You won't be saved without effort

On the fourth week of Lent (an excellent alphabet for everyone, or about three series of labors) I have already told you two or three times about how dangerous it is to fall into the same sins after repenting of them, and how, therefore, you must take every effort not to fall into this folly and thereby plunge yourself into extreme misfortune. I think that those who have heeded this and have made the good intention not to deviate from this vow have a desire to know how it is more convenient to achieve this good goal, how we need to arrange ourselves both externally and internally in order to avoid new falls, and what rules to adhere to in order to overcome every temptation and persevere in goodness. I want to satisfy this desire of yours, and not on my own behalf, but on behalf of St. John Climacus, to whose memory this Sunday is dedicated. You know, of course, that Saint John wrote the book “The Spiritual Ladder,” from which he gets his nickname. In this book, he explained in detail how a repentant person should act in order to remain in goodness and not fall again into the former impurities. I will extract from it the main thing that relates to this subject. “It’s difficult,” he says, “to easily overcome previous bad skills. However, I know that everything is possible with God, but “nothing is impossible” for Him (Job 42:2). Thus, God can do everything and is ready to do everything for us in us. But we must not only resort to Him in prayer, but also use our own efforts and labors, in accordance with our intentions. And this intention and work must precede and attract God’s help. All success depends on our own desire and our own efforts, although not otherwise than with the assistance of God, however, if the first, that is, desire and effort, is not preceded, the second, that is, God’s assistance, will not follow.” God's assistance is undeniable, but what should we ourselves focus our efforts and labors on? In response to this, Saint Climacus points out as many works and exploits as there are letters in the Greek alphabet, and calls it the alphabet, in the idea that just as those who learn to read need to learn the basics in advance, so those who want to stay away from sins and succeed in virtues must first learn the exploits that he is counting. “Here,” he says, “is an excellent alphabet for everyone: fasting, sackcloth, ashes, tears, silence, vigil, cold, labor, suffering, contrition, putting aside worldly cares, voluntary humiliation of oneself, silence, fear of Judgment, guarding the heart, not plundering thoughts, the desire for death, flight from the body, and so on.” I do not list all the indicated feats because it is difficult for you to remember them. Better yet, I’ll put both those listed and those not listed into rows, so that it’s easier for you to remember them and apply them to your work. The first series of feats relates to the body. Take the body in your hands, be its master, not its slave. Place your feat on every member of it and bind it all. Refine your belly with abstinence and fasting, train your hands to work, tie your tongue with silence, do not allow your eyes to see everything and your ears to hear everything, avoid freedom of movement, sleep and all rest of the flesh. In general, try to torture the flesh and teach it to live a cruel life, without any self-pity, remembering the Apostle’s commandment “not to create” for the flesh “to please... in lust” (Rom. 13:14) and the misfortune that Israel suffered from carnal knowledge, in which “weakness, thickening, widening and forgetting God who created it” (Deut. 32, 15 ). The second series of labors relates to the soul. The first thing here is to go inside yourself and keep your attention to yourself and your inward stay constant, avoiding in every possible way the plunder of thoughts on various matters and subjects. To succeed in this, choose for yourself one of the following two positions and rivet your attention and feelings to it, namely: affirm in your thoughts that you are either in a state of death, or standing at the Judgment, when the final decision is ready to be pronounced to you: “Come, blessed one” (Matthew 25:34), or: “Depart, cursed one” (Matthew 25:41). But strain to perceive this and feel it. As soon as you perceive this, all thoughts will immediately fall away and you will stand alone before the face of God, in fear begging Him to be merciful to you. This is an urgent law for you. No good feeling is so sobering as the feeling of fear of death and God's Judgment. Why, as soon as you wake up, immediately rush to restore this feeling of fear and stand with it at the Court of God, and then do not deviate from it all day long, no matter what you do or what you are busy with. This will be your most faithful bulwark against sinful attractions and temptations. The third series of feats relates to the establishment of a new order of affairs and activities. Just as before, when we worked against sin, everything was adapted to satisfying our passions, so now, when we have fallen behind sin, everything must be adapted to resisting passions. A new order must be introduced everywhere: in one’s studies, in family affairs, in relations with third parties. Sit down and calculate and establish everything: how, what, when it should be, so that your good intention is not upset and you do not slip back into the old one. And when you organize your affairs, keep two thoughts: eliminate all reasons and cases that could arouse your passion from which you suffer, and do not be at all afraid of what your friends will say or will say about you because of the change in life that cannot now be hidden. Fear rather the Lord, Who said: “Whoever... is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, and the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels” (Mark 8:38). That's it! Keep your flesh in constant restlessness and embitterment, but focus your soul on yourself, focus on the Judgment of God and change all the orders of your life, without fear or shame of anyone. Do this and you will be safe from falls. I will mean this in certain words: acquire ruthlessness towards the flesh, disregard for people’s opinions about you and the fear of God, through the fear of death and Judgment, while paying attention to yourself. When you arrange yourself this way, the enemy will not attack you. You will be like in a hail of fences. And if the enemy approaches, he will be immediately repulsed and defeated. With your attention you will notice his attack and, grasping it with self-pity and lack of fear of human judgments, you will strike with the fear of Judgment. Self-pity, carelessness about what they will say, and fear of Judgment are three double-edged swords against which no enemy temptation can withstand. As long as all these weapons are intact within you and in strength, the enemy will not come to you. Why, if you have stocked up on them and keep them, the enemy will not tempt you with anything, but will direct all his cunning to snatching these tools from you, that is, either to dispel your attention, or to force you to give relief to the flesh and man-pleasing, or to extinguish the fear of Judgment and put a chill in your heart. If he succeeds in this, he will begin to tempt you into sin, but if he does not succeed, he will retreat from you. Knowing this, most of all, guard your tools, stand persistently at the Judgment of God, flee from all rest of the flesh and keep the new order of life unchanged, even if you are constantly scolded and even beaten. And you will undoubtedly stand with the assistance of God’s grace. “With all this, however,” says Saint Climacus, “one must vigilantly watch where and how the wind blows, in order to direct the sails accordingly.” The enemy does not sleep and will use all sorts of tricks to deceive you. First, he will completely retreat and stop bothering you with temptations, so that you think that you have already completely freed yourself from your passion, and, indulging in carelessness, weaken your attention. If you overlook this trick and weaken your attention, the enemy will draw you into many thoughts and, before you come to your senses, will combine your heart with passionate deeds, after which you will become your own accuser. If he doesn’t succeed in this, he will begin to approach you with subtle and instantaneous thoughts in order to lure you out of your fortress and disarm and capture you in the open. Look how it happens. In the midst of some task, the thought will fly like an arrow that you, tea, have already done enough. Such a thought flies by, and it’s as if it doesn’t exist. But its trace, like a scratch, remains on the soul, and as soon as you let it pass without attention, your strength will immediately begin to relax and urges will arise in your soul: either to indulge yourself, or to have fun, or to put aside the usual strictness in your routine. Give in to the latter, and you won't be far from falling. If the enemy does not succeed in this, then he will begin to incite you to unnecessary feats: either to a great fast, or to long prayers, or to solitude, or to something else, beyond the measure that we set for ourselves in outlining the order of our new life. These excesses always weaken your strength, upset order and create confusion, in which it will be easy for the enemy to defeat you. If he doesn’t succeed here either, he will begin to weave his evil into every good thing you have, just as ivy climbs around good trees. You will engage in edifying thoughts about God, but he will lead you into questioning and inquisitiveness about the mysteries of Scripture, which cool and develop destructive conceit. You will take care not to offend anyone, but he will tempt you into harmful people-pleasing. You will be afraid not to judge, and he will hasten to make you indifferent to both good and evil. “So in many other ways the enemy weaves his enemy,” says St. John, “gluttony to love of hobbies, severity to prudence, double-mindedness to meekness, conceit to joy, laziness to hope, and so on.” You see how many plantings, as these attempts on the enemy are called by people experienced in fighting him. You see how much bait there is, and increase your attention and vigilance. To help with this, do this: find yourself a good spiritual father and, having entrusted everything you have to him, pray to the Lord that He will always allow him to tell you good things for your creation. Or, if you can, find yourself a like-minded brother and, together with him, engage in mutual frankness and mutual admonition and strengthening of each other. If you know how to read, stock up on soul-saving books and, while studying them, look in them for admonition to yourself and for clarification of perplexing cases in your thoughts, feelings and movements of the heart. In these ways, with a sincere desire to avoid evil and a prayerful approach to God, you will always be able to unravel the intricacies of the enemy, see the evil prepared for you and then repel it with your spiritual weapons. Save all this, and you will be saved from falls. “But remember that the crown of this work,” says Saint John, “is when the fire of God enters our sanctuary.” For then the previously ingrained bad inclinations will no longer bother us. “Our God is a fire that consumes” (Heb. 12:29) every kindling and movement of passion, every inclination rooted in us and every blindness, internally and externally noticed and known. Then carelessness, insensibility, recklessness and blindness will not approach you - these are the producers of every fall into sins and a sinful state. Amen.