“Blessed is the man whose help comes from you, whose heart is lifted up, and whose soul is placed in the valley of tears, in the place where you have placed it.”
What spiritual ascents does the prophet speak to us about, which when a person places them in his heart, his life becomes blessed?
Our current era, with its material achievements and civilizations and the scientific progress that has taken place, offers man wonderful possibilities, such as seeing the entire world from his place, hearing about everything that is happening and occurring, observing every “fashion” and every common custom, and following any event!
The media, the screen, newspapers, transportation and communications, provide man with contact and interaction not only with his immediate external environment, but also with the entire world far from him. When these wonderful possibilities overwhelm man today, unfortunately, they bring him results that he does not desire for himself.
There is a condition that some people suffer from today, which is submission to the dominance of modern civilization, not as beneficiaries but as admired slaves who follow them and not as leaders, and ultimately as users and not as users. The first and most dangerous of these negative results is that all of the above takes the person outward and makes him live in a state of external “explosion” in which he loses control over his interior. He lives “dragged” behind every news, fashion or event…!
This is what a funny French comedy expresses: its gist in brief is that a teacher used to follow the world news on the small television screen every morning before going to school. While he was following the news of the whole world one morning, that world far from him, in which he has no role or influence, at that moment disturbing sounds came to him from outside, and when he went to the window to close it, he saw a demonstration...! Out of his curiosity, he asked about it, and it turned out to be a demonstration of teachers demanding their rights. Yes, today's man lives outside himself, discussing all the matters that, for the most part, do not concern him, but rather distract him, and he even forgets his rights, and ultimately his own right to him, and even his duties. The comedy is extreme, but it gives an image of the dispersion in which today's man lives, and although it also does not mean indifference to the outside world, it indicates an unconscious departure from our inner world.
This external “explosion” has severed the connection between man and his fellow man. Every individual has begun to feel that he is a drop in an incoherent sea, a strange drop among other drops. Man has gone beyond himself and has not met another close to him, so he has remained a stranger among strangers. “Social loneliness” is a state that carries a terrible contradiction and creates a counter-reaction. Today, more than ever, there is a growing tendency and search for methods, times and ways to dive inward. This is something that the secret Eastern religions have exploited, which depend on these strange sports. The desire is increasing, especially among young people, to take drugs or practices or various methods through which they try to dive into the interior from which they have emerged, so they have become alienated from themselves and thrown themselves into the harsh loneliness of loneliness in societies in which every person lives as an individual, a consumer or a consumer without a relative. Every day, there are more and more companies and joint businesses that connect us with interest, and in which caution and cunning prevail, while there is no sincere heartfelt cooperation that gives work and life their true face, which is love.
However, the Church is a paradise of friendships and an oasis of love in the deserts of disintegrated societies. In the Church, one truly returns to oneself. And the return to oneself, which we learn and hear about, is completely different from the previous inward immersion. Inward immersion is an introversion that is the opposite of outward dispersion, while the return to oneself is the Christian ascetic art, and the true solution to the fatigue of that contemporary outward dispersion. If inward immersion is a reaction and rejection of the outside world, isolation from it, and an individual encounter with oneself in the darkness of the heart, then the return to oneself through Christian practice is not introversion, isolation, or isolation with oneself at all, but rather an encounter in the heart with “He” whom the heavens cannot contain. Returning to the self is not a rejection of the disintegrated external environment, which fails to provide any encounter with any relative, nor is it a selfish recovery of the lost self, but rather an internal union in the heart with the One who is closer to us than we are to ourselves; with Christ!
Returning to oneself and to the heart is meeting Christ in the most sincere moment of friendship. It is the true opening of oneself to those closest to oneself. Therefore, whoever reaches this close relative cannot be separated from him by the noise of knowledge, and he is able to return to himself while in the world. The secret of meeting Christ is not to reject the world, but to carry Christ in the heart in order to transmit him to the world.
The return to oneself, as our biblical tradition likens it, is not a dive, but rather “elevators,” “staircases,” or a ladder. The heart is not an inner darkness, but a ladder erected from everyday earthly life to heaven. That is why the psalmist says, “Blessed is the man, and blessed is he who has placed in his heart not external distractions, but spiritual ascents, ascents in the valley of weeping, the valley of returning to oneself and to the heart, the valley of encountering with tears the “neighbor”—the “stranger” whose kingdom is not of this world. The return to oneself is a glimpse into the wide, open world. It is an entry, as Christ says, into the Kingdom of God within us: “The Kingdom of God is within you.”(33)It is a touch and a taste of true happiness, into whose world we entered on the day of baptism, but unfortunately we live outside of it in a world that distracts us from ourselves and from the One who dwells within us. Returning to the self is harvesting the fruits of baptism that were planted in us. It is an encounter with the Holy Trinity in the inner sanctuary of the heart, it is an ascent on those spiritual elevators, it is bliss, the bliss of encounter to the point of tears.
But what are those ascending steps, and what are those elevators? We do not need a long discussion today, but it is enough for us to summarize those long experiences of the men who attained that beatitude. These steps are many. And we ascend them one by one. Not in leaps but gradually, little by little.
The first of these elevators is “patience.” Because patience is the firm and solid foundation upon which this long ascent will take place. With patience, we overcome every hesitation and every difficulty that we encounter during our ascent. Failure before every attempt means failure, from the first start. This patience is the “rock of faith.” Deep faith in the Lord whom we will meet and who will establish us and who will come to us is the rock upon which this heavenly ladder is built. Patience is the secret to the success of our elevators and the basic beginning of the desired end, love. Therefore, patience is the basic condition for meeting the God of love, the Lord Jesus.
After patience comes “silence.” True spiritual silence. Not to stop talking, but to not say idle words, that is, to stop saying harmful and unnecessary words. By silence, the Holy Fathers say, we cut off half of our sins and slips. We do not speak if there is no need. And when we speak, let our words be from the Holy Spirit and constructive. Let each of us measure his words and count how many of them were constructive or at least necessary, and how many of them were harmful or intrusive… That is why the Book says: “A slip is not from the surface, but a slip is from the tongue.” Do we not go out to external distraction from the tongue? The ascetic tradition explains that not releasing passions is half of their healing. If we are angry internally, this is natural, but releasing curses, words or expressions is a breaking before passion and its development. While silence is a limit to it and a weakening, and is half of the healing. And the Lord told us: “By your words you will be judged, and by your words you will be justified.”(34)Who is the blessed one who will reach the level of Saint Silouan the Athonite? To the level where a person only speaks “when the Spirit speaks in him” and the person is silent! This person will say with the Apostle Paul, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” That is why Paul is called “the mouth of Jesus Christ”; because as Chrysostom said about him: “When Paul speaks, Christ speaks through his mouth.”
The third of these elevators is “prayer”; true prayer; prayer with all the heart. Humble prayer. Because through prayer, the union and encounter in the heart with Christ the Lord takes place. And the encounter there is direct. Prayer is our strongest weapon in our life and against our enemies. It is the measure of our entry into the heart. Therefore, whoever possesses prayer and encounters the Lord has returned to his heart, even if he is in the midst of the noise of the whole world. Prayer means living with Christ so that he lives in us. To live and think only of Christ. To pray with all the heart means that we have truly entered the heart, and it means a true return to the self. The issue is not diving as much as it is purity for this encounter. Contemporary external dispersion clouds and makes this encounter difficult and distorts the words of prayer.
The world with its problems is not necessarily a distraction or a disturbance. When we face it as a Christian with responsibility, we can carry it with us to the heart to Christ. The problem is not with the world, but with the attitude of confronting it. If we carry it with the responsibility of the apostle, it will become for us, as it should be, a leader to Christ and to love. However, if we face it as weak people or go out to its distant recesses prematurely, it will break us and take us out to its noise where we will not encounter Christ and will not return with Him to ourselves, because we will live in it as if we were from it. And the blind cannot lead the blind.
The fourth degree is what the Fathers call the art of “vigilance,” which is to watch over oneself, that is, over thoughts, and over what enters and leaves our inner chamber. It is a watch that prevents the noise and triviality of the world from entering the inner sanctuary; it is a faithful and conscious guard that drives out the “lusts of the world” that drive out from within us the “love of people.” It is a regulator at the door of the heart that allows only good thoughts and feelings of repentance and humility to enter. In other words, it is a fortress and a shield for our inner world against the attacks of passions, inclinations, and harmful external circumstances, and against the “evil arrows, heated and deceitfully raging against us.”
Inner vigilance and watchfulness are a light directed at the heart. This vigilance is practically practiced through constant self-examination and recourse to confession and repentance. Organizing life around this sacrament is a seal of the success of our ascending journey on that heavenly ladder that we placed in our heart on the day we were baptized. Practicing this practical movement of vigilance and watchfulness is a sure guarantee of the health and safety of the return to the self, a sure path to the heart and to those divine ascents and ladders, to the Lord who stands behind the door and knocks. Blessed is the man who has placed elevators in his heart in the valley of weeping, Amen.
(32) Footnote related to the title: This psalm is recited at the Ninth Hour Prayer.
(33) Luke 17:21.
(34) Matthew 12:37.