Progression Through Suffering
The holy ones Barsunuphius and John say this: "Nothing is gained except by pain of heart." There a life that is pleasing to man, a life of pleasure and luxury, a life of security, a life of neatly packaged religious ideas and quaint practices that provide an extra padding of meaning to life.
But this is not the life that is required of the Christian. Tertullian once proclaimed, "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of Christianity."
We are all martyrs. We all bear an ultimate witness through death. It may be that we give our physical lives. But often it is also more subtle. Christ has said, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.(Luke 9:23)"
St. Anthony The Great said, "Everyday I say to myself: I am making a new beginning." While the life pleasing to man is about legacy, impact and lasting value upon the Earth, we see that every day we are to crucify and deny whatever we have made ourselves to be with our own hands and minds. For the reality of such a life is that it is fleeting and forgotten and whatever history may or may not include about us is simply about us and not us. So we must make a new beginning everyday. And in order for us to start anew, we must first die: "Jesus replied...unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. (John 12:23-24)"
Such a death is not pleasing to those who live for meeting the inclination of bodily pleasures and material need alone. Such a death is not pleasing to many of us Christians as well. But we must remember what we gain, not just in the life to come, but in the current life. Indeed, it is something you cannot quite understand until you yourself put in the work.
"Faith is a strange thing. One lives one’s entire life thinking faith is deep in one’s heart. Then, in a moment of real crisis, one discovers with horror that one’s heart is in fact empty, and that what we called faith is merely an illusion and the appearance of faith. And then, the whole world collapses around us. Things that were certain fall to the ground in the fraction of a second. The sources of our strength melt away. Hope disappears. Even the desire to get up and fight is vanished. All is lost. The fall is complete and final. And then, out of the depth of that fall, out of the death of that abandonment, faith blossoms in one’s heart, and – against all human reason – one’s heart starts beating again." -Mull Monestary
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