The Ascetical Homilies of St. Isaac the Syrian - Homily XIX, Part II

There is a danger in reading passages such as this one from St. Isaac and hearing primarily a warning: Do not become negligent. Do not allow yourself to grow lax. Guard your solitude. Avoid unnecessary conversation. Do not permit the mind to become scattered. Certainly Isaac is warning us. His language is deliberately severe because he knows how fragile the beginnings of prayer can be. A heart newly awakened to God is like the tender blossom of a fruit tree. It possesses within itself the promise of fruit, but it can still be injured by a sudden frost. The mind that has begun to discover stillness can quickly become dispersed again. The heart that has tasted the sweetness of prayer can become strangely cold. But if we hear only the warning, we may miss something much more beautiful in Isaac’s words. The great concern of Homily 19 is not simply that we avoid negligence. It is that we recognize what has been given to us and take hold of it. Isaac is speaking to men and women who have tasted something. They have tasted God. “If fiery thoughts arise in you,” he writes, “through the consuming flame of divine things,” and you “enjoy a taste of God,” then guard what has been given to you. That changes everything. The ascetical life is not primarily the anxious preservation of spiritual discipline. It is the response of the heart to a gift. We guard prayer because we have discovered Someone in prayer. We seek stillness because within stillness we have begun to hear the voice of the Beloved. We withdraw from unnecessary occupations not because created things are evil, but because something infinitely more precious has begun to draw the heart. This is why Isaac can speak so dramatically about the loss of fervor. “Only the man who drinks deeply of this wine, and afterward is deprived of it, only he knows to what misery he has been abandoned.” One cannot miss the language of desire here. The tragedy is not simply that the monk has broken his rule. The tragedy is that he has allowed himself to become separated from something he has tasted and loved. He knows the wine. He remembers its sweetness. And now he thirsts. This is the deeper meaning of vigilance. Negligence Is Forgetfulness Negligence in the spiritual life is rarely simply laziness. At its deepest level it is forgetfulness. The heart forgets what it desires. Isaac tells us that through excessive conversation, unnecessary occupations, sensory dispersion, and involvement in countless affairs, “the object of her desire is blotted out from her mind.” That sentence may be the key to the entire passage. The object of her desire is blotted out. The danger of distraction is not merely that it wastes time. It obscures desire. We begin to forget why we are alive. We may continue doing many good things. We may remain religious. We may fulfill responsibilities. We may even continue praying. Yet somewhere beneath all this activity, the memory of God can grow faint. And once that memory fades, lesser desires begin to fill the empty space. The Fathers understood this with extraordinary psychological depth. The heart cannot remain without desire. If it ceases to be gathered toward God, it will inevitably become scattered among countless lesser things. This is why Isaac says: “Do not multiply your occupations, and you will not find turmoil in your mind, or in your prayer.” He is not preaching inactivity. He is teaching simplicity of heart. The question becomes: What possesses my attention because it possesses my desire? Take Hold of Grace There is another danger, however, subtler than negligence. We may imagine that because everything depends upon grace, we need only wait passively for God to act. <p style="t