April 18, 1999
What is the Point of the
Ascetic Life?
Now that Orthodox Lent is finished, let us look to the road ahead
and ask ourselves, "What is the point of the ascetic life? What is the point of
fasting and vigils and prayer and deprivation? Why should the Christian endure these
things?"
St. John Cassian and his travelling companion, Germanus, asked such
a question in "Conferences." Abbot Moses in Scetis answered this questions in
the following way:
BEGIN: [St. John Cassian asked] "So tell me then what is the
end and the objective which inspires you to endure all these trials so gladly?" Since
he [Abbot Moses] really wanted to know our answer to this question we replied that we had
taken on all this for the sake of the kingdom of God.
"A good answer insofar as it concerns your goal," he
said, "But now what should be our aim, what direction should we take which, if
closely followed, will bring us to our objective? This, above all, is something of which
you ought to be aware."
We admitted, in all honesty, that we did not know. "As I have
remarked already, every art and discipline is preceded by some objective," he said,
"The spirit points in a certain direction. There is an unwavering purpose in the
mind. If this is not held on to with all eagerness and dedication there can be no coming
to the longed-for fruits of the goal. The farmer, as I remarked, has the goal of living
peacefully in sure abundance thanks to good rich harvests, and in order to reach that end
he sets himself to clearing the brambles and the useless grasses from his land. He knows
well that he will not enjoy that restful ease toward which he is striving unless somehow
his work and his aspirations themselves become a sort of foretaste of what he hopes to
actually enjoy one day.
"The merchant does not put aside his urge to amass goods, for
it is through these that he can grow wealthy on the proceeds. It would be useless for him
to have a wish for profit if he did not follow the road heading there.
"And there are those who have a wish for the honors of this
world. They take on this job or follow that career, depending on the honor they want, and
they do so in order to arrive at their wished-for plan by way of the right path along
which hope leads them.
"In the same fashion the objective of our life is the kingdom
of God, but we should carefully ask what we should aim for. If we do not look very
carefully into this we will wear ourselves out in useless strivings. For those who travel
without a marked road there is the toil of the journey – and no arrival at a
destination."
Seeing our amazement at all this, the old man resumed: "As we
have said, the aim of our profession is the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven. But
our point of reference, our objective, is a clean heart, without which it is impossible
for anyone to reach our target. If we keep to this point of reference we will proceed with
all assurance, as though along a carefully drawn line. If our minds wander a little form
this we can come back to it again and keep our eye on it, using it as a standard by which
to give ourselves sure guidance. This standard will draw all our efforts toward the one
point and will serve as a warning to us if our minds waver even a little from the proposed
route."
. . . "Everything we do, our every objective, must be
undertaken for the sake of this purity of heart. This is why we take on loneliness,
fasting, vigils, work, nakedness. For this we must practice the reading of the Scripture,
together with all the other virtuous activities, and we do so to trap and to hold our
hearts free of the harm of every dangerous passion and in order to rise step by step to
the high point of love.
"It may be that some good and necessary task prevents us from
achieving fully all that we set out to do. Let us not on this account give way to sadness
or anger or indignation, since it was precisely to repel these that we would have done
what in fact we were compelled to omit. What we gain from fasting does not compensate for
what we lose through anger. Our profit from scriptural reading in no way equals the damage
we cause ourselves by showing contempt for a brother. We must practice fasting, vigils,
withdrawal, and the meditation of Scripture as activities which are subordinate to our
main objective, purity of heart, that is to say, love, and we must never disturb this
principal virtue for the sake of those others. If this virtue remains whole and unharmed
within us, nothing can injure us, not even if we are forced to omit any of these other
subordinate virtues. Nor will it be of any use to have practiced all these latter if there
is missing in us that principal objective for the sake of which all else is undertaken.
"A worker takes the trouble to get hold of the instruments
that he requires. He does so not simply to have them and not use them. Nor is there any
profit for him in merely possessing the instruments. What he wants is, with their help, to
produce the crafted objective for which these are the efficient means.
"In the same way, fasting, vigils, scriptural meditation,
nakedness, and total deprivation do not constitute perfection but are the means to
perfection. They are not themselves the end point of a discipline, but an end is attained
through them. To practice them will therefore be useless if someone instead of regarding
these as means to an end is satisfied to regard them as the highest good. One would
possess the instruments of a profession without knowing the end where the hoped-for fruit
is to be found.
"And so anything which can trouble the purity and the peace of
our heart must be avoided as something very dangerous, regardless of how useful and
necessary it might actually seem to be. With this for a rule we will be able to avoid the
lack of concentration which comes as the mind follows highways and byways and we will be
able to go with an assured sense of direction toward our longed-for goal." END
from St. John Cassian’s "Conferences," (New
York: Paulist Press, 1985), pp. 38-40, 41-42.
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