From St. Issac of Nineveh: "It is not fitting that when you live spaciously, you rejoice, but in afflictions are cast down and consider them foreign to the Way of God. For from aages and generations HIS Way is carved out by the Cross and Death.
Whence have you got this idea of treading the Way of God in comfort?
Learn from this that you are not in the Way of God, but drifting aside from it; that you do not wish to follow in the footsteps of the saints, but that you intend to create a "Special Way" for yourself, to be followed without suffering. The Way to God is a Daily Cross. No one has ascended to Heaven through easy life. We know where the Easy Way leads."
Ascetic Homilies 67, St. Issac of Nineveh
7th Century
Beloved Brethern,
I have sought throughout this Lent of the Apostles some way to communicate to you how far most of us are from Christian Salvation. " Nothing is worse for the soul than Bodily Comfort" (Tito Coliander, the Way of Ascetics) .
During this Summer Lent, some of us have to endure extreme heat, fleas and other unpleasant discomforts sent by God for our Salvation. In fact. many of us have ancestors who came to America to get rich and live in comfort, because they did not believe the Saying of the Lord , " Blessed be ye Poor! Woe to ye Rich! ( Luke 6:20 ff )
In my more than fifty years in religion, I have been blest to see many of the ancient ascetic practices of Christians going back to the very first centuries, and which endured, at least here and there, into the 20th century. Some of these are essential to Salvation! This is certain! The "New Christianity" which grows not from Sacred Tradition and 20 centuries of Practice, but from Comfort and a Mass Desire to excuse what is diametically opposed to the Christian Way.
When I was young, many many Christians slept on the floor for ascetic reasons, and married Christians always had separate beds for those many times when they should not sleep together, and separate bedrooms if they could afford it. Hair cloth was still sold in the market in the Holy City. Many monks kept a small container of ashes at hand to sprinkle over their food. Monks did not bathe unless they were ill. There are no bathing facilities on Athos, or at Mar Saba.
Many monks wore, besides hairshirts, chains, iron belts and other painful penitential devices, and the laity often received permission from their confessors to do the same. A mere cord drawn tight around the waste was very common, and very painful. Abba John the Little in Fifth Century Egypt was tortured by carnal warfare, which he overcame by burning the most sensitive parts of his body with hot coals. In the 20th century, iodine achieved the same purpose. This separates those who really want to be chaste from those who don't. Salvation depends upon it.
All these penances and more were in common use in the 20th century in monasteries in the Holy Land, AND among the laity. Many who had beds had them only for disguise, and never actually slept in them until they became too old to get up and down.
I remember too vividly how the older monks would reproach the novices for even fanning themselves with cardboard. We were there to do penance for our sins, and the sins of others.
If the laity had to work in offices and were "Keeping up Appearances," they because very ingenious at means of self - discipline that none might notice. They observed all rules of the work place or traffic meticulously, since all authority comes from God, and self will is to be fled like the Devil. They chose not what they wanted to eat, but what they liked least. Every laymen had a time of day to himself to read holy books and to pray in silence, but especially on Fast Days, Lents, and Holy Days.
I am forced to write these details now because many seem to never have even heard of them. Instead of as Christians, seeking the most Spartan and austere living accommodations, Christians live in luxury of which no emperor ever dreamed. Many do not even tithe, as the Lord Himself insists no one must neglect, despising the very Word of the LORD, without which they cannot be saved, and the clergy are to afraid to preach the Gospel to them! (They seem to fear their waiter more than God!) Christians have become lukewarm, undistinguishable from men of the world, and will inherit the same reward in the Next Life.
Hairshirts were worn by all kinds of Christians from the 2nd Century on,(if not earlier) as the Body of St. Cecelia (+160 A.D.) shows. St. Basil mentions his mother wearing one. Until very recent times, they were as common as dirt. St. Seraphim of Sarov is closer to us in time than George Washington, and he lived as a stylite on a rock for a thousand days, besides many other asceticisms. What has happened to us that our spiritual lives have declined almost beyond recognition in a lifetime. I remember the old lady who knew the 150 psalms in Arabic, and recited them or hummed them to herself while scrubbing the floors. I have seen countless ascetics who slept always on the floor for decades, and gathered burrs and nettles like prizes to put into their clothes. I hope and pray that there be some in the Levant that still live like this; such a Christian Life seems to have died out in America. I remember the dire warnings of ascetics in the East when they heard of central heating, and especially air conditioning being introduced into America. They are considered essential, but they are not, except as essential to the destruction of the Christian Life. These comforts cost, and so as rich as we are, Christians no longer tithe. In fact, Orthodox Christians contribute less to their churches, statistically than any other religion. We stand condemned and disgraced. Why are there not more and more serious concerts to Orthodox Christianity? Nobody can believe that we are serious Christians if we do not at least tithe, and they are right.
I am old and sickly, and I will not much longer be recounting the Lives of the Righteous of the 20th Century with their daily ascetic efforts, especially I must not forget to mention Prostrations, so neglected here and now. St. Issac of Nineveh says to make as many as possible, but never less than 30 a day. The Czar Alexei Michaelovich made one thousand every day while ruling a turbulent state, and even a LATIN king of Jerusalem made a thousand a day. What does this say about our "Christianity"?
Beloved Christians, I beg you to listen and hearken to the examples of our fathers, which I myself observed in the 20th century, already a period of sharp decline, and to repent of the lukewarmness, and of the sins of indulgence which are everywhere accepted, and about which not one clergymen in a thousand dares speak! Do not follow the Easy Way. We know where the Easy Way leads.
In another place, Tito Coliander writes, "Those who do not fast cannot understand even the simplest Mysteries of the Holy Trinity. And so we see those who do not take up their cross, see no problem when their clergy betray the Church, as is happening wholesale. Useless to even speak to them until they embrace the Cross of Self Denial.
God save us all. Remember me in your prayers. Remember what I have told you of 20th century Christianity in the Holy Land. It is not likely to ever return.
Burning Bush Monastery