Ephesians 5:8-19
Troparion, Kontakion, etc.
Matthew 4:25-5:12

The Weight of the Soul

Here on the Fourth Sunday of Great and Holy Lent, we observe the saint day of St. John of Mt. Sinai, also called Klimatikos after his great spiritual work, the Κλιμας, which is translated The Ladder of Ascent.

Let us emphasize the word ascent, for the overall idea here in the middle of Lent is to rise above the meanness and heaviness of the world toward the kindly place and lightness of Heaven. St. Paul says it plainly in his Letter to the Romans:

On our long trek of forty days, it is easy to lose focus. We might say, "Why am I doing this? Where am I going anyway?" But the answer is, "I am returning home. I am becoming what I once was. I am reclaiming the mind and heart and soul of my youth." In that sense, every penitent during Lent is a Prodigal Son returning to his former goodness. The "transformation by the renewal of your mind" that St. Paul speaks of is the all-important journey of going back to our best selves. For we cannot transform into something we know nothing about. No. Our journey is toward something we know everything about! And our memory of the uncorrupted life of our youth is a shining beacon guiding us past rocky shores, through high seas, into safe harbor. For unless we become like children, we cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven (Mt 18:3). On that account, the evil one will redouble his efforts to corrupt us, to overwhelm us with high waves, for that is how we were lost at sea in the first place.

The Ladder of Ascent, therefore, is a work that is more about an inner journey than it is about ladders. It is not like The Magic Ladder of Success: the Wealth-Builders Concise Guide to Winning published in 2010 or The Leadership Ladder published in 2015. It is not about upward mobility. Consider the Latin translation of this great work: Scala Paradisi. Yes, scala is translated as ladder or staircase. But it also calls to mind another Latin word, scale, meaning scale, from which we get our theological words eschaton or eschatology. The idea here is not "moving up," but rather "how do we weigh in the balance?" Consider Proverbs 16:2:

As the adopted children of God, our faultless exemplar is God's Son, our Brother, the Lord Jesus. He emptied Himself of Divinity to enter the narrow confines of our broken humanity. But when He had shed His mortal body on earth, He did not spurn it, but quite the opposite. The Ascended Christ came to His disciples in bodily form, even His wounded body. He insisted on His wounds: "Put your finger here, ... and place it in my side" (Jn 20:27). He ate with His disciples relishing the ingestion of food.

Our bodies will also be resurrected. (St. John wrote, "He will rise with me!") They are holy requiring reverence and tenderness. Of the body, St. John writes, "I am bound to him forever." As we ask of our own spouse, "What would Heaven be without my dear friend?"

Is Heaven not about the body? If this is so, then Heaven is not about God, for the Son of God is fully man, so the Holy Trinity is inextricably human in some part of its mysterious composition. How exalted is the body, then, in this most high state of royalty! Shall we accord it less respect? The poet W. B. Yeats described the immortal soul as being "fastened to a dying animal" (Sailing to Byzantium). It is constantly our choice, therefore, to choose what our bodies shall be — having godlike dignity or the bestial character of a dog.

We shrink in horror to hear people say they are "getting in touch with their inner animal." For this affords a glimpse of Hell: bestial, compulsive, chaotic in its animal impulses. We call this state pandemonium, literally, all demons. Its favored habitation is either humans who are open to demonic possession through sin's compulsion, such as the demoniac living among the Geresenes, or (which is not every different) herds of manic swine.

But we seek Heaven. We befriend our bodies in a different way, therefore. We remember our original creation and intention. We seek a physical bearing and mind like unto Jesus of Nazareth. How do we reclaim this? First, we must own that The Ladder of Ascent is not about perfecting our personalities as self-help books would counsel. The Kingdom of Heaven is not an outward thing. It is an inward state, the state of our own Heavenly being, not our worldly doing. To the busy Martha who did all things right, Jesus said, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things. One thing is needful" (Luke 10:41-42). And that one thing is the continual contemplation of God, which constantly revivifies our divine natures, as St. Athanasius would say (De Incarnatione).

If ascent is more than a war against the passions, then what? It is a recollection of our essential, original nobility, which is repulsed by worldly ways, much less animal conduct. Let us consider examples from the Scala itself.

Of Vainglory St. John writes, "A vainglorious person is a believer ... and an idolator. Apparently honoring God, he actually is out to please not God, but men"  (Step 22). This man is not so much interested in the renewal of mind, but rather loves the idea of conversion, loves to be seen to be holy. He is an actor of the gentle and the beautiful, not a pilgrim seeking Heaven. And how often do we mistake this gentle character in a person for saintliness?

Of Falsehood, St. John writes, "Lying is the destruction of charity, and perjury the very denial of God"  (Step 12). For all people who claim their Heavenly part but continue in grave sin have not ceased living a double life. Is their sin "a victimless crime"? St. John answers that,

Sincerity and openness go to the heart of the spiritual life. And this brings us to one of the essences of the Scala, which is holy shame. St. John writes that "Repentance is the daughter of hope and the refusal to despair. (The penitent stands guilty — but undisgraced)." "It is the purification of conscience"  (Step 5). And of its near relation, Sorrow, he writes, "Hold fast to the blessed and joyful sorrow of holy compunction and do not cease laboring for it until it lifts you high above the things of the world ..."  (Step 7).

Here is the remedy against a double life and of Vainglory, bringing us to authentic Humility. "The man with Humility will be gentle, kind, inclined to compunction, sympathetic, calm in every situation, radiant, inoffensive, alert and active"  (Step 25). And he will be constantly discerning. "Discernment is ... understanding the will of God in all times, in all places, in all things, and it is found among those who are pure in heart, in body, and in speech"  (Step 26), having lost the inclination toward the "inner animal" entirely. In this, the pilgrim draws closer to union with God following Jesus Who says, "He who has seen me has seen the Father" (Jn 14:9). "I and the Father are One" (Jn 10:30).

How quiet must you be to know the state of your own soul? How spiritually discerning must you be to know its weight? The great paradox of the ladder is that the higher you climb, the lighter you become. And when you reach the end, you arrive to where you began in purity, humility, and quiet of mind. Let us conclude with words near to the top of St. John's Ladder: