The Ascetical Homilies of St. Isaac the Syrian - Homily X

Many will read this homily of St. Isaac the Syrian and hear only threat. They will imagine that he is merely moralizing, merely warning, merely trying to frighten men into behaving. They will hear law where he is speaking mystery. They will hear rules where he is unveiling consecration.

Isaac is not obsessed with sin as a legal violation. He is shattered by something far deeper: that those who have been joined to Christ live as though they still belong to the world.

He is not saying merely, “Do not break commandments.”

He is saying:

Do not profane what has become holy.

Through the Incarnation, the Son of God took flesh. He entered the very substance of our humanity. He did not save us from afar. He entered our blood, our weakness, our mortality, our death. He carried human nature into the tomb and raised it radiant. What was estranged has been united. What was corruptible has been touched by immortality.

And through Baptism of the Lord and our own baptism into Him, through the Eucharistic Body and Blood, through the seal and indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we are not merely instructed people.

We are consecrated people.

Our eyes are no longer simply eyes.
Our hands are no longer simply hands.
Our mouths are no longer simply mouths.
Our bodies are no longer private possessions.
Our life is no longer our own.

We have become members of Christ.

This is why Isaac speaks with fire.

When he recounts Noah’s generation, Sodom, Samson, David, Eli, Baltasar, he is not delighting in punishment narratives. He is showing that sin is never trivial because man is never trivial. To misuse the body is to misuse a mystery. To turn desire against holiness is to drag what was made for communion into fragmentation. To employ consecrated members for impurity, vanity, greed, cruelty, or spiritual indifference is to treat the vessels of the sanctuary as drinking cups at a banquet of death.

Baltasar drank from holy vessels and was struck down. Isaac says: look closer. We do this every day when we take what belongs to God and hand it back to the passions.

You mouth received the Eucharist. Then you use it for bitterness.
Your eyes were anointed for light. Then you train them upon lust and envy.
Your mind was illumined for prayer. Then you sell it to distraction.
Your heart was made for divine love. Then you offer it to vanity.
Your body became a temple. Then you rent rooms to idols.

And still we say lightly, “I can repent later.”

This is what Isaac tears apart.

He is not denying repentance. He is defending it from abuse. He is saying: do not turn mercy into permission. Do not make the patience of God an accomplice to your self-destruction. Do not use the medicine as a reason to keep drinking poison.

Modern Christians often reduce everything to psychology or ethics. If we fail, we think only in terms of mistakes, coping, weakness, habits. Isaac sees more deeply. He sees sacrilege and glory side by side. He sees saints living beneath their dignity. He sees temples choosing mud. He sees heirs of the Kingdom amusing themselves with chains.

This is why holy fear matters.

Not servile terror. Not neurotic dread. But trembling before what grace has made possible. Fear that I might forget who Christ has made me. Fear that I might treat divine intimacy casually. Fear that I might become numb while carrying heaven within me.

The Fathers speak fear because love is real. Only what is precious can be desecrated.

And they speak repentance because desecration is not the final word.

David wept. Peter was restored. Samson, blinded and broken, cried out again. Mercy remains greater than sin. But mercy is not cheap because blood purchased it. The open door of repentance is not there so we may stroll in and out of darkness at will. It is there so that when we have fallen, we may return shattered and be remade.

Isaac calls us back to baptismal consciousness.

Remember what happened to you.
Remember what entered you.
Remember whose Body you receive.
Remember whose Spirit dwells in you.
Remember that your members have been signed for another Kingdom.

You are not common.

That is the terror and the joy of Christianity.

The Christian life is not mainly avoiding bad behavior. It is guarding the flame placed in earthen vessels. It is reverencing what God has claimed. It is allowing every faculty to become liturgy.

Eyes that pray.
Hands that bless.
Speech that heals.
Mind that remembers God.
Heart that burns cleanly.
Body that becomes offering.

Isaac thunders because he sees how magnificent you are in Christ, and how cheaply you are tempted to live.

Do not use mercy to remain unchanged.

Do not use repentance to excuse betrayal.

Do not drag consecrated things back into slavery.

You have passed through death and resurrection.
You have eaten fire.
You carry the Spirit.

Live like one who has touched the Holy.

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Text of chat during the group:

00:11:55 Andrew Adams: yes

00:15:19 Adam Paige: An Anglican could speak to a priest in the confessional, but they wouldn’t receive absolution

00:17:58 Catherine Opie: I am currently in the UK and its 12.30am!

00:46:44 Wayne: Sorry, need to leave now...

00:56:53 Erick Chastain: In light of St. Isaac's discussion of the consecration of our members and the Eucharist: St. Cyril of Jerusalem (cat. 22, n. 3; M. 33, 1099): “The body and . . . blood are given to you, so that, when you have received the body and blood of Christ, you may be made concorporeal and consanguineous with him. For thus we also become Christ-bearers, his body and blood being distributed through our members. Thus, according to blessed Peter, we become partakers of the divine nature.”

01:01:39 Erick Chastain: scotistic dogmatic theology manual excerpt

01:01:49 Jessica McHale: I have a question about the Eucharist. It's a little off topic, but I am curious about your thoughts: I heard a Jesuit priest say once that "it's silly for someone to run into a burning church just to save the Eucharist in the tabernacle because Jesus already died once for us and He can't be hurt again." I don't know what to make of that. We do protect the Euchatist as best we can from desecration, in any way, but is it true that He can't be "hurt again" so we wouldn't need to "woory" so much abotu it

01:05:52 Julie: This was how different the early martyrs were to now

01:05:56 iPhone: Should we attend Church for Mass when is not revrence.

01:06:24 Ben: Anna: If you find yourself on the lazy/ distracted end of burnout, what does returning to zeal look like? Or is zeal the wrong word?

01:06:52 Gwen’s iPhone: I remember Fr. Groeschel  said when he was a little boy when he first saw inside the Tabernacle he expected tiny furniture.  Just a thought (off topic )

01:07:13 Ben: 12

01:07:27 John Burmeister: Reacted to "12" with 👍

01:07:56 Kathryn Rose: Zeal maybe isn't the ideal state to seek out or try to maintain. It seems like Hesychia is what we aim for

01:13:21 Jessica McHale: Reacted to "12" with ❤️

01:13:26 Ben: Anna: In the stillness, when one sees one's unworthiness before God.  How does one remain?

01:18:25 David Swiderski, WI: This is the day the Lord has made (Psalm 118) now comes the treasure hunt for us to find him in the day.  One of my 3rd grade students told me this once after seeing the psalm in a chapel we had at the school  and I think of it  and him often

01:20:24 Maureen Cunningham: Thank You Blessings

01:21:17 Andrew Adams: Thanks be to God! Thank you, Father!

01:21:19 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️

01:21:29 Janine: Thank you Father!

01:21:33 Aaron: thank you father!

01:21:35 Nicola Loynes: Thank you Father

01:21:36 David Swiderski, WI: Thank you Father may God bless you your Mother and this group

01:21:39 Jessica McHale: So much gratitude for these groups/retreats -- so helpful!!!!

01:21:53 Catherine Opie: God bless. Many thanks