The Ladder of Divine Ascent - Chapter VI: On the Remembrance of Death and Chapter VII: On Joy-Making Mourning

To read Saint John and the other fathers, and to read their writings deeply is to find oneself caught up in wonder. We begin to see that so much of the spiritual life, its discipline, and the hardships the fathers endured, are a reflection of their desire. 

These were men that were filled with a holy longing for what Christ alone could satisfy. They ran with a kind of swiftness and sought to unburden themselves from anything that would be an impediment or weigh them down and prevent them from entering into the fullness of the life and love of Christ. The remembrance of death and mourning over one’s sins are not practices that are abstracted from our relationship with Christ and the love that has been revealed to us in Him. All of these things spur us on to enter into His embrace, and never leave it. 

If the Christian life and the ascetic life is seen outside of this relationship then, as Saint Paul tells us, we are the most pitiable of all men. God has created us for Himself and in so doing has created a hunger that He alone can satisfy. We have been made for love and our hearts will find no rest until they find the One for whom they long.

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Text of chat during the group:

00:26:26 Anthony: I believe I read part of St. Thomas More's meditation on death (he being quite Western), that the pain of the soul leaving the body, is quite real, and a necessary evil.

 

00:27:00 Anthony: I was just affirming what you wrote, that's all.  :)

 

00:35:34 Anthony: You said we magnify the importance of things out of proportion to their value - this is fearing things temporal, but not having fear of the Lord, isn't it?

 

00:42:51 Sheila Applegate: As much as I know in my heart God fulfills and heals and is all, sometimes.God feels empty and disconnected and lacking and the things here feel fulfilling or at least tangible and in that, familiar and comforting.  So therein lies a temporal conflict of interest.

 

00:49:48 Sheila Applegate: Yeah. That makes sense.

 

00:49:58 Sheila Applegate: We grasp at the concrete.

 

00:59:59 Anthony: TO combine a martial arts analogy with the Crucifixion - this fear is like throwing the enemy off balance.  Christ was the bait swallowed by death willingly, so that He could catch death and defeat it.  We follow His example, and take hold of this enemy so that we can in His grace and example direct death to our benefit>

 

01:15:31 Sr Barbara Jean Mihalchick: Lord, give us Your Love to love you with!

 

01:16:26 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you 🙂

 

01:16:27 Jeffrey Ott: Thank you!! Happy Thanksgiving!

 

01:16:28 Deiren Masterson: God bless father - all. Thank you

 

01:16:29 Rachel: Thank you