Categories: spiritual-writings
Date: 18 May 2006 10:11:23
基督復活了(Jidu fuhuo-le!)
[last entry: Turkish: Isa dirildi!; response: Hakikaten dirildi!]
I'm gaining much, thanks be to God, from reading St John Climacus' (my name saint) The Ladder of Divine Ascent. A truly wonderful set of steps describing the avoidance of vices and the practising of virtues. I'm only up to Step 12 (of 30): generally because I find myself wanting to read and re-read each chapter. And I can't say I've reached the goals in each step (the book is a series of 30 steps, describing an ascent to heaven -- there is a progression in each step): but I am learning a great deal along the way.
As well as the wise counsel and the keen insight, one of the joys is the descriptions, metaphors and other imagery used by St John Climacus: and thanks also to the translator who produces such fresh and vivid imagery in the English language. Here are a few samples of both such imagery and the wise instruction:
Repentance goes shopping for humility and is ever distrustful of bodily comfort.
(Step 5: On Penitence)Do not search about for the words to show people you love them. Instead, ask God to show them your love without your having to talk about it.
(Step 6: On Remembrance of Death)As the gradual pouring of water on a fire puts out the flame completely, so the tears of genuine mourning can extinguish every flame of anger and irascibility.
[Anger] the oppressor must be restrained by the chains of meekness, beaten by patience, hauled away by blessed love.
(Step 8: On Placidity and Meekness)[Remembrance of wrongs] is the ruin of virtues, the poison of the soul, a worm in the mind. It is the shame of prayer, a cutting off of supplication, a turning away from love, a nail piercing the soul.
(Step 9: On Malice)A good grape picker chooses to eat ripe grapes and does not pluck what is unripe. A charitable and sensible mind takes careful note of the virtues it observes in another, while the fool goes looking for faults and defects.
Do not condemn. Not even if you very eyes are seeing something, for they may be deceived.
(Step 10: On Slander)It is hard to keep water in without a dike. But it is harder still to hold in one's tongue.
(Step 11: On Talkativeness and Silence)quotes from the Paulist Press, 1982 version