The Transforming Power of Asceticism

By Scott Ferrier, MJ • Phoenix, AZ

Christian asceticism, also known as “the interior combat”, has been our practice throughout the season of Lent in the pursuit of purity of heart. Each bending of the will towards the Supreme Good results in the debilitation of our pride. This is the process of purification whereby the will acquires a single-minded devotion to God and is made freer from worldly attachments and our inordinate fixation on self-fulfillment.

Only love overcomes the fragmentation of human nature due to both original and personal sin. Jesus has taught and shown us the Way, the Truth, and the Life — the “life of the Beatitudes.” The true life is contained within each moment of time and is revealed to us first in the recognition of our human infirmity — “for without Me, you can do nothing.” The spiritual law which governs authentic Christian asceticism is: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Mt. 5:4). St. Paul explains: “For the sorrow that is according to God worketh penance, steadfast unto salvation; but the sorrow of the world worketh death” (2. Cor 7:10). Purity of heart is the overcoming of self-love by the love of God.

The following prayer of St. Ephraim of Syria is greatly loved in Eastern Christian spirituality, especially during Lent. It leads us from sorrow to the joy of the Resurrection at Easter.

Lord and Master of my life,
take far from me the spirit of laziness, discouragement, domination, and idle talk;
grant to me, thy servant, a spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love;
yea, my Lord and King, grant me to see my sins, and not to judge my neighbor,
for thou art blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

‘Laziness’ here is to be identified with forgetfulness, with the ‘hardness of heart’ that makes a person see no further than appearances. The spirit of domination is rooted in pride. Idle talk is our fascination with nothingness, by words of discouragement and despair which in our time have become the everyday expression of a general nihilism, known as ‘acedia’ — a serious indifference or disgust towards spiritual things which leads us to flee intimacy with God — known as “the noonday devil.”

Let us remember the words of Jesus when His hour had come. “I am not alone, because the Father is with me. These things I have spoken to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you shall have distress: but have confidence, I have overcome the world.” (Jn 16:32b, 33)