Scrutinizing the movements of the mind and the heart is never an easy thing to do. In fact we find ever more clever ways to avoid doing so. Truthful living, a willingness to acknowledge one’s failings and communicate them to a spiritual guide is put before for us by the fathers as a path that we should desire. It is not meant to punish us or to humiliate us, but rather to free us in our capacity to love God and to give ourselves to Him. We see in this hypothesis how deep this kind of observation penetrates into the thoughts and actions of an individual. Spiritual fathers have the responsibility to aid their children and help them to internalize this process and to ask themselves honestly whether they love and desire Christ above all things. How often and how easily we are moved by our own self-will. We can drag our feet when it comes to doing something that we to which we have an aversion or where we feel that we have something to do that is more important or pressing. It is far more difficult to allow ourselves to be moved by the Spirit of Love. The greatest acts of love are often those that go unnoticed or are rooted in the fulfillment of the simplest of duties. To take up responsibility without grumbling or to respond with immediacy to the need of another is what God sees and values.
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Text of chat during the group:
The Ladder of Divine Ascent - Chapter XIV: On Gluttony, Part IV, and Chapter XV: On Chastity, Part I
The Evergetinos - Hypothesis XL, Part I
The Ladder of Divine Ascent- Chapter XIV: On Gluttony, Part III
Behold His Face: They Shall Look On Him Whom They Have Pierced
The Ladder of Divine Ascent - Chapter XIV: On Gluttony, Part II
The Evergetinos - Hypothesis XXXIX, Part I
City a Desert Lecture Series, Lecture Three: Interiorized Monasticism Part III: Chastity and Obedience
The Ladder of Divine Ascent - Chapter XIV: On Gluttony, Part I
The Evergetinos, Hypothesis XXXVIII
City a Desert Lecture Series, Lecture Two: Interiorized Monasticism Part II: Fundamental Principles
The Ladder of Divine Ascent - Chapter XIII: On Despondency
The Evergetinos, Hypothesis XXXVII
Repentance
City a Desert Lecture Series, Lecture One: Introduction to Interiorized Monasticism
The Ladder of Divine Ascent - Chapter XII: On Lying
The Evergetinos - Hypothesis XXXV, Part II and Hypothesis XXXVI
To Love Fasting
The Ladder of Divine Ascent - Chapter XI: On Talkativeness and Silence
The Evergetinos - Hypothesis XXXV, Part I
The Ladder of Divine Ascent - Chapter X: On Slander or Calumny, Part II
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