Philokalia Ministries
Episodes
Wednesday Jul 13, 2016
Conferences of St. John Cassian - Conference Twenty Three On Sinlessness Part VI
Wednesday Jul 13, 2016
Wednesday Jul 13, 2016
We continued to follow Abba Theonas' discussion with Germanus and Cassian on Theoria and the obstacles to lasting contemplation. Theonas drives home the experience of wretchedness of the holy individual who is pulled away from contemplation of God by distraction and the weakness of the fleshly mind. We "Fall" from contemplation and if we had a true sense of the loss that that is to us we too would experience deep compunction. Yet, it is the action of constantly turning back to God that brings the holy soul the immediate outpouring of God's grace. The anguished longing and desire of the soul is met by the immediate desire of God for renewed union.
The group sought to understand this through the place where we all experience the deepest intimacy with God - the Mass. In a world that fosters distraction and celebrates noise, it is easy for us to lose a kind of "custody of the eyes" - or custody of the Nous (the eye of the heart) that keeps us focused on the gift of love that is being offered to us and the sacrifice through which it has been made possible. Only one who has tasted the sweetness of God's loves can understand the "Wretchedness" that St. Paul speaks of and the desire to be delivered from this body of death. The deeper the love, the greater the pain at losing sight of the Beloved!
Wednesday Jul 06, 2016
Conferences of St. John Cassian - Conference Twenty Three On Sinlessness Part V
Wednesday Jul 06, 2016
Wednesday Jul 06, 2016
Few penetrate the meaning of the Fall (although we all experience its effects) as the desert Fathers or capture what it means to live according to the law of Grace. One has to taste something of the experience of purity of heart, contemplation, and the peace of Christ, to grasp fully what Abba Theonas is speaking about in this conference. How many of us would experience true compunction and the tears of repentance over being distracted from God and our thoughts of God? We are trained from an early age not to seek and value above all things that constant state of communion with God but rather encouraged to pursue one distraction after another or to direct our greatest energies to fleshly concerns. In light of this it is easy to understand the ubiquitous experience of anxiety that touches every human being. We know not only separation from God because of our sin but a profound inner division. When St. Paul said: "The good that I want I do not do, but the evil that I hate, this I do", he was not referring to the struggle with base passions (which in reality we do not hate but most often desire) but rather of the condition of one who has achieved purity of heart and so mourns at how often he is pulled from gazing upon the divine brilliance and focused instead upon something much less. To live fully in accord with the law of grace, to know the invincible peace of the Kingdom, is the reality that has been made possible for us through the blood of Christ. Yet it is the reality the eludes our grasps because we do not seek it from the hand of the Lord but rather to construct it ourselves and in accord with the measure of our minds.