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Seen from below, the spiritual life seems to be an incessant combat, an “invisible struggle”, where every pause becomes a regression. Seen from above, it is the acquisition of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. This double movement stands out clearly in the prayer addressed to the Holy Spirit: “Purify us from all stain”, but also “Come and dwell within us.”
This purification begins by a very realistic vision of one's state. “Know thyself” was the ascetic teaching of Socrates. “No one can know God unless he first knows himself.”18.1 “The one who has seen his sin is greater than he who raises the dead.” “He who has seen himself is greater than he who has seen the angels.”18.2 A man's vigorous penetration into the darkness of his heart of hearts, though it is a formidable undertaking, gives him the power to judge himself. He must make the descent supplied with an ascetic scaphander [archaeologist's trowel], the spirit of discernment, in order to explore its caverns peopled by phantoms, and to seize in action his perverted will, and his anticipated death, in short, his irremediable natural deficiency. This is the triple barrier of nature, sin and death that the Lord has passed through for us all. The vision must be brief, instantaneous, in order to avoid all pleasure in sorrow or despair. Sin is never a subject of contemplation; we must rest our glance on what obliterates it--grace. The soul can now truly utter the cry: “From the abyss of my iniquity I invoke the abyss of your mercy.”
The ascent is gradual. Thus the heavenly ladder of St. John Climacus describes the upward progress in following the rungs or steps in the order that he has studied perfectly. Charity, for example, is placed at the end, crowning the ascension and situated at the top of the ladder. As a shrewd pedagogue, the saint warns against any activity of emotional love, for here it is a question of crucified love. The great spiritual men left their solitude and returned to the world at the moment of their perfect maturity. The wisdom of Climacus shows souls how to avoid many failures and disappointments, for some souls are too impatient, forgetting the words, “Physician, cure thyself.”18.3
Mindful of the metanoia or conversion, the spiritual life takes for its point of departure humility. A spiritual man is a saint who confesses himself a sinner. “Anthony said in groaning: Who will then escape? And a voice answered him: Humility.”18.4 Abbot Sisoes at the moment of his death, being already fully enlightened, said humbly: “I have not even begun my penance.”18.5These words mean that penance is the more and more acute consciousness of the love of God and of the inadequate response of man. It is not an act that can be finished, but a constant state of soul which deepens the nearer it approaches the end.
For the ascetic, humility means the art of finding his own place. “He who knows his exact measure possesses perfect humility.”18.6 If men of the world covet what is inordinate and excessive, and desire to be the master and the bridegroom, the Gospel gives us a luminous picture of humility. St. John the Baptist finds all his joy in being only the friend of the bridegroom, and the Blessed Virgin finds her joy in being the handmaid of the Lord. They diminish in order that the other, the true bridegroom and master, may increase. One is in function with the other. God does not take his exact place among men except when he finds a perfect conformity. He came “unto his own”, and he was received by his friend and his handmaid. Their humility is an exact replica of the divine humility, of the kenosis of the servant of Yahweh, of “the man of sorrows”. It reflects and follows a reversal of values; the pantocrator becomes the lover of men, and the king the crucified servant.
“Among those born of women there has not risen a greater than John the Baptist.”18.7 These words are antithetical for they abolish the limits of the covenants. To the “greater” corresponds the enigmatic. “Yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” St. John is at the same time the greatest and the least, and he is the greatest because he is the least. Hearing the voice of the bridegroom, his friend says: “This my joy, therefore, is made full.”18.8 The joyous self-effacement is so deep that at this level the bridegroom and his friend converge in the ineffable grandeur that unites them. God had become man and man had become God to the point that people asked themselves whether John was not the Christ.18.9 Now for all of us God manifestly places St. John and the virgin at the summit of the universal priesthood, as a “guiding image” in the service of his Church. This is clearly shown in the composition of the Deisis, the icon that represents the Lord in kingly garments with his mother on his right hand.18.10
Nietzsche committed a flagrant error in declaring that Christianity is the religion of slaves. Contrary to all plebian and vindictive resentment of offenses, the Christian confesses his guilt, and this is the attitude of a nobleman. No confusion is possible between humility and humiliation, weakness or spineless resignation. Humility is the greatest power, for it radically suppresses all spirit of resentment, and it alone can get the better of pride. The best definition of it would be to say that it places the axis of a human being in God.
In the psychiatric point of view, self-centeredness is indicative of every hysteric neurosis; it makes the universe turn around the human ego: “I, and no one else.” The desire of equality caused the fall of Lucifer, notes St. Gregory Nazianzen. According to St. Gregory of Nyssa, Satan was offended at learning of the creation of man in the image of God. Likewise Islam shows him in revolt, refusing to bow down before Adam. The anti-Christ in Soloviev's Legend18.11 becomes conscious of his demoniacal nature at the moment he feels the impossibility of prostrating and adoring any thing but his ego. We go back here to the source of the sin that explains the aim of ascesis: to break pride and to make humility the unshakable foundation of the human spirit: “To allow oneself to be ground between the grindstones of humility in order to become a sweet and agreeable bread for our Lord.”18.12
The Golden Legend tells us the story of a humble man who had two “right hands”. He had the habit of putting into his right hand all the joys received each day and all his sorrows into his left hand. It was his left hand that was always full. Then, through a spirit of humility, all that fell into his left hand, he put into his right hand, and his life became all light and joy.