Holy Resurrection
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St. Maximus the Confessor on the Soul Left Desolate
12:08
The reading comes from St. Maximus the Confessor's treatise On the Ascetic Life, also known in Latin as Liber Asceticus, a work of 45 chapters written around AD 626, or before AD 633-634, at the request of the priest Elpidius. The text quoted is from A Discourse on the Ascetic Life in the Russian edition of St. Maximus's Selected Works translated by A. I. Sidorov (Moscow: Palomnik, 2004), pages 109-135. The discourse is a penitential examination of the soul in the voice of one who confesses his own desolation.
It opens with those who keep Christ's commandments and can say with the Apostle, 'It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me': being reviled they bless, being persecuted they endure, being defamed they entreat, following the command to love enemies. The speaker then confesses that we act contrary to all the commandments and have become a house of merchandise instead of the temple of God, a den of thieves instead of a house of prayer, and sons of lawlessness instead of sons of God, fallen into bondage to evil spirits through impure passions.
The discourse gathers Scripture to show this condition: Isaiah's lament over the sick head and the wounds from the sole of the foot to the head; the Apostle's list of unrighteousness, fornication, envy, murder, deceit, pride and disobedience to parents; and the Lord's words, 'Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.' Isaiah's rebuke of vain sacrifices shows that ascetic struggle without love is foreign to God, since whoever hates his brother is a murderer.
The Lord's indictment of the Pharisees is applied to present-day hypocrites who bind heavy burdens on others, love to be honored, and appear righteous outwardly while inwardly filled with hypocrisy. The prayer ends asking God not to deliver us up utterly, but to remember His covenant, the firstfruits of our nature that the Son of God bears in heaven, and His mercy, since our hope is not in our own righteousness.
Key moments
- Those who make room within themselves for the whole Christ through the commandments can say, 'It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me,' and being reviled they bless, being persecuted they endure, being defamed they entreat, following the Lord's command to love enemies.
- Because we act contrary to all Christ's commandments, we have become a house of merchandise instead of the temple of God, a den of thieves instead of a house of prayer, and sons of lawlessness instead of sons of God, having fallen into bondage to evil spirits through impure passions.
- Isaiah cries out over our fallen condition: the whole head is sick, from the sole of the foot to the head there is no soundness but wounds and petrified sores, and the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard and as a besieged city.
- The Apostle describes those who did not like to retain God in their knowledge as filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, envy, murder, deceit, pride, and disobedience to parents, so that God gave them up to vile affections and His wrath is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness.
- The Lord laments, 'O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets... how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not. Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.'
- Isaiah rebukes those who perform only outward bodily service while neglecting the spiritual life: God is full of burnt offerings, incense is an abomination to Him, He hides His eyes and will not hear their many prayers, because their hands are full of blood, and whoever hates his brother is a murderer.
- The Lord's words against the Pharisees are applied to present-day hypocrites: we bind heavy burdens on others' shoulders, do all works to be seen by men, love the chief places and to be called rabbi, shut the kingdom of heaven against men, strain out a gnat and swallow a camel, and are like whitewashed tombs outwardly righteous but inwardly filled with hypocrisy and uncleanness.
- Because of this we who were sons of the kingdom have become sons of Gehenna, delivered into the hands of savage demons and the prince of these demons; the prayer asks God not to disannul His covenant, to remember the firstfruits of our nature that the Son of God bears in heaven, and to blot out our sins for His name's sake, for we do not place our hope in our own righteousness but in His mercy.