Chapter 3

The Narrow and Sorrowful Path

Having surrounded himself with rules, the ascetic takes upon himself a yoke that is good and salvific, but laborious. These are bonds upon his self-will, very perceptible while it is still alive and in force; these are the markers of right activity, difficult at first because of inexperience and unfamiliarity. Walking along them, he unceasingly forces himself and fulfills them with pain. For this reason the path on which he begins to walk is always and everywhere narrow and sorrowful. Narrowness, constraint, and sorrow are the inevitable characteristics of the path of the one who is saved; this is the first thing that meets the one who enters upon it, what he must expect, what he must prepare for.

This kind of narrowness and difficulty is inevitable by the very nature of Christian life and striving in it. One must live in the cutting off of one’s own will and reason, in the struggle and destruction of the passions, or in unceasing self-mortification and self-crucifixion. To struggle against a passion is the same as tearing living flesh from living flesh, extracting the deepest and most jagged splinter. One must abandon everything pleasing to oneself, visibly deprive oneself of much, become exhausted, suffer. On the other hand, acquiring skill in what is good or in the new life requires unceasing exertion, both interior and exterior. No true good comes without cost, but is acquired through sweat, tears, and labor. The ascetic virtues—fast, vigil, prayer, and other labors—are painful until one acquires the habit, and very often even afterward. But we are not yet told to stop at these: they are means to moral dispositions. In cultivating the latter there is even more labor; but they too are means to life in God. Life in God requires labor and ascesis all the greater, insofar as this divine treasure is more exalted than bodily practice. Thus, both there and here—labors, sweat, pain. After all, we are tearing away evil, and beloved evil at that—it hurts; we plant good, unloved good—again it is painful. “Turn to God,” says Venerable Macarius the Great, “to receive your former glory. But know that in much labor and sweat of your brow you will receive this wealth. Before (in paradise) you received it without labor, but without labor you also lost it; now it is not given so. Whoever wishes to be saved, let him strive with all his strength to cleanse himself. Then, because of the violence we do to ourselves, the Lord will have mercy” (Homily 4, §10). “One must do violence to oneself and force oneself to every good thing, even when the heart does not want it” (Homily 1, §§13–14). “Great effort and hidden, invisible labor is required for the examination of thoughts, for training the weak faculties of the soul to distinguish good from evil, for strengthening and rousing toward God the weakened members of the soul. This same hidden struggle and labor we must continually maintain within the heart in every fulfillment of the commandments, until we come to perfection, where everything will be easy” (Homily 2, §§13–14).

To the inner struggle and labor are always added sorrows from without. “You are not of the world,” the Lord says, “I have chosen you, separated you from it; for this reason the world hates you” (John 15:19). “In the world you will have tribulation” (John 16:33). And indeed: “Many are the afflictions of the righteous” (Psalm 34:19). Whoever you may be, strong or weak—just begin to act according to God, and immediately there will be afflictions, sorrows, and hardships, when you act with a pure conscience, without people-pleasing, having in view only the glory of God. That is why all the saints, especially Isaac the Syrian, regard afflictions as the distinguishing marks both of the truly virtuous person and of true virtue itself. Indeed: if you do a truly good deed, expect affliction.

And here the enemy does not sleep. He both inflames and obstructs our inner life, and makes the outer life heavy and surrounds it with barriers. And beyond that, he himself—now with phantoms, now with apparitions, now especially with certain terrifying suggestions and assaults within, as if a wind blows through you, or as if a fiery arrow pierces you—so the saints say.

Thus, as soon as someone steps onto the right path, hostility comes at him from all sides, both from within and from without, both visibly and invisibly. He is a lamb in the midst of wolves. So it is said to him at the beginning: “Many are the afflictions of the righteous” (Psalm 34:19), “through many afflictions we must enter the Kingdom” (Acts 14:22), “there will be affliction, for to this we are appointed” (1 Thessalonians 3:3), “enter by the narrow gate” (Matthew 7:13; cf. Matt. 6:24; John 15:20; 1 Peter 4:12–13, Sirach 2:1; Matthew 5:10; James 1:12; 2 Corinthians 4:8, 17; 1 Peter 4:1; Revelation 7:14; Matthew 7:13–14 and others). We are all in darkness and the shadow of death, in the hands of enemies, malicious and cunning; the way out cannot be easy. Even those seeking external freedom undertake so much labor and sweat; so here—how many stumbling blocks and defeats, anxieties and fears! Perhaps someone will ask: but what about the Lord? Well, the fact that He seems to arrange such a sorrowful path deliberately is sometimes to make us partakers of His afflictions, and sometimes to hide us from ourselves in this comfortless state. “The Lord cannot better show His love to those who seek Him,” says Saint Isaac the Syrian, “than by subjecting them to afflictions.” That is why this is even an unmistakable sign of God’s favor, a sign that He has turned His eye upon and chosen the one who begins to suffer for righteousness’ sake, for the sake of His name. Such a person enters, as it were, into refinement, like gold into the furnace. Those who are strangers to suffering, those for whom everything is easy—are “illegitimate children,” according to the Apostle (Hebrews 12:8). Labors, tears, and sorrows are the very best purification, like beating for laundry.

That is why the Apostle surveys the righteous from the foundation of the world until now, and sees every one of them suffering, afflicted, and burdened. the patriarchs suffer; the prophets suffer; the Lord — the Author and Pioneer of our struggle — most of all; the apostles—likewise; then—the martyrs, ascetics, and all the saints, as John the Theologian sees in Revelation. “Where have they come from? …from the great affliction” (Rev. 7:13–14); they are those, as it is said there, who did not spare their souls.

Therefore, whoever approaches to serve the Lord must prepare his soul for trials. Expect not rest, not pleasures, not comforts, but toil, afflictions, and deprivations—and not only expect them, but seek them. One must know firmly that whoever practices virtues but without labor, stands in ascesis but comfortably, without painful exertion—such a person is on the path of spiritual delusion. Something is not right here. Among people, one cannot stand peacefully in righteousness. The worldly spirit is a flesh-eating vulture—it attacks immediately. That is why one must be ready for anything…

The Holy Fathers define this readiness very simply and in few words. Namely: go as though to death, and make this covenant in your heart, that you are a bondservant of death, which is being prepared for you at every moment, you know not how or from where. Only the one who walks the path of true Christian life with such dispositions, they say, will stand unshaken. For as soon as he dies in feeling and by the covenant of his heart, then whatever he may encounter will already be weaker than what he expects, that is, weaker than death. To this they apply the Savior’s parable about the king who counts his army when war approaches (Luke 14:31–33), and about the master who begins to build a house (Matthew 7:24–27, Luke 6:47–49). Count up the afflictions that await you, they say, and die in thought and feeling, because only death will constitute a sufficient sum—such is what must be expended on the way of Christ. “He cannot be My disciple,” the Lord says, “who does not hate his own soul” (Luke 14:26). To be ready as for death—this is most fully explained and often repeated in Saint Isaac the Syrian. “Whatever you encounter,” he says, “say that you have died, and it will become easier; rest and repose are the most hateful thing to God.”

This is necessary not only for those who have renounced the world; those living in the world need such a disposition even more. All this meets the true zealots of piety; for the false, it is easy. To such a covenant with your heart you must also add firm and unwavering hope in God Almighty; you must hold the faith that, despite all the darkness of the path, you are God’s—not rejected, not despised, but guarded by Him; that He is with you, holding you at the very time when you are being torn from all sides. Imagine yourself held by the hand of God, like a soiled cloth that is beaten to clean it. Hold fast to the faith that whatever trial may come, whether interior or exterior, it is within your strength, because the Lord will not let you be tried beyond what you can bear. He leads and instructs with wisdom. Remember also that His help is near, that it is ready at once, as soon as you call out, and that only with such help will you be able to overcome and not fall; and therefore ascribe every victory to Him. What is endured without calling upon God, and not referred to Him after it is endured, is displeasing to Him and fruitless, for it always leaves behind pride and self-regard.

One must not, however, throw oneself into afflictions: reckless self-reliance is opposed to God, and is always punished. Stand ready for anything, even for death itself—yet await this in firm hope in God and in entrusting yourself to Him. Wherever and however He leads, let Him lead as He wills. Do not resist, do not desire this or that, neither ease nor afflictions. Let Him lead; go with unveiled face, expecting everything afflictive, in hope and in entrusting yourself to God. Without such a disposition you will not take a single step on the true path. All who turn back do so precisely because they have not prepared themselves for ascesis and struggle, or because of self-reliance. One’s own fervor may help, but not for long. It cools naturally—and the person is left with nothing.