Monastic Prayer And Modern Man

Author : St. Ignatius Bryanchaninov
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 504 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (39 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book FULL Collected WORKS Vol. 5 (of 8) written by St. Ignatius Bryanchaninov and published by . This book was released on 2020-04-20 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The terrible thing is to accept, by self-conceit and arbitrarily, upon ourselves duties that can be performed only at the command of the Holy Spirit and the action of the Spirit; it's a terrible thing to imagine yourself as a vessel of the Holy Spirit, while communication with Satan has not yet been dissolved, and the vessel does not cease to be defiled by the action of Satan! Horrible hypocrisy and hypocrisy! it is disastrous for itself and for the neighbor, is criminal before God, blasphemous. They will pointlessly point to us at the Monk Zacharias, who, being in obedience to an inexperienced old man, his father in the flesh, Karion, achieved monastic perfection1 , or on the Monk Akakiy, who escaped in residence with a cruel old man who drove his disciple with inhuman beatings prematurely into the grave 2 . Both of them were obedient to insufficient elders, but were guided by the advice of the spirit-bearing Fathers, also the most instructive examples that were numerous in their eyes: for this reason alone, they could remain in outward obedience with their elders. These cases are outside the general order and rule. "The image of God's action, - said St. Isaac the Syrian, - quite different from the common human order you hold general." 3 . Objection: the faith of a novice can replace the lack of old man. Not true: faith in truth saves, faith in lies and demonic charm destroys, according to the teachings of the Apostle. You can't accept truth to love, he says of those who perish arbitrarily, being saved by the hedgehog. And for this sake, God sends ( allows ) them an act of flattering, in a hedgehog to believe a lie to them, that they will receive judgment if they have not believed the truth, but have favored untruth 4 . According to your faith be it unto you 5 , said the Lord, Self-Truth, to two blind men and healed them from blindness: has no right to repeat the words of Self-Truth lie and hypocrisy to justify their criminal behavior by which they destroy others. There were cases, very, very rare, that faith, according to a special look of God, acted through sinners, making the salvation of these sinners. In Egypt, the elder of the robbers Flavian, intending to rob some nunnery, put on a monastic robe and came to this monastery. The nuns accepted him as one of the holy Fathers, introduced him to the church, asking them to bring a prayer for them to God, which Flavian performed against his will and to his surprise. Then a meal was presented to him. At the end of the meal, the nuns washed his feet. In the monastery, one of the sisters was blind and deaf. The nuns brought her and gave her water to wash the feet of the wanderer. The patient was immediately healed. The nuns glorified God and the holy life of a strange monk, proclaiming a miracle. The grace of God descended on the elder of the robbers: he brought repentance, and from the elder of the robbers he turned into a standard-bearing father1 . - In the life of St. Theodore, Bishop of Edesa, we read that the harlot, being forced by the desperate wife of Ader, brought God a prayer for her dead son, that the baby was resurrected by the harlot's prayer. The harlot, horrified by what happened to her, immediately abandoned her sinful life, entered the monastery and attained holiness as an ascetic 2 . Such events are exceptions. Contemplating them, we will do the right thing if we are surprised at the watch and the incomprehensible fate of God, strengthened in faith and hope; we'll do it very wrong if we take these events as a role model. As the leader of our behavior, God Himself has given us the Law of God, that is, the Holy Scripture and the Holy Fathers. The Apostle Paul resolutely says: But we command you, brethren, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, to be separated from you from every brother, walking without cause, and not according to tradition, if you have received from us 3 .