The Burden of Not Being Clairvoyant

 

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight.

In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths."--Prov 3:5-6

Sadly, men are not omniscient as God is.  He is the only One Who not only knows the past perfectly, the present in its fullness, and the future in all of its unexpected turns.  Our history is quite partial, our knowledge of now is incredibly limited, and our predictions from the future are sometimes little more than a shot in the dark.  We can never know what will happen even today, a lesson that I experienced firsthand with one of my family members this past fall.  On Monday she was fine, in Tuesday she was hospitalized, and by Friday she had fallen asleep.  I cannot know when I will cease drawing breath: these could be my final words.  Of course, we can make "educated guesses," using what knowledge we have to make reasonable predictions.  Thus, my health is good right now, so I do not expect to encounter any great medical difficulties today.  For a prediction to be most reasonable, though, we must recognize that it is only a prediction and not inerrant foresight.

Prayers of Bursting

 St. Nil Sorsky and the Miracle-Workers of White Lake

There are times that we set aside for prayer, when we follow a prayer rule, or set aside time to sit in the Lord's presence, or take part in the Church's Liturgy.  Yet we are called to pray unceasingly, and few of us can spend all of our time in prayer rules.  So we have other ways to pray: short prayers we can say when God spontaneously comes to mind, or when our hearts are filled to bursting to pray to Him.  These prayers are many and varied, and they stretch across many traditions.  The Roman Church used to call them "ejaculation" or "aspirations," while the Copts have a common one they call "the Arrow Prayer."  What matters is that they are short prayers we can offer to God at any time, when our souls are filled to bursting with love of Him or with a desire to plead to Him.  "It is possible to pray sitting, walking, sleeping, working, alone and in company. Everywhere, at all times, in all our activities, eating and drinking, in devout conversation, we are able to raise our minds and hearts to God, to present our needs with faith and humility and ask Him pardon saying: Lord, have mercy upon me" (St. Tikhon of Zadonsk).  When our hearts are running over with the river of living water, it bursts forth from us like a fountain in the form of these prayers: they are like a geyser erupting forth our prayers to the Lord.

Our Holy and God-Bearing Fathers: St. Makarios the Great

The Church has a devotion to those great men and women who went before them in the faith, teaching the Gospel fervently and helping others to deepen their living of the true Christian life.  In the Eastern Church, the title "our holy and God-bearing Fathers" is used for the great saints of the past.  In this series (which I will hopefully not give up on, as I have with some of my past series), I hope to introduce members of the Western Church to some of the great saints venerated in the Eastern Church and explain how powerful their memory is for the Eastern Church.  The first saint I will discuss is St. Makarios the Great.

St. Makarios (Macarius) the Great (295-392), also known as St. Makarios the Egyptian, St. Macarius the Spirit-Bearer, and the Lamp of the Desert, was a disciple of St. Anthony the Great, the first monastic.  His name means "blessed" in Greek, and it was chosen because his birth was such a blessing to his infertile parents, fittingly named Abraham and Sarah.  His father forced him to marry, but Makarios stalled the marriage by feigning sickness for a few days and then heading to the wilderness to relax.  In the wilderness, a Cherub led him up a high mountain and showed him the desert all around him, saying, "God has given this desert to you and your sons for an inheritance."  Upon returning from the wilderness, he learned his fiancee had died.  Soon afterwards, his parents also departed this life, and he gave away all his belongings to the poor.  The townspeople of Shabsheer, Egypt, where he lived, were astounded at his holiness, and they implored the bishop to ordain him.  St. Makarios was ordained and began to live in a small place outside the city built by the townspeople, where he helped attend to their spiritual needs.

Following a false accusation of unchastity, which St. Makarios did not deny but rather accepted the consequences of, he headed for Scetis, an area of Egypt where early monasticism flourished.  There he dwelt in the inner desert.  One day, he visited St. Anthony the Great, who lived nearby, and the latter bestowed the Great Schema (the highest degree of monastic tonsure) on St. Makarios.  Following this, he returned to the desert.  His holiness and monastic life attracted many men to follow his example, and a monastic community grew up around him, which built on the monastic foundations laid by Sts. Anthony the Great and Pachomius.  His community eventually became the present Coptic Orthodox Monastery of St. Makarios the Great.

In addition to his monastic life, St. Makarios also fought against Arianism, even being exiled for his support of the teachings of St. Athanasius.  After a miraculous exorcism performed by the saint, he was welcomed back from exile, returning to his monastic life.  St. Makarios passed over into eternal life in 392, at the age of 97.

 Coptic icon of St. Makarios with Sts. Maximos and Domadios

There are two main aspects to St. Makarios' legacy.  First, his influence on the development and spread of monasticism is memorable due to the high importance of monasticism for Eastern Christian spirituality.  Second, the writings attributed to him have been very influential for centuries.  One letter of his, known by the Latin title "Ad filios Dei," seems to quite possibly be a genuine letter of his.  The other writings of his, the Great Letter and the Fifty Spiritual Homilies, are usually now referred to as written by "Pseudo-Macarius," but that does not stop their immense influence.  Those beginning the monastic life often read the Spiritual Homilies (or their paraphrase by St. Symeon Metaphrastes, found in Volume III of the Philokalia) to help them become accustomed to the ascetic lifestyle and its spirituality.

"The heart is Christ's palace: there Christ the King comes to take His rest, with the Angels and the spirits of the Saints, and He dwells there, walking within it and placing His Kingdom there" (Homily XVI).

St. Makarios with a Cherub

Apart from his writings, some of his prayers are in frequent use among Eastern Christians, especially during morning and night prayers.  The prayers are often focused deeply on repentance and protection from temptation.  The following prayer is common for use before heading to bed:

"O Eternal God and King of all Creation, Who have granted me to arrive at this hour, forgive me the sins that I have committed today in thought, word, and deed, and cleanse, O Lord, my humble soul from all defilement of flesh and spirit.  And grant me, O Lord, to pass the sleep of this night in peace, that when I rise from my bed, I may please Your most Holy Name all the days of my life and conquer my flesh and the fleshless foes that war within me.  And deliver me, O Lord, from vain and frivolous thoughts and from evil desires which defile me.  For Yours is the Kingdom, the power and the glory of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and always and forever and ever.  Amen."

Let us ask for the intercession of our holy and God-bearing Father St. Makarios the Great, that his prayers may help all monastics grow deeper in their angelic life, and that all of us may grow deeper in our deified life: St. Makarios the Great, pray for us!

Nota Bene: Information for this post comes from OrthodoxWiki and Wikipedia.  The quotes come from pages 569-570 and 57-58 of the Publican's Prayer Book by the Melkite Catholic Eparchy of Newton.  The Great Letter and Spiritual Homilies attributed now to "Pseudo-Macarius" can be found in a volume of Paulist Press' Classics of Western Spirituality series.

 

Text ©2012 Brandon P. Otto.  Licensed via CC BY-NC.  Feel free to redistribute non-commercially, as long as credit is given to the author.

 

A Confession of Borrowed Treasure

St. Makarios of Egypt (also known as St. Makarios the Great: not the same St. Makarios who helped compile the Philokalia) was a Coptic monk from the 300s who has been well-revered in the East for his homilies. Though the homilies are now often called Pseudo-Makarian (they seem to have more of a Syrian background than an Egyptian one), they continue to be popular today. Some of them are even included in the Philokalia (though via an eleventh-century adaptation by St. Symeon Metaphrastis, "the Translator").

One section of these homilies (§88) cut me to the heart and prompted me to clarify something about this blog: the majority of the spiritual insights presented here are not my own. This may be obvious to some due to my extensive references, but I am confessing it for clarity's sake: in my work on this blog, I am more of a repeater and synthesizer than a spiritual forerunner. My goal is to channel the insights of past spiritual writers to my readers and only occasionally to provide insights of my own.

The homilies mention how when men who are rich in the Spirit enter spiritual discussion, "they draw as it were on their inner treasure-house and share their wealth with their hearers." On the other, those "who do not have stored in the sanctuary of their heart the treasure from which springs forth the bounty of divine thoughts, mysteries and inspired words"--I must admit, I am one of these people very often--"speak merely from the tip of the tongue." This statement, on the shallowness of those not rich in the Spirit, struck me, but the next passage, which I will quote in full, is what really cut me most:

"If they have listened to spiritual men, they preen themselves with what others have said, putting it forward as though it were their own and claiming interest on someone else's capital. Their listeners can enjoy what they say without great effort, but they themselves, when they have finished speaking, prove to be like paupers. For they have simply repeated what they have taken from others, without acquiring treasures of their own from they could first derive pleasure themselves and which they could then communicate profitably to others."

[Note: This passage is a continuation of the previously-quoted line, thus "they" refers to those "who do not have stored in the sanctuary of their heart..."]

I try to not emulate too much the behavior that is condemned in this passage. I do my best to cite anything I quote and any idea I relate, but I know I must fail sometime: no matter how I try, I will never be perfect, and I will always make mistakes. I offer my apologies for any times, in the past or in the future, in which I have or will claim credit for someone else's spiritual insights. My goal is that the relating of spiritual insights on my blog will enrich my own "inner treasure-house" as well as my readers' treasure-houses and not leave me completely as a "pauper." Hopefully someday, when my spiritual journey becomes more fruitful and I am more faithful to it, I will be able to provide insights of my own. Until then, I confess that my blog is mainly made of borrowed treasure from the treasure-houses of others, and I apologize for whenever I claim credit for insights not my own.

I will end by quoting the desire of the writer of these homilies:

"We must first ask God that these true riches may dwell within us, and then we can readily benefit others and speak to them of spiritual matters and divine mysteries. For God's goodness delights to dwell in every believer."

I hope this post was truthful and helpful. God bless!

St. Makarios of Egypt, pray for us!
St. Symeon Metaphrastis, pray for us!


Nota Bene: St. Symeon's adaptation of the Pseudo-Makarian homilies are taken from Volume III of the Philokalia , translated by G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallisotos Ware. All quotes are from §88 of the homilies.

Text ©2011 Brandon P. Otto.  Licensed via CC BY-NC.  Feel free to redistribute non-commercially, as long as credit is given to the author.