Episode Details

It bears saying that we find ourselves upon a privileged path as we begin this new journey with Saint Isaac the Syrian. To have access to his writings and access to such a translation in the West is a recent phenomenon and one not to be taken lightly. Further it is often said that Isaac is the greatest of the Desert Fathers in that through his writings one can move from being a novice in the spiritual life to the heights of contemplation.

Immediately, one discovers that Isaac is unique and distinctive in his manner of approaching the spiritual life. He appeals to our capacity in faith to comprehend divine love and what has been revealed to us through Christ. It is what we comprehend in faith that fills the heart with wonder; that we are embraced by a love that never ends and that only seeks to raise us up out of the darkness of sin to the fullness of light. Isaac understands that, made in the image and likeness of God, we are going to be driven by desire; that is, a sense of lack and incompleteness. God has made us for himself and we only find our identity and the fullness for which we long in him.

Our struggle is our attachment to the things of this world, including our own ego – the self. There are so many things that vie for our attention that the “one thing necessary” is often pushed out to the margins of our life or out of mind altogether. The love out of which we have been created and the lavish love through which we have been redeemed is often supplanted by that which eventually turns to dust.

Our awareness of this should produce within us a fear that creates a movement toward God. Repentance is simply or acting on that awareness; turning away from our sin and our attachment to the things of this world and opening ourselves up to the healing grace and mercy of God. It is for this reason that Isaac does not focus on the development of virtue and the overcoming of vice as others do. For ultimately, we are not seeking the perfection of natural virtue or even to exceed what we understand as the heights of virtue. Rather, we are to understand the ascetic life is radically tied to being “in Christ”. In other words, the radical transformation that takes place through the grace that we receive through baptism, the Eucharist, and through the gift of the Holy Spirit leads to our participation in the life of the Trinity. Deification is what has been promised to those of faith. It is divine humility, divine love, divine compassion, and divine vulnerability that we are to embody. This takes place not through raw grit but rather through abandonment to Christ in a spirit of humility. As we let go of the illusion of self identity, independent of Christ, the true self begins to emerge. 
Thus if we take anything away from this evening’s discussion and reflection it should be the sense of wonder and desire that Isaac seeks to cultivate within the human heart. Love alone endures and the desire it produces inflames the heart to pursue the Beloved and the Life of the Kingdom.

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Text of chat during the group: 

00:15:34 Bob Cihak: Father's Substack comments are another blessing for me. The come by email to me, several times daily and are beautifully succinct, most of the time.

00:17:15 Sr. Mary Clare: Thank you, Father!

00:36:18 Ren Witter: Sr. Barbara - would you mind sending your question to the whole group in the chat so that the people reading/listening to the podcast know what you asked? (I think your question must have been sent directly to Fr. Charbel).

00:36:30 mflory: The whole first paragraph is a chain of practices/virtues: reflection on the “restitution” (provid