The Evergetinos - Hypothesis XL, Part VII and Hypothesis XLI, Part I

In the advertisement for and description of this evening’s group, I wrote: “How does one deal with feelings of desolation in regards to one’s vocation, resentment towards others, being treated with envy or finding one’s circumstances to be a source of temptation? In the face of the many trials brought upon us by the evil one, great perseverance is needed and freedom from self will.”  This description, however, does not capture the depth of the wisdom that we were exposed to this evening. All of our asceticism, all the ways that we seek to remove the impediment of our passions, all the ways that we seek to remain focused upon the spiritual battle that lies within the heart has one end: to bring us to the place where we can enter into the Paschal Mystery in union with Christ. Not one of us should seek to leave the training, ground of the spiritual life prematurely or to choose to rest before God grants it. For it is precisely in this battle that all that remains an impediment to our ascending the cross with Christ is removed. Abba Isaiah, in the richest and most beautiful interpretation of the Passion, unpacks for us the meaning of every experience of our Lord; not that we might reflect upon it in an abstract fashion, but that we would take hold of His experiences as our own. We engage in the ascetical life not to reach the kind of moral perfection or emotional Nirvana but rather that we might reach the place where we can ascend the Cross with Christ. Once we are delivered from all of these things, we pass through our own Passion Week and enter into another, new age, thinking new and incorrupt thoughts. We are reminded of St. Paul’s words, “set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For you’re dead.“ We leave our sins behind and find mercy together with those who are worthy of Him!
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Text of chat during the group:
00:10:59 FrDavid Abernethy: page 353 paragraph 4
 
00:11:16 FrDavid Abernethy: And Elder said: “Just as a tree . . . .
 
00:32:56 Anthony: I suggest that the various revolutions, including the American,  were designed to uproot a stable society.  The mass migrations of the late 1800s to 1900s were caused by Socialist governments displacing their peasants. This uprooted stability and is a root of our mental and moral afflictions today.
 
00:36:36 Anthony: The honest peasant is an essential character for Solzhenitsyn.
 
00:37:05 Louise: Focus
 
00:37:07 Anthony: Vanishing point
 
00:37:40 Zoom user: True North
 
00:37:54 Carol: touchstone
 
00:40:59 Anthony: The reformation was a symptom of society failing in its "monastic " vocation.
 
00:48:48 Louise: Sartre
 
00:50:38 Louise: Ste-Thérèse-de-Lisieux forced herself to hang out with the most annoying nun in the convent in order to confront her impatience and find her deeper loving kindness.
 
01:19:37 Louise: Thank you, Fr. Abernethy!
 
01:19:43 sheri: Thank you.