There is an INCREDIBLE Saint who the Church reminds us of on this 4th Sunday of our Lenten Journey. His name was St. John, 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 seldom seen in our own day and age. That being said, even in the 6th century, St. John’s holiness, his way of life, and the miracles wrought through him by God Himself, became known all throughout the world.
Naturally, there were others that sought to follow and emulate St. John’s asceticism. 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: St. John created a list of 30 steps that a faithful ascetic must ascend if they are to reach communion with God.
We have many different tools in our life that are used to help us ascend to a higher plain. In the current construction of the Church, I have literally seen it all: Classic wooden ladders, machines called “Booms”, scissor lifts, scaffolding, and even a space for a future elevator. Perhaps the only popular mode of ascension I haven’t seen is an escalator, which is one of the more popular modes of ascension that is used in our own day and age. There are many people that see our journey up to heaven as riding on an escalator. The popular belief is that if we make a small effort to get on, it will securely and comfortably take us to our destination. It is safe, smooth, and foolproof…we just have to get on and go for the ride.
For an Orthodox Christian, and in particular St. John, to simply step on the ladder isn’t enough. Ascension into the Angelic life isn’t electric and automatic. If we want to ascend, we have to put forth an effort and climb one step at a time.
I remember a few years ago (when I was in better but not “the best” shape), I took part in a “Tackle the Tower” event in downtown Cleveland to raise support for the Ronald McDonald House charity. The goal was to ascend the stairwell of Terminal Tower, a 52-flight climb, and be timed for your efforts. The reward was a cool sip of water, a pat on the back, and a ride back down the elevator when you were finished.
I remember standing in line and, wanting to show off to my future wife and mother-in-law, when the timer went off for my run, I shot up the stairs like a bullet. My Mother-in-law, who had dragged me to this event, immediately warned me to slow down or I would never make it to the top. I must have ascended 3 or 4 floors before I realized that this was going to be a lot harder than I thought…because the higher I climbed, the more difficult it was to even have the motivation to go on further.
I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to give up because I was out of breath. My body was screaming for me to stop and take elevator back down. There were teams of volunteers that were spread out throughout the stairwells to encourage those who were slowing down to keep going. By the time I reached the top floor, I wasn’t met with a cool sip of water, but with paramedics doing an EKG on me to make sure I was going to be ok!
I was reminded of this embarrassing episode from my life this week when I was meditating on our Lenten Journey and on the Ladder of Divine Ascent. On that first day of the Great Fast, we too shot out into the Lenten Desert like a bullet! Increased spiritual reading, increased prayers and services, a greater focus on what goes into and what comes out of our mouths. Inevitably, as we began our climb, we realized that this wasn’t going to be an easy victory.
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. I cannot tell you how many phone calls and conversations I have had with many of you, each dealing with a different kind of physical or spiritual affliction that became more intense during these past few weeks of ascetical struggle. Despite the feeling of being beaten down, exhausted, and tired, the only spiritual advice that the priest can offer is to “keep going”. Like those volunteers on the steps of that tower, so we too have the Saints…those incredible men and women who have already ascended the tower…motivating and cheering us on.
St. John himself in the Ladder encourages us, saying:
“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!