📙 “THE SPIRITUAL LIFE”
And How to Be Attuned to It
St. Theophan the Recluse (1815–1894)
INTRODUCTION (Pages 9-11)
It was the first day of Great Lent, eight years ago, when in the middle of the afternoon the mailman delivered a small package at my door. After opening it, the first thing which caught my attention was a peaceful, blessed gaze coming from the image on the front page [of the earlier edition], the icon of St. Theophan the Recluse, author of the book The Spiritual Life and How to Be Attuned to It.
Ever since that afternoon, that book became my steady companion in the daily struggle toward spiritual life; a companion for my own soul as well as—having been called by the grace of the priesthood— one to share and give to others.
St. Theophan's book has become truly like an encyclopedia of Orthodox anthropology, for he knew how to explain the unexplainable with the unique gift of warming the hearts of the recipients of his letters as well as all those who would read his spiritual instructions in the years to come.
The need for such a book in our time is truly great. There are no adequate words to explain the various troubles and temptations that contemporary Orthodox Christians are undergoing at the beginning of this 21st century.
Very often we ask ourselves, "Do we have the spiritual strength for soul-saving endeavors?" But even if despondency should overcome us, we must never be discouraged for our problems are not new.
▪️The very same problems and struggles were known to the first generations of Christians, to the desert fathers, as well as to those in whose time St. Theophan wrote his counsels. St. Anthony the Great once said that a very difficult and godless time would come upon us, a time in which even a very small spiritual effort would mean a great deal in God's eyes.
The famous Abba Ischyrion was asked by his disciples, "What have we done?" And he quietly said, "We have carried out the commandments of God." But there came the second question, "What will those who come after us do?" He said, "They will do half as much of what we have done." "And what about those who will come after them?" Abba answered, "Those who will live close to the end of time will not have any monastic activity whatever, but they will be surrounded by great enmity and temptation, and those of them who persevere in the face of those temptations will, in the Kingdom of Heaven, be revealed as much greater than those of us and our fathers."
We don't need to enumerate the examples which speak to the fact that our times are dangerously close to the last days, whether this will be within the next ten, one hundred, or two hundred years.
Every Christian soul that has received the Grace of the Holy Spirit at Holy Baptism and Chrismation should not give in to these temptations, for we know that temptations must come, but woe unto him through whom they come (Luke 17:1).
▪️ The particular quality or, shall we say, the inner beauty of St. Theophan's letters lies in the fact that he never presents the Kingdom of Heaven and the path which leads to it with colors of fear but always through the fine nuances of God's love, which shines upon every breathing soul.
His knowledge of the human soul is enormous; he makes a clear distinction between the three aspects of the soul: "in the mental part, the yearning for the ideal in the soul appears from the action of the spirit"; "in the active part, it is from the action of the soul that there appears desire for and production of unselfish deeds of virtue"; and "in the sensual part of the soul there appears a yearning and love for the beautiful."
Although St. Theophan lived before the "discovery" of deep psychology, he has shown that the richness of his personal spiritual experience is adorned with an almost second-to-none knowledge of the depth of psychological and emotional fragility. That is exactly why he developed a perfect methodology in presenting almost each and every spiritual pearl from the treasury of Orthodox spirituality.
▪️Just reading through the contents of these eighty chapters (letters), one can see how deeply rooted he was and how knowledgeable about St. John Climacus' masterpiece, The Ladder of Divine Ascent.
Something which characterizes the writings of St. Theophan, stemming from his being a spiritual father and teacher, are the dynamics of his spiritual direction.
▪️ From every page we can feel the depth and wisdom of the desert fathers whose teachings he implemented; first of all, in his own spiritual struggles, and only then daring to offer help to his contemporary God-seekers.
There is always the temptation for zealous contemporary readers to romanticize the lives and achievements of the Orthodox ascetics from previous centuries. However, what such readers must understand is that it is not so much the fame of the elder, but his prayerful efforts that bring peace to spiritual adversity.
"When a ship is endangered by waves, if it has a capable captain, he, by the wisdom given to him by God, can save the ship; and when the ship is saved, the passengers rejoice.
And one who is ill is not so gladdened by the reputation of the physician as by the physician's efforts themselves... If, then, things are so, what joy and security the advice of the Fathers can provide to those who hear it, since this advice is accompanied by intense and warm prayer to God, Who says: 'Pray one for another, that ye may be healed' (James 5:16).
These Fathers make their own the sufferings of others, crying to Jesus, their common Master, saying to Him with the sweetest tears,
'Master, save us, we perish' (St. Luke 8:24)" (St. Barsanouphius, The Evergetinos).
▪️ St. Theophan's usage of ascetic terminology comes very close to the contemporary reader, for he knew how to transmit through the centuries the inheritance of the literature of the desert fathers and apply it to the dynamics of spiritual direction.
▪️ That is why he could entitle his twelfth letter, "The Supremacy of Spiritual Life," in which he says "this does not mean that when a man is spiritual, that the intellectual and physical have no place in him, but only that the spiritual predominates, subordinating to itself and penetrating the intellectual and the physical parts."
The wholeness of human existence can be achieved only through the harmony between all three parts: body, soul and spirit, but "as long as you are not living in the spirit, do not expect happiness."
Next: Last half of Introduction (pages 12-14)
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