Bread Crumbs and Broken Twigs

Abba Poemen was once passing through Egypt, and he saw a woman sitting in the cemetery and weeping, and he said, "If every kind of instrument of sweet music in the world were to come here they would not be able to change the grief of this woman's soul into gladness; even thus it is meet for a monk to have pain or grief within himself.”

It's grievous [even angering] to watch the modern train wreck. Even as I have somehow been blessed [at last] to be able to distance myself from the clamoring and clanging. It accomplished nothing when I was writing and hollering about all this 30 years ago. Now what many were hollering about those short decades ago is upon us and there is no holding back the evil trends and vices that have become the new morality. There is only fleeing to the proverbial mountains to save our faith and our eternal souls. Leave a few bread crumbs and broken twigs for the twos and threes to find their way.

Does there come a point where 2 Chronicles 7:14 is no longer a way to avoid judgment?

I think so. Israel discovered that their willingness to commit sin nationally always resulted in captivity and exile. It was only then, in captivity, that they began to discover humility and cry out for God’s mercy. In Proverbs 14:34, we read, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.” The target of this phrase is no specific nation, but its meaning clearly applies to all nations, and that includes America.

I pity my children and grandchildren; what they will have to experience a decade or two or three from now, if the Lord tarries. As for me, I have only one Rite of Passage left. Saint Benedict tells me to live in fear of judgment day and have a great horror of hell. Yearn for everlasting life with holy desire. Day by day remind yourself that you are going to die. Hour by hour keep careful watch over all you do, aware that God's gaze is upon you, wherever you may be. RB 4:44-49

In our quest to understand and experience the love of God, do not forget the place that the fear of God plays in our lives. “And fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell.” [Matthew 10:28] This is what Jesus said. The loss of our fear of God will always open the door to a type of familiarity with God [Remember Hophni and Phinehas?[1]] that always leads to all manner of sin and personal justifications for sinful behavior.

Herein [struggling with our own holiness and conversion] we discover the crux of Christianity. This is the conversatio morum that the whole of the Rule of Saint Benedict enfolds, encourages, and protects. This is the purpose of the Christian experience. “Amen I say to you, unless you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” [Matthew 18:3]

Saint Theophan tells us that every Christian is chosen for this purpose. This life-long process of conversatio morum … conversion of life … belongs not only to those who adopt and embrace the discipline of a monastic rule but to every Christian. The necessity of it applies to all of us who profess to know Christ as Lord and Savior.

“Every Christian is chosen—chosen for similar deeds, namely: to be with the Lord, through unceasing remembrance of Him and awareness of His omnipresence, through the preaching and fulfillment of His commandments, and through a readiness to confess one’s faith in Him. In those circles where such a confession is made, it is a loud sermon for all to hear.

Every Christian has the power to heal infirmities—not of others, but his own, and not of the body, but of the soul—that is, sins and sinful habits—and to cast out devils, rejecting evil thoughts sown by them, and extinguishing the excitement of passions enflamed by them.

Do this and you will be an apostle, a fulfiller of what the Lord chose you for, an accomplisher of your calling as messenger. When at first you succeed in all this, then perhaps the Lord will appoint you as a special ambassador—to save others after you have saved yourself; and to help those who are tempted, after you yourself pass through all temptations, and through all experiences in good and evil.

But your job is to work upon yourself: for this you are chosen; the rest is in the hands of God. He who humbles himself shall be exalted.” [+ St. Theophan the Recluse]

Flee to a proverbial mountainside cave in the hostile social-desert environment that surrounds us. Pray and persevere. Leave a few bread crumbs and broken twigs for the twos and threes to find their way.

[1] In the biblical narrative, Hophni and Phinehas are criticised for engaging in illicit behaviour, such as appropriating the best portion of sacrifices for themselves, and having sexual relations with the sanctuary's serving women.