Episode Details

Saint Isaac the Syrian begins his teaching with a gentle reminder that liberation from material things, that is, our attachment to the things of this world and placing them above God, is a slow process that involves great toil. Yet, this is the common order of things. In our journey, we often have to break loose of the mooring of those things that prevent us from loving. And so Isaac teaches us that righteous activity involves comprehending what God has revealed to us and then embodying it through action - praxis. Even as we make gains our memory of past sins and failures often brings grief to the soul. We shouldn’t be discouraged by this, St. Isaac tells us, but we must simply allow these recollections to lead us to greater repentance and gratitude for God‘s mercy.

Yet all of this is but a prelude to Isaac asking us an important question: Do you desire to commune with God by perceiving the love and the mercy that He reveals not just with the mind or the senses but through faith and experience?  Do you desire God? Do you desire Love? If our answer to this question is “yes” then Isaac tells us we must pursue mercy: “For when something that is like unto God is found in you, then that holy beauty is depicted by Him.“ We begin to see and comprehend the mercy and love of God by loving as he loves; by going beyond the limitations and the confines of our own understanding. 

Such spiritual unity once unsealed incessantly blazes in the heart with ardent longing. The soul‘s divine vision, Isaac tells us, unites one to God and the heart becomes awestruck; filled with wonder at what no eye has seen or mind could imagine outside of the grace of God. The path to divine love first begins by showing compassion in some proportion to the Father’s perfection. As Christ tells us, “Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect, be merciful as your Heavenly Father is merciful“

The dignity and destiny that is ours, the life and love into which God draws us should be what we pursue the most in life. To desire God, to give free reign to an urgent longing for Him brings about our transformation. Desire is our path to the Kingdom within.

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Text of chat during the group:

00:15:08 Callie Eisenbrandt: I’ll take your books Father!! 😂

00:16:21 Bob Čihák, AZ: P 117 paragraph 26 starting "Liberation from...."

00:20:11 Eleana: I want Icons😁

00:30:39 Sr. Charista Maria: Amen Father. So very true. We so often fall so short of such communion with the indwelling presence of the Holy Trinity. Most don't realize the profound grace of our Baptism.

00:30:43 Anthony: This is interesting.....in Italian, a translation of "lust" is "desire."  Lust (the sin) must be misplaced desire.

00:31:53 Paisios: There's a phenomenal article by Cormac Jones about converting desire being the most important thing in the Christian spiritual life

00:31:55 Paisios: https://cormacjones.substack.com/p/converting-desire

00:33:38 Sr Mary Clare: Reacted to "https://cormacjones...." with 👍

00:34:19 Anthony: Reacted to There's a phenomenal... with "👍"

00:34:25 Anthony: Reacted to https://cormacjones.... with "👍"

00:36:16 Jamie Hickman: Replying to "This is interestin..."

concupiscence...think concupiscible appetite. we tend to think of it only in the negative (evil, sinful), but as you say: it is not in itself bad

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