In my last blog post, I spoke of two categories of trials
discussed by St. Isaac in homily 42: trials that are the fruit of pride and
trials that are allowed by God to create longing and are evidence of one
drawing near to God. Before I get into what St. Isaac says about patience
and humility at the end of homily 42, I want correct a potential
misunderstanding some of you might have based on St. Isaac’s use of two
categories. The mistake modern people might make is to assume that
because St. Isaac defined two categories of trials and temptations, he
therefore understands these two categories to be the only categories and that
all trials and tribulations of necessity fall into either one or the other of
these categories. This is not how St. Isaac nor the people he was writing
for in the seventh century would have understood this use of categories.
For St. Isaac, categories are useful to point toward mystical
realities, but are not used to define or limit those realities. So in one
of his homilies, St. Isaac can speak of two categories of trials, and in
another homily speak of three or four quite different categories of
trials. His purpose is not to define or delimit the kinds or purposes of
trials; but rather, his purpose it to point to a mystical reality that is
experienced in the spiritual life, a reality that cannot be defined or
delimited with words, but a reality that he can nonetheless point toward using
words and categories. So when St. Isaac speaks of trials as either coming
from the fruit of pride or evidencing our drawing near to God, he is pointing
toward an experience those pursuing the spiritual life in Christ sometimes
have. That is, sometimes we are aware that the trial we are experiencing
has come upon us as a result of our arrogance or pride, leading us to
repentance. Other times, we are unaware of any specific repentance
necessary on our part, and the trials merely constrain and limit us, leading us
to deeper longing for God. Are there other ways we experience and learn
from and grow from trials? Certainly. But in homily 42, St. Isaac
is specifically contrasting these two in order to help the reader understand
certain spiritual experiences he or she might encounter, experiences that may
even appear contradictory, like joy and fear, or different sorts of trials
coming from different sources and evidencing different aspects of one’s
relationship with God.
St. Isaac begins wrapping up homily 42 with the following words,
“Hear
yet another consideration. Every adversity and affliction, if not
accompanied by patience, produces double torment; for a man’s patience casts
off distress, while faintness of heart is the mother of anguish. Patience
is the mother of consolation and is a certain strength which is usually born of
largeness of heart. It is hard for a man to find this strength in his
tribulations without a gift from God received through the ardent pursuit of
prayer and the outpouring of his tears.”
Patience, according to St. Isaac, can cut in half the adversity
and affliction one experiences in trials, regardless of the source.
Whether the source of the trial is my own sin and pride, or “a blow inflicted
by divine love,” as he earlier puts it, if I accept and endure the trial with
patience, the suffering is cut in half. St. Isaac contrasts faintness of
heart with largeness of heart. In this homily, largeness of heart seems
to be a synonym for humility of heart which it gives birth to patience and is a
gift from God received through ardent pursuit of prayer and the outpouring of tears.
Largeness of heart has to do with a humility that is able to accept and even be
aware of the nearness of God even in the midst of a painful or difficult
trial—even if that trial has come upon me as a result of my own sin and
stupidity. It is a humility that “with a thankful heart [is] patient in
evils for His love’s sake.” In other words, it is a humility both given
as a gift from God and born out of a love for God and faith in God that is so
intense that even evils can be endured patiently and with thankfulness to God
because one knows that God will use even evil things to perfect our souls.
What? How can the evil that we suffer perfect our
souls? Is St. Isaac saying that God causes evil? No. But he
is saying that God allows evil to come upon us and that by enduring that
suffering with thankfulness, patience and love, we can be perfected, or made
mature in Christ. This is a mystery. It is not reasonable or
logical. It’s completely ironic. Therefore to complain that this
doesn’t make sense or isn’t fair doesn’t help at all. St. Isaac isn’t
explaining a theory of Christian maturity, he is describing an experience—an
experience that crucifies even our mind. And the very first step toward
this kind of humility is to acknowledge that you don’t have it. It is
only through the “ardent pursuit of prayer and the outpouring of tears” in the
midst of the irrational and unfair evil that has come upon us that we begin to
experience the grace and gift of humility that produces patience which, St.
Isaac says, cuts our suffering in half.
St. Isaac also has a few things to say about faint-heartedness,
the opposite of largeheartednens or humility. He says that sometimes God
allows a person to fall into faint-heartedness which, instead of patience,
“begets
in him a mighty force of despondency, wherein he feels his soul
suffocated. This is a foretaste of Gehenna. From this there is
unleashed upon him: the spirit of distraction (from which ten thousand trials
gush forth); confusion; wrath; blasphemy; protesting and bewailing one’s lot;
perverted thoughts; wandering from place to place; and the like.” St.
Isaac goes on to say, “If you should ask me what the cause of these things is,
I answer that it is you yourself, for the reason that you have not taken pains to
find the remedy for them.”
And so, St. Isaac tells us that when we experience these
things—wrath; blasphemy; protesting and bewailing one’s lot; and wandering from
place to place (perhaps looking for a spirit-filled elder who can tell us how
to get out of our situation), these symptoms particularly hit home to me—when
we experience these it is likely that we have fallen into
faint-heartedness. And although God may have allowed faint-heartedness to
come upon us, we continue to experience faint-heartedness because we have not
sought the remedy. What is the remedy for the faint-heartedness producing
such Gehenna-like despondency in all of its manifestations? St. Isaac
answers: “The remedy for them all is one, and therein, in [your] very hand, a
man can find immediate consolation for his soul. And what is it?
Humility of heart. Without this, no man can destroy the barrier [set up
by] these evils, nay rather, he will see them triumph over him.”
Humility of heart is the key. It is the largeness of heart
that produces patience and reduces anguish and distress in trials. Listen
to St. Isaac’s words:
“If you
wish, enter into [the realm of humility] and you will see how it disperses your
wickedness. For in proportion to your humility you are given patience in
your woes; and in proportion to your patience, the burden of your afflictions
is made lighter and you will find consolation; in proportion to your
consolation, your love of God increases; and in proportion to your love, your
joy in the Holy Spirit is magnified.”
This humility, or largeness of heart, is a gift that comes from
God that one receives through “ardent pursuit of prayer and the outpouring of
his tears.” It’s not something—at least in my experience—that one can
just decide or make happen. Trying to be humble generally only produces
self-consciousness, self-evaluation, and ultimately pride mixed with any or all
of the following: despondency, anger, blaming God, blaming others and delusion
(that pride can be linked with all of these may seem ironic, but as already
noted, the spiritual life is full of irony). And so then, how do we get
humility? In my experience, asking God for humility is a rather painful
route. Instead of asking specifically for humility, I have found it most
helpful to ask God for mercy. I ask God for mercy acknowledging that I am
not humble, that I am not patient, and that the evils that come upon me in the
form of trials and tribulations come largely from my pride and that I am too
spiritually dull to know what to do about them—except to beg for His help.
For St. Isaac, the spiritual life is a life of transformation: transformation
from being a stranger to God to being a son of God. Alluding to Hebrews
12:5, where sonship is linked to chastisement, St. Isaac too says that patient
endurance of trials and tribulations is the very thing that matures us and
perfects our souls. The “way of escape” from trials that St. Paul speaks
of in 1 Corinthians 10:13 is not an avoidance of the trial—for even the text of
1 Corinthians says, “so that you may bear it.” Rather, according to St.
Isaac, the way of escape is patient endurance to the perfecting of our souls,
which is the fruit of humility, which is a gift from God to those who beg His
help.
I’ll end today with St. Isaacs words. This is the final
paragraph of homily 42:
Once
men have truly become His sons, our tenderly compassionate Father does not take
away their temptations from them when it is His pleasure to ‘make a way of
escape,’ but instead He gives His sons patience in their trials. All
these good things are given into the hand of their patience for the perfecting
of their souls. May Christ God deem us worthy by His grace with a
thankful heart to be patient in evils for His love’s sake. Amen.
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