Theosis - Along the Path

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A well-known speaker started his seminar by holding up a twenty-dollar bill.  In front of the large crowd, he asked, "Who would like this twenty-dollar bill?"  Hands started going up.  He said, "I am going to give this twenty-dollar bill to one of you, but first, let me do this."  He proceeded to crumple the twenty-dollar bill up.  He then asked, "Who still wants it?"  Still, the hands were up in the air.

Today was a difficult day full of trials and tests, and my responses to most of them were not as composed as I wish they had been. I know good and well God has told us this would happen, and has directed us in what to do when Satan attacks. I know that any attempt to move closer to God is going to be met with resistance and attacks from Satan, but I failed again.

Sometimes it happens, for any number of reasons, we find ourselves a casualty at the bottom of the ever-slippery slope, which has created a chasm between us and what should be our regular church attendance. Life can be complicated, creating unlimited hardships and situations that wear us down, and make it ever so easy for us to turn the alarm off on Sunday mornings, desiring a return to the comfort or absence from reality it had just woken us from. Problems can overwhelm us and distract us from what we should be doing. Time constraints and deadlines often push us to make choices that affect how we use our time, choosing to work on something with a deadline instead of attending church.

34 When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. 35 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Mark 8:34-36 NKJV

From a homily on Matthew by Saint John Chrysostom, Bishop

34 But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”37 Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:34-40

If you still look at others with a condescending attitude or with condemnation for their lack of judgement or bad behaviors, then you have not begun to understand the concept of humility, and are in desperate danger of bringing God’s judgement upon yourself. A truly humble person, when looking upon others, will have sympathy for their shortcomings, because they will be viewed through the reflection of one’s own shortcomings and with the understanding that not one of us are good, in the reflection of God’s light.

I remember as a young person, having grown up in a Protestant environment, seeing pictures on the television of homes inferred to be Roman Catholic homes, that had tables with pictures of Jesus and/or Saint Mary (the Theotokos) with candles burning, and usually with a crucifixion cross hanging on the wall. I didn’t think much of it one way or the other, but I do remember thinking how different it was from the way I was taught to do things. The thought never entered my mind though, that I would ever have anything like that in my home, and I didn’t, not even a cross hanging on the wall. 

It didn't take long after I started reading the book 'Unseen Warfare' to see how I was guilty of most of the things that were being discussed, but I had hoped that the realizations that I was having from reading it were enough to help me start making changes regarding those things, but I proved the book correct, and proved myself wrong. Here is a sample text from the book that applies:

The Fast is moving along and I am experiencing more success than I have before with Fasting. While it may seem to some that I am striving more to be successful in the Fasting aspect, that is not my only goal. The current Fasting period is the moment and Fast itself is the time and mechanism that I am using to start this new journey of mine, and the journey is moving deeper into my relationship with God than I have been before, or even really tried. I read about the lives of the Saints, how they moved so close in their relationships with God, that they were consumed with the Holy Spirit and as a result, God moved in miraculous ways through them. I am intrigued so much with their aesthetical lives that reaching that place could be a lofty goal of mine, but their aesthetic struggles were so lengthy and took them to places where it is not realistic for me to go with my life responsibilities that I am not sure of the real possibility of reaching a goal like that.

Since the primary theme of this blog is dealing with the doctrine of Theosis, I will start with and commit at least one post to providing an explanation of what Theosis actually is. I am no theologian, and I am not truly authorized to define terms in Orthodox theology in an official capacity, so I will use an excerpt from a book 'THEOSIS - THE TRUE PURPOSE OF HUMAN LIFE' written by someone who is, Archimandrite George, Abbot of The Holy Monastery of ST. Gregorius on Mount Athos, from 2006. It is only the first chapter of the book, but I feel it adequately describes Theosis in a clear way and I will leave it at that. If you wish to read the book in full, here is a link to where you can read it online: