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When we read a passage like this from St. Isaac, it is tempting to focus on the warnings. We notice his words about passions, distraction, worldliness, anger, vainglory, and talkativeness. We see the severity of his language and immediately begin examining ourselves.

Yet I do not think that is where Isaac wants us to begin.

He wants us first to behold the beauty.

Again and again throughout his writings, Isaac speaks as one who has glimpsed something almost too wonderful for words. He has seen what a human being becomes when Christ reigns in the heart. He has seen the Kingdom hidden within. He has seen the glory for which every man and woman was created.

Listen to his words.

The country of the pure soul is within. The sun shining there is the Holy Trinity. The air breathed there is the Holy Spirit. Christ Himself is the joy, life, and happiness of that realm.

Isaac is describing nothing less than the transfiguration of the human person.

So often we think of the spiritual life as self-improvement. We focus on our weaknesses, our failures, our habits, our mistakes. We become preoccupied with ourselves. Even our repentance can become a subtle form of self-absorption.

But Isaac speaks of something infinitely greater.

He speaks of a life so united to Christ that the human heart becomes a dwelling place of divine glory.

He speaks of a man whose deepest identity is no longer found in his wounds, his history, his successes, his failures, or even his struggles. His identity is found in Christ who dwells within him.

This is why Isaac can speak of the soul beholding its own beauty.

At first this sounds strange to modern ears. We are accustomed either to pride or self-hatred. We know how to admire ourselves and we know how to despise ourselves. We know very little of seeing ourselves truthfully.

The saints do not admire themselves.

They behold Christ shining within them.

They see the image of God being restored.

They see the Holy Spirit at work.

They see what humanity looks like when it becomes transparent to divine life.

And this vision fills them with wonder.

To glimpse this beauty is enough to make one weep.

Not sentimental tears.

The kind of tears that come when one suddenly realizes what God intended from the beginning.

The tragedy is that most of us live far beneath this reality.

We spend our lives fascinated by lesser things.

We cling to distractions.

We become consumed with opinions, arguments, comforts, entertainments, possessions, ambitions, resentments, and anxieties.

All the while a kingdom lies hidden within us.

This is why Isaac’s words become so mournful near the end of the passage.

“I know not what to say of him,” he writes concerning the man bound to worldly consolations, “except to weep with inconsolable cries of lamentation.”

Why such grief?

Because Isaac is not merely lamenting moral failure.

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