For today's Good Friday meditation, I turn to Kallistos Ware's "The Orthodox Experience of Repentance", found in his compendium The Inner Kingdom (Crestwood, New York, St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2000), pp 45-48.

But what in fact is meant by repentance? It is normally regarded as sorrow for sin, a feeling of guilt, a sense of grief and horror at the wounds we have inflicted on others and on ourselves. Yet such a view is dangerously incomplete. Grief and horror are indeed frequently present in the experience of repentance, but they are not the whole of it, nor even the most important part. We come closer to the heart of the matter if we reflect on the literal sense of the Greek term for repentance, metanoia. This means "change of mind": not just regret for the past, but a fundamental transformation of our outlook, a new way of looking at ourselves, at others and at God--in the words of The Shepherd of Hermas, "a great understanding". A great understanding--but not necessarily an emotional crisis. Repentance is not a paroxysm of remorse and self-pity, but conversion, the recentering of our life upon the Holy Trinity.

As a "new mind," conversion, recentering, repentance is positive, not negative. In the words of St John Climacus, "Repentance is the daughter of hope and the denial of despair". It is not despondency but eager expectation; it is not to feel that one has reached an impasse, but to take the way out. It is not self-hatred but the affirmation of my true self as made in God's image. To repent is to look, not downward at my own shortcomings, but upward at God's love; not backward with self-reproach, but forward with trustfulness. It is to see, not what I have failed to be, but what by the grace of God I can yet become.

When interpreted in this positive sense, repentance is seen to be not just a single act but a continuing attitude. In the personal experience of each person there are decisive moments of conversion, but throughout this present life the work of repenting remains always incomplete. The turning or recentering must be constantly renewed; up to the moment of death, as Abba Sisoes realized, the "change of mind" must become always more radical, the "great understanding" always more profound. In the words of St Theophan the Recluse, "Repentance is the starting point and foundation stone of our new life in Christ; and it must be present not only at the beginning but throughout our growth in this life, increasing as we advance."

The positive character of repentance is clearly apparent if we consider what comes just before the words of Christ already quoted, "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." In the preceeding verse the Evangelist cites Isaiah 9:2, "The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them has the light shone." Such is the immediate context of our Lord's command to repent: it is directly preceeded by a reference to "great light" shining on those in darkness, and directly followed by a reference to the imminence of the Kingdom. Repentence, then, is an illumination, a transition from darkness to light; to repent is to open our eyes to the divine radiance--not to sit dolefully in the twilight but to greet the dawn. And repentance is also eschatological, an openness to the Last Things that are not merely in the future but already present; to repent is to recognize that the Kingdom of Heaven is in our midst, at work among us, and that if we will only accept the coming of this KIngdom all things will be made new for us.

The connection between repentance and the advent of the great light is particularly significant. Until we have seen the light of Christ, we cannot really see our sins. So long as a room is in darkness, observes St Theophan the Recluse, we do not notice the dirt; but when we bring a powerful light into the room--when, that is, we stand before the Lord in our heart--we can distinguish every speck of dust. So it is with the room of our soul. The sequence is not to repent first, and then to become aware of Christ; for it is only when the light of Christ has already in some measure entered our life that we begin truly to understand our sinfulness. To repent, says St John of Kronstadt, is to know that there is a lie in our heart; but how can we detect the presence of a lie unless we already have some sense of the truth? In the words of EI Watkin, "Sin...is the shadow cast by the light of God intercepted by any attachment of the will which prevents it illuminating the soul. Thus knowledge of God gives rise to the sense of sin, not vice versa." As the Desert Fathers observe, "The closer we come to God, the more we see that we are sinners." And they cite Isaiah as an example of this: first he sees the Lord on His throne and hears the seraphim crying "Holy, holy, holy;" and it is only after this vision that he exclaims, "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips" (Is 6:1-5).

Such, then, is the beginning of repentance: a vision of beauty, not of ugliness; an awareness of God's glory, not of my own squalor. "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted" (Mt 5:4): repentance signifies not merely mourning for our sins, but the "comfort" or "consolation" (paraklesis) that comes from the assurance of God's forgiveness. The "great understanding" or "change of mind" signified by repentance consists precisely in this: in recognizing that the light shines in the darkness, and that the darkness does not swallow it up (Jn 1:5). To repent, in other words, is to recognize that there is good as well as evil, love as well as hatred; and to affirm that the good is stronger, to believe in the final victory of love. The repentant person is one who accepts the miracle that God does indeed have power to forgive sins. And, once we accept this miracle, for us the past is no longer an intolerable burden, for we no longer see the past as irreversible. Divine forgiveness breaks the chain of cause and effect, and unties the knots in our hearts which by ourselves we are not able to unloose.

There are many who feel sorrow for their past acts, but who say in their despair, "Icannot forgive myself for what I have done." Unable to forgive themselves, they are equally incapable of believing that they are forgiven by God, and likewise by other human beings. such people, despite the intensity of their anguish, have not yet properly repented. They have not yet attained the "great understanding" whereby a person knows that love is ultimately victorious. They have not yet undergone the "change of mind" that consists in saying: I am accepted by God; and what is asked of me is to accept the fact that I am accepted. That is the essence of repentance.

St John Climacus (ca 579-649) was the abbot of St Catherine's monastery, situated at the foot of Jebel Musa, traditionally the site of Mt Sinai where Moses had his direct encounters with God. He is the author of The Ladder of Divine Ascent (Colm Luibheid & Norman Russell, Paulist Press 1982). This is perhaps the single most popular ascetical work in the Eastern Church and is customarily read by all Orthodox monks every Lent. It inspired the creation of the accompanying icon showing monks making their perilous way up the 30-step ladder to eventual salvation; some of course fall off to become prey for demons. I was fortunate to be able to see the original when it was part of an exhibit at the Getty Museum several years ago. As we enter the home stretch of Lent, the Ladder is worth a look.

For this western Christian, at least, Climacus is definitely an acquired taste. There is lots of stereotypically negative material that has to be worked through to get to what I would consider useable spiritual insights. "Treat your body always as an enemy, for the flesh is an ungrateful and treacherous friend. The more you look after it, the more it hurts you" (153).

Or this: "Mortification of the appetite, nightlong toil, a ration of water, a short measure of bread, the bitter cup of dishonor--these will show you the narrow way. Derided, mocked, jeered, you must accept the denial of your will. You must patiently endure opposition, suffer neglect without complaint, put up with violent arrogance. You must be ready for injustice and not grieve when you are slandered; you must not be angered by contempt and you must show humility when you have been condemned [all of this abuse comes from other monks, needless to say!]".

I am in distinguished company, for Thomas Merton says "Climacus was a kind of sixth-century desert Hemingway...he sees through the weaknesses of men and monks, and cannot resist the temptation to caricature them without mercy. He never stops. Even when one gets to the last, supposedly serene rungs of the Ladder, on which all is sweet repose and hesychia, he restlessly yields to the same wild reflex and keeps lashing out on all sides. You cannot keep the man quiet...[the Ladder] was read within the last decade at the Abbey of Gethsemani, in the refectory. In the main, the monks seem to have found it either funny or unpleasant, and some unfledged ascetics openly complained to the present writer that Climacus was nuts." (in Disputed Questions 1960).

However, I firmly believe that one of our most important tasks as 21st-century theologians is to salvage what is of lasting validity from the theologies of the past. Accordingly, I will continue to give Climacus a second reading and then some. Some flecks of gold found amidst the gravel:

[How married people can be holy]: Do whatever good you may. Speak evil of no one. Rob no one. Tell no lie. Despise no one and carry no hate. Do not separate yourselves from the church assemblies. Show compassion to the needy. do not be a cause of scandal to anyone. Stay away from the bed of another, and be satisfied with what your own wives can provide you. If you do all this, you will not be far from the kingdom of heaven (78).

Some labor and struggle hard to earn forgiveness, but better than these is the man who forgets the wrongs done to him. Foregive quickly and you will be abundantly forgiven. To forget wrongs is to prove oneself truly repentant, but to brood on them and at the same time to imagine one is practicing repentance is to act like the man who is convince he is running when in fact he is fast asleep (154).

I have seen people delivered from passion by the very fact that they had flared up and then poured out their long-stored grievance and, in addition, they got from their offender either some reparation or some explanation for what had caused the long-standing grievance. On the other hand, I have seen men who appeared to be displaying stolid patience, but who, in reality, were silently harboring resentment within themselves. These, it seems to me, were much more to be pitied than the men prone to explosions of temper, because what they were doing was to keep away the holy white dove with that black gall of theirs (147-148).

Leo Campos is a co-founder of the Community of Solitude, a non-residential network of contemplatives rooted in Benedictine-Camaldolese spirituality. In an essay appearing in Episcopal Cafe, he has some interesting insights into what monasticism is all about.

...all I "do" as a contemplative monk is to live out my baptismal covenant. In other words, I do exactly, no more or less, than what every other Christian does. Or, better, I try to do exactly what everyone else tries to do. And I fail just as badly at it. But perhaps here's the point where being a monk can be a service--my struggles can become an object lesson for others. Hopefully not a risible case study in failure, but rather a visible reminder of what we are all going through together. It is a communal experience, where my robes and my public profession become a mirror for others.

When someone realizes that I am trying to be a mirror to them it usually leads tgo their adoption of various defensive postures and gestures. "Oh I don't think so, I am not a monk! I am not this or that". It is unfortunate that we in the Episcopal Church do not live more openly the theology of the Eastern Orthodox tradition, where the life of the laity and that of the monk are much more closely aligned.

Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the British Commonwealth, has an interesting essay in Timesonline on a strong Darwinian argument for religion. Darwin noticed that all cultures value altruism; people generally hold those who make sacrifices for others in high regard. However, in strictly Darwinian terms, if evolution is nothing but a struggle to survive, then ruthlessness should prevail across the board. How to explain this paradox?

In The Descent of Man Darwin hypothesized that cultures with many altruistic individuals would have a selective advantage over societies in which everyone was looking out for Number One. However, for Darwin the precise mechanism for accomplishing this was "at present much too difficult to be solved".

But, as Rabbi Sacks states:

...that of course is precisely the function of religion. God is the voice of the other within the self. It is God who taught us to love our neighbors as ourselves, to welcome the stranger, care for the poor, the widow, the orphan, heed the unheeded, feed the hungry, give shelter to the homeless, and temper justice with compassion. Nietzsche, Darwin's younger contemporary, saw most clearly how unnatural these things are. Nature is the will to power. Faith, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, is care for the powerless.

Without fully realizing what he had done, Darwin was pointing us to the central drama of civilization. Biological evolution favors individuals, but cultural evolution favors groups. So, as Judaism and Christianity both knew, there is a war within each of us as to which will prevail: self-regard or concern for others, egoism or altruism. Selfishness is advantageous to individuals, but disastrous to groups, and it is only as members of a group that we can survive at all. As Darwin himself put it, "Selfish and contentious people will not cohere, and without coherence nothing can be effected".

Hilarion Alfeyev (b 1966) is a bishop in the Russian Orthodox Church. He serves in Vienna and is also the representative of the Russian church to the European Union. He attended Oxford--his dissertation supervisor was Kallistos Ware--and he completed his doctorate in the obscenely short time of two years. Bp Hilarion is the author of The Mystery of Faith (Darton, Longman & Todd, London 2002), a very fine introduction to Orthodoxy. To top things off, he is also a composer. His website is available here.

I recently came across an article of his titled "Prayer and Silence" which is especially appropriate Lenten reading. The excerpts below are particularly relevant.

...one should remember that prayer is not just a request for something; it is first of all an encounter with Someone, a dialogue with the living God...In prayer we encounter the personal God who hears us and responds to us, Who is always ready to come to our assistance, Who never betrays us even if we betray Him many times. In prayer we communicate with the sublime Reality which is the only true Life; compared to it, every other reality is partial and imperfect. Life without communion with God, without prayer, is but a long pathway towards death, a gradual dying. We live insofar as we participate in God, and we participate in God through prayer...

An experience of stillness is essential for every person who wants to learn the art of prayer. to achieve this experience, one should not necessarily withdraw into the desert. But one has to put aside some minutes every day, go into one's room, "shut the door and pray to God Who is in secret". Our usual temptation, or deception, is that we are always very busy and forever rush to do something extremely important: we believe that if we spend too much time in prayer, we will not have the opportunity to do these important things. The experience of many people shows that half an hour spent in prayer seldom effects our "business" negatively, in spite of our initial concerns. On the contrary, prayer teaches one to concentrate more, to make one's mind more disciplined: as a result time is won rather than lost.

The lack of taste for solitude and silence is one of the most common illnesses of the modern person. Many are even scared of remaining in stillness, being alone or having free time; they feel more comfortable being constantly occupied; they need words, impressions; they always hasten in order to have the illusion of an abundant and saturated life. But life in God begins when words and thoughts fall silent, when worldly cares are forgotten, and when a place within the human soul is freed to be filled by Him.

A day late--I'm only half Irish, after all--but here's a small tribute to Patrick (or Padraig, as he was known to his Irish converts, or Patricius, as he was known to his Romano-British family of origin). The icon beautifully melds Celtic and Eastern imagery (Patrick is widely venerated as a saint in the Orthodox church) and his paraphrase of the Nicene Creed will perhaps be a jolt to some of the trendy types who are into Celtic spirituality lite. Two respective tips of the hokey green leprechaun hat to GetReligion and Episcopal Cafe. The creed is found in Celtic Daily Prayer: Prayers and Readings from the Northumbrian Community (New York, HarperOne 2002).

There is no other God,
there never was and never will be,
than God the Father,
unbegotten and without beginning,
the Word of the Universe,
as we have been taught,
and His Son Jesus Christ
whom we declare to have always been with the Father
in a way that baffles description,
before the beginning of the world,
before all beginning;
and by Him are made all things
visible and invisible.

He was made man, defeated death
and was received into heaven by the Father,
who has given Him power over all names
in heaven, on earth, and under the earth;
and every tongue will acknowledge to Him
that Jesus Christ is the Lord God.
We believe in Him
and we look for His coming soon
as judge of the living and the dead
who will treat everyone according to their deeds.

He has poured out the Holy Spirit upon us in abundance:
the gift and guarantee of eternal life,
who makes those who believe and obey
children of God and joint heirs with Christ.

We acknowledge and adore Him as one God
in the Trinity of the Holy Name.

Anamchara (aka The Website of Unknowing) is a project of Carl McColman, who teaches at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. I'm adding it to the blogroll because it's a very rich site with loads of hyperlinks to a wide range of topics dealing with mysticism and contemplative spirituality. It's a work in progress but well worth repeat visits.

Carl started out as a Roman Catholic, drifted away from the church for a number of years (this included an affiliation with Wicca), but eventually returned to the practice of Catholicism and is now a lay-oblate of the Trappist monastery in Conyers, Ga. (a foundation of Gethsemani). If the Wicca connection presses anyone's buttons--as well it might--please give the site a good checking out and make an informed decision based on the quality of the material.