Since the beginning of time, even until this very day, there are some incredible ascetics who are able to do some extraordinary things. We hear our Lord say in the book of Matthew how if we have faith the size of a mustard seed, we could say to a mountain “move here to there” and it will move. When we hear that, there is a temptation to think that maybe our Lord was exaggerating a bit. How could a simple human being pull off such a feat? Yet when we read the lives of the saints, and hear the testimony of witnesses throughout history, we see how these kinds of things aren’t an exaggeration at all!
St. Herman stopped a tidal wave with an icon of the Theotokos and Christ on the beach! St. Mary of Egypt walked on water as if it were dry land! St. Nektarios of Aegina healed a man who was paralyzed from the neck down when he was on his death bed! There are ascetics today that can see things before they happen. We could go to Mt. Athos today and go to meet with elders who spend their entire life in prayer. They would see us coming, acknowledge us by name, and then peer into the depths of our souls, telling us things about ourselves that we have never told to anyone!
The Saint who the Church reminds us of on the 4th Sunday of Great Lent, was one such ascetic. His name was St. John of Sinai and he spent 40 years in a cave about a half mile from the Monastery on Mt. Sinai, struggling in the arena of solitude. Can you imagine the spiritual effects of spending 4 decades of your life doing nothing but prayer, fasting, and drawing nearer to God? He was intimately connected with Christ in a way that is sometimes difficult to fathom!
There are so many incredible and miraculous things that happened in St. John’s life that had many witnesses. When he was made abbot of Sinai, the prophet Moses himself was seen serving tables at the monastery meal! When there was a drought in Palestine, St. John (who’s fame was widespread) was asked to pray. The moment he finished, heavy and dark clouds formed around the country which gave way to a heavy rainfall that brought nourishment to the crops and to the people.
One of my favorite stories was when St. John sent one of his disciples Moses to go find some fertilizer for the vegetable beds. In the middle of the scorching heat of the desert, Moses found refuge in the shade of an enormous rock, where he rested and eventually fell asleep.
St. John was in his cell, so immersed in prayer that he was to the point of a light sleep. He was awoken by a figure who rebuked him saying: “John, how can you be sleeping when Moses is in danger!?” The saint arose and began to fervently pray for Moses.
Later on in the evening, Moses returned and St. John asked: “Did anything dangerous happen to you today?”
The disciple said: “I was sleeping underneath a massive rock when I heard your voice and got up to find out where you were calling me from. The rock came lose and crushed down on the very place I was sleeping! I would have been crushed if I hadn’t moved in that moment!”
St. John’s simple response? “Glory to God”.
Naturally, there were others that sought to follow and emulate St. John’s ascetic way of life. Towards the end of his life, St. John received a written request by the abbot of a Raithu (a monastery located near the Red Sea), who addressed him as “the supernatural angelic father of fathers and incomparable teacher”. The abbot asked St. John to write down the steps they must take to live and find the angelic life through monasticism, and it is this writing that the Church remembers today: The Ladder of Divine Ascent.
The Church reminds us of this ladder of Divine Ascent as we reach the home stretch of Great Lent, to tell us that our entire Christian lives are about ascending towards the heavenly place that awaits us. Every day, we have to be ascending higher and higher in our relationship with God, because we know the dangers of what happens if we stop moving!
This week, both of my kids will be starting baseball again, which reminded me of a little training exercise we used to do in little league. Imagine throwing a baseball up in the air to practice catching “pop-ups”. When the baseball is thrown towards the sky, as long as there is enough energy pushing it upwards, it will ascend higher and higher. As soon as that energy is spent, the ball doesn’t stay up in the air, but rather comes crashing down to the ground…getting faster and faster as it descends.
Like throwing an object in the air, we too begin our lives with a great ascent…full of incredible amounts of energy and Grace. The moment we were baptized, an incredible amount of Grace thrust us upwards towards the Kingdom! Yet there were (and still are) moments in our lives where we are tempted to fall away from God and to stop that powerful ascent. The moment that we are absent for one Sunday, Feast Day, or Lenten Service…or when we break our ascetic attempts to fast…or when we forget to pray or indulge our passions, the energy of that upward ascent is stopped, and we fall back down to earth…faster and faster.
It is around this time that the weight of Great Lent begins to weigh down on so many people. The temptations are there to break our ascetism, to miss weekday services, and to continue with the business of the world during the most sacred time of the year. As with any strong parish community, if we notice someone is missing or struggling, it is our responsibility to reach out and to help them begin their ascent again. If we ourselves are the ones descending, then listen to the words of St. John at the end of the Ladder when he says:
“Ascend dear brothers, and ascend eagerly! Be resolved in your hearts to ascend and to hear Him who says: “Come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of our God, who makes our feet like hind’s feet, and sets us upon high places, that we might be victors with His song.”
Run, I beseech you, with Him who said: “Let us hasten until we attain to the unity of faith and of the knowledge of God, unto a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, who when He was baptized in the thirtieth year of His visible age, fulfilled the thirtieth step in the spiritual ladder; since God is indeed love, to whom be praise, dominion, power, in whom is and was and will be the cause of all goodness throughout endless ages. Amen.
Through the prayers of St. John of Sinai, may we continue our Ascent towards Holy Week and Pascha with the same energy and enthusiasm as the day we given new life at baptism!