The purpose of it all

Friday of the 14th Week of Luke

In today's reading from the Holy Gospel, the Lord teaches the disciples that only grace can overcome our passions and sins:

The Lord said, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! And the disciples were astonished at his words. But Jesus answereth again, and saith unto them, Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. And they were astonished out of measure, saying among themselves, Who then can be saved? And Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible. Then Peter began to say unto him, Lo, we have left all, and have followed thee. And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel's, But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life. But many that are first shall be last; and the last first. And they were in the way going up to Jerusalem; and Jesus went before them: and they were amazed; and as they followed, they were afraid. - Mark 10: 23-32

St. Theophan the Recluse reminds us that Our Lord's solution for the problem of avarice is the solution to all of our problems: the influence of grace on the heart.

Hearing the word of the Lord about the difficulty that the rich have in entering the Kingdom of God, the disciples thought, "Who then can be saved?" In reply, the Lord said, "With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible." It impossible to renounce avarice without the influence of grace on the heart; it is impossible to cope with all the other predilections, with all the sin living in us and all of its fruits without God’s grace. God’s grace is given, according to faith in the Lord, in the Mysteries of the Holy Church. Hold tightly to the Holy Church of God and to all of its institutions, and the power of God, which helps to bring about every good, will always abide with you. But at the same time, always remember that these illuminating and life-giving institutions are a means and not the goal; that is why you should go through them only in order, through their influence, to enliven and nourish the grace-filled powers hidden in you, and then take up your work as a strong man, ready for every good deed. If you keep what you have received to yourself and not give it an outlet through good deeds, you will not be right; just like one is not right who shuns everything belonging to the Church. Incorrect zealots of piety make the very structure of a pious life subject to criticism; but this does not take the significance away from this structure, and does not justify philosophizers, who shun it only on these grounds. - Thoughts for Each Day of the Year, pp. 287 - 288

As we approach the Great Feasts of the Nativity and Theophany, by which the Church glorifies the Incarnation of God the Word for our salvation, it is fitting to remember that the Church is the Mystical Body of Christ in the world and the unfailing source of the grace that alone overcomes our passions and sins. We must cling to Her with all our hearts if we wish to be saved.

The main point St. Theophan is making in the passage we have quoted is that though the institutions of the Church are necessary for our salvation, which is why the saints have guarded them so fiercely in every generation, they are not an end in themselves. When we make them an end in themselves, we imitate three parties within the Jewish nation of Our Lord's time: we become either Sadducees, Pharisees, or political Zealots (like the Jews who revolted against the Romans): Sadducees worship the power structure (papism), Pharisees worship the outward manifestations of piety in individuals (elderism), and political Zealots identify the Church's interests completely with those of this or that national cause or political structure (ethno-idolatry). There are fierce partisans in all three of these camps today, and they do, indeed, give piety a bad name; they provide a handle for the self-righteous hypocrites of anti-Christianity to denounce the Church Herself. All three groups start out with a fundamentally sound insight: The papists (i.e., the patrarichate-or-jurisdiction worshippers) start out with the correct insight that the Church is indeed a visible institution with a God-established authority structure that normally should be revered and obeyed; the elder-worshippers start out with the correct insight that the holiness of the saints is a guarantee of their trustworthiness; the ethno-idolaters start out with the correct insight that God is not a globalist - He purposely divided man into distinct races and nations, and it is a sin to eradicate these distinctions by indiscriminately mixing with strangers and prioritizing the stranger over one's own. But all three groups go off the rails by what Richard Weaver so aptly labeled "fragmentation and obsession": Each takes his particular insight as The One Thing Needed, obsesses on this fragment of reality, and makes an ideology out of it. Some truly confused people manifest all three delusions at the same time.

The One Thing actually Needed is, of course, revealed by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself in His instruction to Martha in the Gospel we read at the feasts of the Most Pure Mother of God: "...Mary hath chosen that good part, and it shall not be taken away from her." The purpose of all of God's economy, and therefore the purpose of all the Church's divinely established structures, activities, and attributes, is the salvation of the soul enacted through the acquisition of purity of heart, enabled by grace. When all is directed towards this, all goes well - not well, perhaps, in earthly terms, but well for eternity.

In another place, St. Theophan links the reception of the Holy Mysteries directly to acquisition of prayer of the mind in the heart, which is the direct path to salvation:

...This prayer is formed in the heart by the grace of the Holy Spirit. He who turns to God and is sanctified by the sacraments, immediately receives feeling toward God within himself, which from this moment begins to lay the foundation in his heart for the ascent on high. Provided he does not stifle it by something unworthy, this feeling will be kindled into flame, by time, perseverance, and labor...Because all [who receive the Holy Mysteries] have grace, only one thing is necessary: to give this grace free scope to act. Grace receives free scope in so far as the ego is crushed and the passions uprooted. The more our heart is purified the more lively becomes our feeling towards God. And when the heart is fully purified, then this feeling of warmth towards God takes fire...Grace builds up everything, because grace is always present in the faithful. Those who commit themselves irrevocably to grace, will pass under its guidance, and it shapes and forms them in a way known only to itself. - quoted in The Art of Prayer, pp. 59 - 60.

The institutional means of grace, therefore - the true doctrine and true way of life taught by the true Church, and the true Holy Mysteries administered by the hierarchy of the true Church - exist to bring about the union of mind and heart in the soul, leading ultimately to a life totally under grace characterized by absolute purity of heart. All of the titanic struggles against heresy and schism of all ages ultimately were - and are - fought to preserve the outward means to achieve this inward result. If we always keep this in mind, and abide in humility, the Lord will grant us the graces of discernment and perseverance, in order that we may avoid the shipwreck of the soul and abide in the Ark of salvation.