Such a small book… I’ve had it for over a year… and yet I have not been able to complete it even once. I keep reading a bit and then having to put it down so that I can meditate on the contents of those few pages. The next evening, I pick it up again and find that I need to reread those passages and feel I can not go on until I have internalized the message and made better headway in its practice. So much wisdom, so much Truth… I need to get copies of this little book for my children.
A few excerpts…
Chapter 1
What doth it avail thee to discourse profoundly of the Trinity if thou be void of humility, and consequently, displeasing to the Trinity?
In truth sublime words make not a man holy and just: but a virtuous life maketh him dear to God.
I would rather feel compunction than know its definition.
These sentences particularly resonated… (but then you’ll find so much of this little book does with me) and especially that last line. As much as I have studied to learn the faith, doing so still, I would rather experience it than know it intellectually. I would rather BE penitent than know its definition. Not that the two are mutually exclusive by any means… just that so often we err in thinking that knowing is equivalent to doing.
If thou didst know the whole Bible by heart, and the sayings of all the philosophers, what would it all profit thee without the love of God and His grace?
(from a long list of vanities)
… It is vanity to follow the lusts of the flesh and to desire that for which thou must afterwards be grievously punished…
Study, therefore to withdraw thy heart from the love of visible things, and to turn thyself to things invisible. For they that follow their sensuality defile their conscience and lose the grace of God.
Chapter 2
The more and better thou knowest the more heavy will be thy judgement unless thy life be also more holy.
Be not, therefore puffed up with any art or science: but rather fear because of the knowledge which is given thee.
If it seem to thee that thou knowest many things and understandest them well enough, know at the same time that there are many more things of which thou art ignorant.
Be not high-minded, but rather acknowledge thy ignorance. Why wouldst thou prefer thyself to any one, since there are so many more learned and skillful in the law than thyself?
If thou wouldst know and learn anything to the purpose, love to be unknown and esteemed as nothing.
This is the highest science and most profitable lesson, truly to know and despise ourselves.
To have no opinion of ourselves and to think always well and commendably of others, is great wisdom and high perfection.
This rings so true. It is so common for people to think well of themselves… all we hear about is ‘self-esteem’ anymore, even from Christians… whatever happened to being like Christ? LIKE Christ? Did Christ consider himself above others? Did he send those who came to him off to study the law or did he send them out to sin no more?
It isn’t easy by any means… but just the attempt to consider others better than myself, to see where I am sinful and despise that in myself as our Lord does has been a worth while exercise to say the least. Still, it has been amazing to me how many of my other sins and failings, that list that could be xerox’d from confession to confession with a set of blank lines for the changeable things, have been curtailed or made better in the attempt. Anger, impatience, and other such sins that come from pride and selfishness… all rooted in valuing myself above those around me whether I realize it and intend to do so or not.
Chapter 3
He to whom the eternal Word speaketh is set at liberty from multitude of opinions.
From one word are all things, and this one all things speak; and this is the beginning which also speaketh to us.
Without this word no one understands or judges rightly.
…
Learning is not to be blamed nor the mere knowledge of anything which is good in itself and ordained by God; but a good conscience and a virtuous life are always to be preferred before it.
But because many make it more their study to know than to live well, therefore are they often deceived, and bring forth none, or very little fruit.
Oh, if men would use as much diligence in rooting out vices and planting virtues as they do in proposing questions there would not be so great evils committed, nor scandals among the people, nor so much relaxation in monasteries.
Verily when the day of judgment comes, we shall not be asked what we have read, but what we have done; nor how learnedly we have spoken, but how religiously we have lived.
Tell me where are now all those great doctors with whom thou wast well acquainted whilst they were living and flourished in learning?
Now others fill their places, and I know not whether they ever think of them.
In their lifetime they seemed to be something and now they are not spoken of.
Convicting indeed. I do not spend nearly enough time in rooting out vices and planting virtues as I should… I am just as guilty of reading more and acting less.
Chapter 3 cont’d
How many perish in the world through vain learning, who little care for the service of God!
And because they chose rather to be great than to be humble, therefore they are lost in their own imaginations.
He is truly great who is great in charity.
He is truly great who is little in his own eyes and holdeth as naught the pinnacle of honor.
He is truly prudent who looks upon all earthly things as nothing that he main gain Christ. Phil 3:8
And he is very learned indeed who does the will of God and renounces his own will.
Amen. I have much work to do… it is work, after all, cooperating with God’s will and allowing Him to do the necessary bits. I am hardly a willing sacrifice and rather wish He’d just lash me to the altar instead of having to hang onto it myself. I keep praying a ‘trump’ prayer… Lord, no matter what I say later, I want Your will in my life and to be transformed into Your likeness, regardless of what it takes… and then try not to whine too much when He takes me up on it.
