Trust

A very good essay on asceticism by Vincent Rossi has been posted at Aunt Melanie's new blog page, Ascetic Bridge. This is a good, if rather long, article, well summed up in its closing line, ‘strive without ceasing, according to one’s ability, trusting in God and his Bride, the Church, not in oneself.’

This really is the whole essence of the Christian life, again, looked at from that ‘angle of the Throne.’

Life in Christ, though very simple, can be looked at from many angles, can be entered through many doors of perception, and can be practiced, or rather, lived in many ways, all of them genuine, all of them Spirit-led and God-inspired, even though in viewing and trying to explain them, they sometimes appear complicated and opposed to each other. This is the effect that human language has on us. This is what I call ‘semantic mismatch,’ and why I am reluctant to discuss certain issues with other Christians, knowing ahead of time what the outcome will be—division—when in Christ, and according to His words, unity is attainable and a necessity among us, if we are to really live together in Him and present a single witness of Him to the world.

Asceticism appears thus a goal to be striven after and a prize to be won to some, and to others it appears to be a regimen of salvation by works, when in actuality, ‘in act,’ that is, ‘in what God does’ for us, it is really only the way a disciple responds to the grace of God given him. What this response looks like is perfectly unpredictable, because every human being is unique, and the grace of God, though one, falling on each individual produces unique results. Hence we have ‘monastic giants’ and ‘evangelical heroes’ at one end of the spectrum, people whom even the world has to acknowledge for their apparent ‘victories,’ and at the other end we have the ordinary, invisible Christian (and non-Christian) who from all appearances is a poor spectacle for the eyes and ears, a gospel drop-out. All that this proves once again, is that ‘judgment is the Lord’s, not ours’ and ‘not by us, Yahweh, not by us, by You alone is glory deserved’ (Psalm 115).

I wrote ‘Christian (and non-Christian)’ when discussing the effects that divine grace has on people and their response to it, not to push an idea that there is grace outside the Church, but that grace is grace, falling on all men, regardless of what they call themselves or know themselves to be. The struggle for goodness, even for purity and for justification before God, is the work of all rational souls, whatever religions or no religion they adhere to, whatever concept of the Divine Nature they hold. It is in this sense that ascesis, asceticism, can be seen as a human work, one by which its practitioners hope to climb the heavens and approach the Divine Nature on their own power. Yes, this is a mistaken idea, but it is often the starting point for Christian and non-Christian alike. Sometimes, maybe always, we have to start out this way and, having found ourselves failing, some of us then realize whom it is we have to believe in, whom we must trust, in order to be ‘saved.’

Yes, what for some is everyday life in Christ, lived without thinking about it, following the rules laid down by one’s faith community, such as the fasts and rigors laid down by the Orthodox Church for its members, for others appears a special challenge to be met, or abandoned, as a religious obligation. Hence, we have Christians who place asceticism outside their normal life, either as an unattainable ideal (to be dutifully attempted only during times like Lent), or as something you only read about in church history, or worse, consider to be a relic of a dark and superstitious and un-Christian age.

The truth of asceticism, and even of monasticism, is something that almost cannot be grasped like other ideas, because it is life in process, and we can hardly see it: it is invisible to us when not practicing it, and invisible to us when we are, each for a different reason. Neither the ascetic nor the monastic life are limited to institutional monasticism, in which sometimes neither are really practiced.

The ordinary Christian individual or family, regardless of their faith community, can be, indeed must be, living an ascetic life, and in some senses even a monastic one, because the life in Christ is a workshop of the soul, where the Artisan crafts us His new creations. The pot doesn’t say to the potter, ‘here, make me this way!’ but instead the clay yields itself to the turning wheel and the potter’s hands (cf. Isaiah 29:16). This is the essence of the life in Christ, this is what asceticism is, and without naming it we live it, by God’s grace alone. The cloud moves, we move. The pillar of fire lights the way and warms us and hides us from our pursuers.
Everything depends on trust.