and the beautiful to the beautiful; the harlot consorts with the harlot, and the chaste woman associates with the chaste.

In the same way, the soul that is poor in spirit turns out to be beautiful and pleasing to Christ, and fits him for spiritual cohabitation.

For this he considers to be her beauty and her worth: if she is poor in spirit.

Who then is the soul that is poor in spirit? She who recognizes her own wounds, and knows the darkness of the passions surrounding her, and understands her slavery and her bonds, and always seeks redemption from the Lord.

This is the soul that bears its pains and always calls upon him and begs to obtain healing from him, and rests and rejoices in none of the good things on earth—not in royal treasure, not in wealth, not in luxury—but seeks only the good physician, and expects to receive healing and therapy from him, and hopes to find rest.

How then does the wounded soul, bearing pains, turn out to be beautiful and comely and well-formed, and fit herself for cohabitation with Christ? Because even though, according to the bond of sin and the wounds of the passions and the scourges and the corruption and the outrages of the spirits of wickedness, she is unsightly and ill-formed, yet according to her original creation she is lovely and beautiful and comely, and according to her right recognition—knowing in what poverty and in what passions she has been wounded—and seeking and calling upon him who is able to heal her.

In this, then, she turns out to be beautiful and comely.

For whatever wounds and bruises of the passions she has unwillingly, and without taking pleasure in them or working together with them, the Lord does not reckon these to her as disfigurement.

For he himself, coming, heals her and cures her, and restores her beauty whole.

Only let her not partake of them by her own choice, nor pair herself with the passions working in her, but let her cry out to the Lord with all her strength, so that through his Spirit she may be deemed worthy to receive redemption from all evil.

Blessed, then, is the soul that bears its pains and rests in nothing, but always seeks the good and only physician, Christ, because at the pain of her seeking, the Lord will stand by and make swift her healing.

But woe to the soul that does not know its own wounds—those from the working of the passions—but supposes (as one carried along in ignorance) that it has no evil, and that it is healthy and rich, though in knowledge or in reason it is poor and blind and wounded; because the physician does not visit and heal her, since she supposes herself not to be in evils, but to continue in health.

For just as physicians on earth, wherever they sojourn, always visit those who are ill and inquire about the sick, passing by the healthy from whom they gain no profit, so those who bear pains and wounds always eagerly seek out the physician.

Him do those who have need of him seek, as he himself said—

"Those who are strong have no need of a physician, but those who are ill."

But these physicians on earth, in healing bodies, receive a wage of silver; but our good and beautiful and only physician, Jesus Christ, receives as his wage the health and healing of our souls.

And not only does he receive it, but together with healing he also nourishes and gives drink to the soul with spiritual food, clothes her with the Holy Spirit and garments of heavenly light, and fits her to himself, and takes her, like a beautiful bride, into the ineffable communion of the Spirit—all the souls that receive such knowledge and faith and right choice.

O the boundless loving-kindness of our good physician!

For indeed, from the visible things the Lord thus began to act, healing in the desert the sick and those who were ill, and when the apostles wished to send them away, he did not allow it, but healed them and nourished them with the gift.

So also now, in his own loving-kindness, together with healing our soul from the terrible bruises and wounds—incurable among men (the hidden passions of the soul)—the Lord both nourishes and gives drink from his Spirit, and clothes her nakedness with heavenly garments of divine light, and fits her to himself as a bride into the communion of his Spirit.

Now when the good and only physician, the Lord, draws near to the soul that bears pains and is poor in spirit, when he sees her thus corrupted and wounded and bruised by the passions, then he says to the enemy who wounded and corrupted her—

"O most shameless one, may there be no good things for you, may there be no mercy for you, because you have thus mishandled and corrupted and defiled my rational and beautiful image, and so shamefully outraged with the passions my beautiful and wonderful and intelligent creature, made by my own hands and inbreathed by my own spirit."

Then he punishes the enemy who outraged and destroyed her with death, and not only this, but he also adorns her with the garments of his divinity, and nourishes her with heavenly food, and adorns her with a spiritual world, and crowns her with the flowers of the virtues of the Spirit, and thus restores her to himself as a beautiful and lovely bride.

Blessed, then, are those loved by Christ; but rather, blessed are those who love him, since behold, the whole race of Adam was loved—for he died for all.

But those who love him in truth—these procure life for their own souls, these reap eternal benefit.

And the Lord grieves exceedingly over the soul that does not love him.

For he himself sent and called all to the wedding feast, as it is said in the Gospel, and he grieved exceedingly over those who did not come.

That marriage is heavenly and spiritual.

The bridegroom is spirit, the bride is spirit, the friend of the bridegroom and the servants and the wine-pourers are spirits, the wedding garments are spirits, the bridal chamber and the couch are spirit; and in short, whoever is not clothed with the Holy Spirit will neither feast together nor associate together at that heavenly wedding and at that spiritual banquet.

For a certain one, found not having a worthy garment for that spiritual wedding, was cast out into the outer darkness.

And indeed the water which the Lord made wine, I consider that it was a certain mystery, signifying that the souls that believe sincerely and are born of the Spirit will be changed into spirit, as it is said—

"That which is born of the Spirit is spirit."

For if there the water was changed into wine, how much more will he make the souls of those who believe and truly await the Lord into spirit, and change them into spirit.

The Lord blessed, and it overflowed abundantly, and many multitudes were satisfied; how much more, having blessed with the Holy Spirit this soul, now in great narrowness and constraint and not even able to provide for herself because of the constraint of evil thoughts, will he broaden and spread out the adorned members of her virtues, so that not only is she satisfied, but she also satisfies others from the teachings of the Spirit.

And if in the case of Elijah a small cloud, like a man's footprint, covered the sky instantly at the will of God, how much more, wherever he casts a drop of the Holy Spirit, increasing it, will he fill the whole soul that gives herself to the Lord, and make her spirit.

And if that paralytic, who clung with faith to the Lord, was immediately healed of his paralysis, how much more will the soul into which Christ comes, clinging to the most brilliant and heavenly beauty of the light of his face, be healed and made whole from the terrible paralysis of the passions of dishonor, being illumined and shone upon by his ineffable beauty.

And if the woman with the flow of blood touched the fringe of his garment, and immediately the flow of her unclean blood stopped, how much more will the soul that believes in truth and touches the fringe of the Spirit of the divinity of Christ, through sincere faith, be healed, and the fountain of the uncleanness of unclean and evil thoughts be stayed.

And if there the blind man, crying out and calling upon the Lord, obtained healing and regained his sight, how much more, when the faithful soul cries out and calls upon him, will he come and open her intelligent eyes to behold the glory of the Lord with unveiled face.

Therefore let the bride soul come to her own bridegroom Christ, perfumed with incense from her own good and virtuous works.

But just as this incense—as we have said before—if it is not cast and mixed with fire, does not give off its rich fragrance, but when it is mixed with fire it becomes active and gives off a most sweet and most potent fragrance, and otherwise is not shown to be genuine incense—in the same way also are all the good works of the soul:

prayer, weeping, fasting, vigil, and the rest of the works of the virtues—if the heavenly fire of the Spirit is not cast and mixed in there, they do not give the effect of a most sweet scent and the spiritual fragrance of perfect virtues.

The bride soul, then, has been made fragrant with incense by her own good works, the heavenly fire kindling them and producing spiritual fragrance.

Let us also, then, ask for the heavenly fire of the Spirit, that comes and burns and kindles our souls unceasingly toward the longing above and toward unceasing and unchangeable love for Christ.

This physician and bridegroom stands, then, calling and saying to the souls who wish to lay hold of eternal life—

"Acquire eyes that see my glory, acquire ears that hear my discourse, acquire from me living water, which will be for us a spring welling up into eternal life.

Take from me heavenly bread, from which, being nourished, you shall not die; drink of my spiritual wine and be gladdened with heavenly gladness, and be made drunk with a sober and spiritual drunkenness, so that just as in those who are bodily drunk the wine speaks, so also you, being made drunk spiritually, may speak in the Spirit accounts of heavenly mysteries, as it is written—

'And your cup that makes me drunk is as the strongest.'

Take the oil of gladness that refreshes and gives you rest.

Take eternal light from me, that you may not remain in darkness and perish; take from me holy and spiritual fire from heaven, kindling and burning unceasingly toward longing for me.

Take from me ineffable garments of light, covering and sheltering you, that you may not be naked—

and behave shamefully." These things the Lord always cries out in each of us, and proclaims through spiritual heralds—our physician, the bridegroom of our souls, who came and gives life to the world, so that, having made our souls holy and pure and presented them to himself spotless and blameless, he may deem us worthy to enjoy eternal life together with him.

The soul that has wholly dedicated herself to God and desires to become an heir of the heavenly kingdom, who with intelligent eyes beholds the ineffable and inconceivable beauty of the eternal good things, and is wounded with a burning longing for him, does not so much need reminding from men, since with firm faith and secure hope she does not look at the things seen, but the things not seen, and, wounded by spiritual longing toward those things, and having her whole care in much desire for the acquisition of the heavenly gift, she brings about forgetfulness of all fleshly and earthly thinking, being drawn day by day by spiritual love toward longing for the heavenly bridegroom.

Therefore the irrational passions of dishonor have no room to act in such a disposition of the soul, nor can the wicked one sow the death-bearing seed of malice, because her whole will inclines toward desire for well-pleasing God, preferring nothing else above the Master's commands; she readily denies her own will, that she may accomplish the will of the Lord soundly and wholly.

Therefore, because of such a disposition toward God, she easily banishes worldly grief from herself, having in mind the joy toward the Lord; she subjects wrath and anger and rage to gentleness and equity and kindness; she abolishes and puts to death the proud and power-loving mind of malice and vain conceit through much humility and subjection to all.

For she imitates the Lord, who is worshiped by angels and glorified by powers, who made himself so much a servant to his own servants, that when struck by a servant and scourged and reproached, and even crucified by the unjust, he did not resist, but endured all things for the sake of our salvation, leaving behind an example of holiness for those who wish to follow after him, that they may thus be able to inherit eternal life.

But as many souls as are lovers of passion and lovers of pleasure and lovers of the flesh, following their own wills and yielding to their own limits, not laying hold of the evangelical commandments, wearing the form of piety like a mask, and deceiving themselves only by conceit, think that they are something when they are nothing, working out a counterfeit righteousness—these choose bodily asceticism and the great labor of unsparing self-restraint as the greatest thing, which is not proof of virtue, but a cause of folly and lack of discernment.