Isaiah the Solitary: The Remembrance of God and Praying with Sweetness of Heart

This Article is taken from the Blog, ENLARGING THE HEART, for Friday, 24 August 2012.

Our teacher Jesus Christ, out of pity for mankind and knowing the utter mercilessness of the demons, severely commands us: ‘Be ready at every hour, for you do not know when the thief will come; do not let him come and find you asleep’ (cf Matt. 24:42-43).

[...] Stand guard, then, over your heart and keep a watch on your senses; and if the remembrance of God dwells peaceably within you, you will catch the thieves when they try to deprive you of it.

When a man has an exact knowledge about the nature of thoughts, he recognizes those which are about to enter and defile him, troubling the intellect with distractions and making it lazy.

Those who recognize these evil thoughts for what they are remain undisturbed and continue in prayer to God.

[...] What…is meant by the worship of God?

It means that we have nothing extraneous in our intellect when we are praying to Him: neither sensual pleasure as we bless Him, nor malice as we sing His praise, nor hatred as we exalt Him, nor jealousy to hinder us as we speak to Him and call Him to mind.

For all these things are full of darkness; they are a wall imprisoning our wretched soul, and if the soul has them in itself it cannot worship God with purity.

They obstruct its ascent and prevent it from meeting God: they hinder it from blessing Him inwardly and praying to Him with sweetness of heart, and so receiving His illumination.

As a result the intellect is always shrouded in darkness and cannot advance in holiness, because it does not make the effort to uproot these thoughts by means of spiritual knowledge.

When the intellect rescues the soul’s senses from the desires of the flesh and imbues them with dispassion, the passions shamelessly attack the soul, trying to hold its senses fast in sin; but if the intellect then continually calls upon God in secret, He, seeing all this, will send His help and destroy all the passions at once.

I entreat you not to leave your heart unguarded, so long as you are in the body.

[...] Up to his last breath [a man] cannot know what passion will attack him; so long as he breathes, therefore, he must not leave his heart unguarded, but should at every moment pray to God for His help and mercy.

Isaiah the Solitary (died 489 A.D. / 491 A. D.): On Guarding the Intellect, 12-15, Text from G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware (trans. and eds.) The Philokalia: The Complete Text, vol. I (Faber & Faber, London & Boston: 1979).

Note: The word "intellect", in the Philokalia, translates the Greek "nous", which the translators define as follows:

the highest faculty in man, through which – provided it is purified – he knows God or the inner essences or principles of created things by means of direct apprehension or spiritual perception. Unlike the dianoia or reason, from which it must be carefully distinguished, the intellect does not function by formulating abstract concepts and then arguing on this basis to a conclusion reached through deductive reasoning, but it understands divine truth by means of immediate experience, intuition or ‘simple cognition’ (the term used by St Isaac the Syrian). The intellect dwells in the ‘depths of the soul’; it constitutes the innermost aspect of the heart (St Diadochos). The intellect is the organ of contemplation, the ‘eye of the heart’ (Makarian Homilies).

Saint Aelred of Rievaulx (Part One)

Aelred of Rievaulx: In the Cross of Christ there is Death, and in the Cross of Christ there is Life

This Article is to be found on ENLARGING THE HEART

Be careful…to reflect not only on the fact of this redemption but also on two other points: the manner in which this redemption was wrought, and the place in which it was wrought.

The manner of redemption is the suffering of the Cross; the place, outside the city.

Rievaulx Abbey, where Saint Aelred was Abbot 
from 1147 A.D. - 1167 A.D.

Let us then learn from the Cross of Jesus our proper way of living.

Should I say ‘living’ or, instead, ‘dying’? Rather, both living and dying.

Dying to the world, living for God.

Dying to vices and living by the virtues.

Dying to the flesh, but liv­ing in the spirit.

Thus in the Cross of Christ there is death and in the Cross of Christ there is life.

The death of death is there, and the life of life.

The death of sins is there and the life of the virtues.

The death of the flesh is there, and the life of the spir­it.

But why did God choose this manner of death?

He chose it as both a mystery and an example.

In addition, he chose it because our sickness was such as to make such a remedy appropriate.

It was fitting that we who had fallen because of a tree might rise up because of a tree.

Fitting that the one who had con­quered by means of a tree might also be conquered by means of a tree.

Fitting that we who had eaten the fruit of death from a tree might be given the fruit of life from a tree.

And because we had fallen from the security of that most blessed place on earth into this great, expansive sea, it was fitting that wood should be made ready to carry us across it.

For no one cross­es the sea except on wood, or this world except on the Cross.

Let me say something now about the mystery contained in the manner of our redemption.

[...] When a Cross is set upright, the head is directed to heaven and the feet to earth, and the outstretched arms to what is located between heaven and earth.

[...] Do you see, now, the mystery in the kind of death Christ chose?

[...] St Paul says: He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the Cross.

And, revealing the mystery, he says: Therefore God exalted him and gave him the name that is above all names, so that at the name of Jesus every knee might bend of those who are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth.

Since, then, he was to take possession of heaven and earth through the Cross, on the Cross he embraced heaven and earth.

Aelred of Rievaulx (1110 – 1167): In Hebd. Sancta, sermon 36.1-2.4 (CCM 2A:294-295); from the Monastic Office of Vigils, Palm Sunday, Year 2.

Saint Benedict of Nursia

" But in process of time and growth of faith, when the heart has once been enlarged, the way of God’s commandments is run with unspeakable sweetness of love. ~ Benedict of Nursia ~"

The above quote is taken from the Blog ENLARGING THE HEART

I recommend this Blog to all Readers.

Saint Catherine of Siena

A most interesting Article on Saint Catherine of Siena, entitled "Catherine of Siena: The Fire of Divine, Most Ardent, and Immeasurable Love", can be found at ENLARGING THE HEART

I recommend it to all Readers.