Saint John Climacus

Saint John Climacus Saint Jean Climaque Author of The Ladder of Divine Ascent and abbot at Mount Sinai. was singularly struck by the virtue of the monastery cook. As he saw him always recollected and bathed in tears in the midst of his occupations, which offered nothing but earthly things, he asked him what means he used to keep his soul in such recollection and composure. "When I serve the monks," replied the good religious, "I imagine I am serving, not men, but God Himself, in the person of His servants, and the sight of this fire, which I have constantly before my eyes, reminds me of those flames which will burn sinners eternally."

Saint John's mystical ladder is L'échelle mystique de saint Jean A major spiritual work composed of thirty steps. composed of thirty degrees. The first degree is the renunciation of worldly life. Three columns support the august monument of renunciation: innocence, mortification, and temperance. — The second degree consists of stripping oneself not only of possessions but of earthly affections; religion is a harbor where one finds salvation, but those who flee like Lot's wife may also find shipwreck there. — The third degree consists of renouncing even the affection of one's parents. — The fourth degree is obedience. — The fifth is penance. Penance, he says, is the restoration of baptism. It is a kind of contract by which we promise God to correct the faults of our past life. Penance is charged with the interests of humility; it purifies the five senses; it is the eldest daughter of hope, the enemy of despair, etc. — The sixth degree is the thought of death: "Remember your last ends and you will never sin." "The love of wisdom is nothing other than the fear of death." It was the disobedience of the first men that gave birth to the fear of death. But what does this fear demonstrate? That our soul is not perfectly washed or purified by the austerities of penance. — The seventh degree is the sadness that produces joy. By this holy sadness, the writer means the gift of tears. "My tender friends," he cries out, "at the hour of our death the sovereign Judge will not hold it against us that we did not perform miracles during our life, that we did not treat with subtlety the elevated matters of theology, and that we did not reach a high degree of contemplation; but that we did not weep for our sins in such a way as to merit their forgiveness." — The eighth degree is the meekness that triumphs over anger. A man who is a slave to anger is a spiritual epileptic. The moment of anger is the moment of the loss and ruin of a soul. Anger is clear proof that one is dominated by pride. Since the Holy Spirit is the peace of the soul and anger is a disturbance of the soul, must we not conclude that it is above all anger that deprives us of the presence of God? ... To hold our tongue in captivity and keep silence when our heart is violently agitated, these are the first weapons of meekness and the first advantages it obtains over anger; to know how to calm the inner tumult of our thoughts and feelings in moments when we are agitated, these are the first steps we take in meekness; but to keep our soul in peace and tranquility in the midst of unleashed winds and storms, this is the perfection of meekness, and the victory that one must strive to win over anger. — The ninth degree is the forgetting of injuries. He who keeps the memory of injuries in his heart

keeps a nest of venomous snakes and carries the poison within his bosom; now, this poison is deadly. The remembrance of injuries is the height of anger; it is like its tail, that is to say, its most hideous part. It is this that nourishes hatred and injustice in souls, brings death to virtues, gnaws at the heart, darkens the intelligence, and reserves eternal shame for those who recite the Lord's Prayer in such evil dispositions, etc. It is above all in the meditation of the sufferings of Jesus Christ and his unalterable patience that one must draw both the example and the strength to imitate this example. — The tenth degree is the flight from slander. Slander is like a very large and very voracious leech that hides itself adroitly to betray and suck all the good blood of charity. Whoever is resolved to overcome the spirit of detraction within himself will never attribute the sin to the man who committed it, but to the demon who led the man's free will astray. The way, and the surest one, to obtain the remission of our sins consists in never judging or condemning our brothers. This is what Jesus Christ himself teaches us when he says: "If you do not judge others, you will not be judged yourselves." In matters of faults and defects, one must not even judge one's neighbor based on the report of one's own eyes. — The eleventh degree is silence. The itch to speak is like a throne upon which vainglory sits. Intemperance of speech is the door to slander, the mistress of foolish amusements, the instrument of lying, the ruin of composure, the work of sloth and carelessness, the forerunner of sleep, the enemy of meditation and vigilance: it freezes devotion and extinguishes piety. Silence, on the contrary, gives the spirit of prayer, observes attentively the movements of the enemy of salvation, leads one to consider the judgments of God, is very favorable to a holy sadness, combats the spirit of presumption, gives the science of salvation, and makes us ascend to God. Yes, whoever loves silence becomes a special friend of God. Saint Peter, for not having kept it, had to weep sincerely. He had forgotten these words of David: "I Saint Pierre Apostle mentioned for the setting of the procession date. will carefully observe all my words, so as not to sin with my tongue"; and this sentence of t David Second king of Israel, chosen by God to succeed Saul. he Holy Spirit: "It is less dangerous to slip, less disastrous to fall, than to make bad use of one's tongue." — The twelfth degree is the flight from lying. Intemperance in speech produces lying, much in the same way that a flint produces fire. In our holy books, we do not find any vice against which the Holy Spirit has pronounced more frightening sentences than against lying. Hypocrisy is the mother, the matter, and the subject of lying; for many doctors teach that hypocrisy is nothing other than the act of inventing, preparing, and bringing to light a lie: hypocrisy and lying therefore never go separately. — The thirteenth degree consists in combating boredom and sloth. Other vices only attack and destroy the virtues that are contrary to them. Sloth, by itself, destroys all virtues. — The fourteenth degree is the practice of temperance. Gluttony, says Saint John Climacus, is a hypocritical act of our stomach, which tells us that by satiating it, it is not satiated... When we have well satisfied the demon of intemperance, he withdraws to make room for another demon, that of impurity... It is through the remembrance of our sins that we must declare war on him. — The fifteenth degree is chastity. Chastity is a gift from God: to have it, one must address oneself to him, for it is not given to our nature to overcome itself by its own strength. The beginnings of chastity consist in refusing all consent to impure thoughts and movements of concupiscence. He is happy, and solidly happy, who is no longer struck or touched by the beauty, the coloring, and the elegant graces of the persons he meets. — The sixteenth degree is poverty opposed to avarice. Avarice is a true idolatry: it is the daughter of incredulity. To satisfy itself, it uses the specious pretext of the illnesses and needs of the body; that is why it never ceases to threaten with old age and a thousand various necessities or accidents. Avarice criticizes, blames, and violates the precepts of the Gospel. He who has conquered avarice possesses charity, has delivered himself from the cares of the present life, is king of the universe, has earned his reward in heaven, and walks toward his final ends without any kind of embarrassment. — The four following degrees speak of the hardening of the heart, which is the death of the soul, of sleep, of the heat of the passions, of vigils, and of effeminate timidity. — The twenty-first, twenty-second, and twenty-third degrees treat of vainglory, foolish pride, and blasphemy. There is between vainglory and pride the difference that exists between a child and a grown man, between wheat and bread; vainglory can be regarded as the beginning of pride, and pride as the hideous perfection of vainglory. Let us flee them, builders, like the plague, and remember this word: "He who has exalted himself shall be deeply humbled." Saint John defines pride as the invention par excellence of demons, the renunciation of God, the contempt for men, the faithful guardian of our sins, the source of unjust laws. As for thoughts of blasphemy, the only way to combat them is to despise them and to open up about them to one's confessor. Whoever would try to drive out the demon of blasphemy and despair in any other way would resemble a man who would try to seize lightning or imprison the winds in his hand. — In the twenty-fourth degree, Saint John returns to gentleness, which is the dawn of humility. A soul filled with gentleness, he adds in this beautiful figurative language of the East, is the nuptial bed of simplicity. Simplicity is a happy habit that renders a soul incapable of duplicity and of any pernicious thought: it is the opposite of what is called malice. — The twenty-fifth degree is humility, which brings death to all passions.

Saint John Climacus says that it is very difficult to speak of humility: a daughter of heaven and entirely celestial herself, she is incomprehensible to the human mind. He strives to make her known to us through her properties and comparisons. It is in the holy valleys of humility, he tells us, that one gathers wheat and other spiritual fruits in abundance. Placed like valleys in the midst of the mountains of pride, humble souls reap their harvest in abasement. Penance, tears, and humility are a venerable trinity in the unity of humility which contains them all, and an admirable unity in this marvelous trinity. To exalt oneself, not to exalt oneself, and to humble oneself are three very different things. He who exalts himself presumes to judge everything; he who does not exalt himself judges no one and condemns himself; and he who humbles himself, even if he is innocent, always regards himself as guilty. When one practices humility with all one's heart, one takes great care not to be stripped of it by the indiscretion of one's words, for humility has neither tongue nor door. It is very difficult to draw fire from snow; but would it be any less difficult to find humility in the heart of a child stubborn in error? Is not humility a good proper to the children of the Catholic Church, to pious pers ons, to those who Église catholique The institution that is the custodian of the orthodox faith. lead a pure and irreproachable life? Many people have attained salvation without having performed miracles or having been favored with revelations; but no one will ever attain it without humility. — The twenty-sixth degree is inner vision, that is to say, that light which makes us know with certainty, at all times, in all places, and in all our actions, what is the holy will of God: it is the perfected, purified conscience, enjoying a clearer view: only those possess it who are pure in their affections, their actions, and their words. — The twenty-seventh degree is peace of soul in the eremitic and solitary life. — The twenty-eighth consists of prayer and recollection. Here is the secret to being heard by God: to show Him lively gratitude for the benefits we have received from His goodness, and to make a humble confession of our sins and faults. It is prayer that preserves the world, reconciles heaven with earth, produces tears of repentance, consoles us, and protects us. It is, in the person who prays, a kind of palace and tribunal where the sovereign judge, without waiting for the last day, renders His decrees of justice and mercy at every moment. — The twenty-ninth degree is peace of soul; now, peace of soul is heaven on earth: the virtues are the ornaments of heaven, just as the stars are the precious stones of the firmament. — On the thirtieth and final degree are seated the three queen virtues: Faith, Hope, and Charity.

In add ition to the Lad l'Échelle Sainte A major spiritual work composed of thirty steps. der of Divine Ascent, we also have a letter from Saint John Climacus to the blesse abbé de Bâthé Recipient of a letter from Saint John Climacus regarding pastoral duties. d abbot of Raithu. In it, he speaks of the duties of a true pastor, the principal ones being to be chaste in body and spirit, to work tirelessly for the sanctification of souls, to correct those who stray from the right path, and to lead them to faithfully fulfill the obligations of their state; to be firm and full of vigor, yet in such a way that severity is tempered by gentleness, to sympathize with human weakness, and to adapt to various characters in order to win everyone for Jesus Christ. "Of all the offerings one can make to God," says this Saint, "the most pleasing in His eyes is, without contradiction, that of souls sanctified by penance and charity."

Saint John wrote in Greek. The best edition of his original text is that of M. Migne , with t M. Migne Editor of the original Greek text. he Latin translation by Rader. There is a French translation by Arnaud d'A ndilly. Abbé Gri Arnaud d'Andilly French translator of the work. me s provided an an M. l'abbé Grimes Author of the work 'L'Esprit des Saints'. alysis of The Ladder of Paradise in his Esprit des Saints.