From the Thebaid of Egypt, to the caves and cells of Mount Athos, and even beyond to the
vast forests of northern Russia, these are the Chronicles of the Desert.
“Man’s purpose, from the moment he is born, is to find God,” wrote Saint Joseph
the Hesychast.
“‘In Him we live and move.’
Unfortunately, the passions have shut the eyes of our soul and we cannot see.”
But as our very loving God keeps calling us to Himself, “then we awake as if from sleep
and begin to seek salvation.”
Joseph spoke from experience, being once such a young man in the port of Piraeus near Athens,
Greece when God called him from out of the busyness and dissipation of the world to a
life of sanctification and stillness.
His heart burned with divine love as he read from the lives of the saints and hoped to
find such ascetics one day.
Many years later, after becoming a monk and forming a brotherhood on Mount Athos, Joseph
would share similar stories with his monks so as to warm up the fervor of their souls
whenever they fell into drowsiness and negligence.
“Only such things as readings and stories of spiritual worth,” he said, “are able
to banish forgetfulness and restore the old edifice.”
Some of the stories Joseph told were really eyewitness accounts from when in 1921, as
a young man named Francis, he journeyed to the Holy Mountain in search of a spiritual
father that could teach him prayer of the heart and watchfulness, or inner wakefulness,
much like he read about in patristic books and the lives of the saints.
At first, Joseph found only monks concerned with handicrafts and who spoke from worldly
knowledge.
But, as he journeyed further into the Athonite desert, he discovered austere and grace filled
ascetics, who through purification of the heart and mind, the nous, had gained stillness
and attained to theoria, the vision of God.
Francis met one such man, who practiced unceasing prayer of the heart in a cave, who cried seven
times a day before passing the entire night in tears.
Once, Francis asked him, “Elder, why do you cry so much?”
“My child,” the Elder replied, “when man beholds God, he sheds tears out of love
and cannot contain himself.”
These words further kindled the fire within Francis.
He too wanted to experience the joy-filled sadness that comes with a visit of grace bringing
recognition of one’s own sinfulness and the tears.
This is what St. Symeon the New Theologian calls a second baptism.
Francis also met Elder Kallinikos, an old ascetic who lived in seclusion for forty years
after first purifying himself bodily through the practical virtues.
Now, through vigilance and ascetic work he thrived on the sweetness of grace and divine
love.
Another was blind Papa-Ignatius, an old ascetic who due to his unceasing prayer spoke words
accompanied by a divine fragrance.
“Whoever works in his youth will have sustenance in his old age,” said Papa-Ignatius as Francis
drew closer to smell his spirit filled breath.
“Now when you are young, pray, fast, live ascetically, and do prostrations, so that
you will have sustenance when you grow old.”
Francis discovered another blind elder in Katounakia, one who kept unceasing prayer,
sometimes out loud and sometimes with his nous.
When Francis went to him for advice and to confess his thoughts the elder would only
say, “My child, my child, the prayer!
Say the prayer, my child!
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.”
Then there was the profoundly silent Elder Daniel the Hesychast, who lived in the cave
of Saint Peter the Athonite near the Great Lavra.
Elder Daniel served the Divine Liturgy every day for sixty years and soaked the ground
with his tears as he intoned the petitions with great compunction.
Francis would later call it a fearsome and divine spectacle.
Elder Daniel recognized Francis to be a chosen vessel and agreed to hear his confessions.
The Elder often read his thoughts beforehand and responded first, so that discussions would
be brief.
Sometimes, the Elder, moved by grace, would share a saying such as the one from Saint
Syncletike: “The lamp illuminates, but its lips burn,” thus reminding Francis that
superfluous speech opens a door to pride and causes the withdrawal of grace.
Elder Daniel knew the hearts of others with precision, and provided Francis with his first
beneficial prayer schedule.
But he was unwilling to take on a disciple.
Step by step, Francis wandered along the cliffs and into caves seeking out these “holy lilies
who perfumed the wilderness,” to witness their wondrous feats and learn about how they
ate, lived, and prayed.
But he could not find a spiritual father, as most were unwilling to lose stillness,
since much order and precision is required to preserve it.
Francis also encountered indifference among some monks and laypeople over his aspiration
to struggle against the passions and practice noetic prayer.
“In our times,” he later said, “people do not occupy themselves with such things
as they are preoccupied with cares and material worries.
Now, every passion has taken the place of an idol.
And if you reprove or critique the passion you see overcoming each person, they all shout,
‘Stone him, because he reviled our gods!’”
When Francis became a monk, he faced condemnation and accusations of being deluded, even by
monks.
But through it all he kept silence, prayed, and did not respond, considering this temptation
as part of his ascesis.
“I don’t cease praying for the fathers day and night and saying that they are right,”
he explained.
“Only I am at fault because I scandalize them, since they see with whatever eyes God
gave them.
Wouldn’t it be unjust and unfair for me to say, ‘Why don’t they see as I can see?’”
But a tree is known by its fruit.
As his spiritual child Elder Ephraim of Arizona would later write, “It was not possible
for a person — no matter how passionate he was — to live beside Elder Joseph and
not be cured of his passions, as long as he was obedient.
That heavenly man knew how to cure his disciples’ passions with much discernment.
All they had to do was remain beside him in obedience to become like new men.”
Elder Joseph’s brotherhood and all that they accomplished after his repose are witness
to his teachings and sanctity.
Before all this though, the young Francis remained without such a teacher even while
benefiting from the counsel and prayers of many grace-filled ascetics.
One day, he moved to the hut of Holy Protection near the Great Lavra.
Fr. Hariton lived there and accepted a small sum from Francis in exchange for a room.
Francis, still a layman, was free to pray and practice as he wished
as Fr. Hariton often travelled around Mount Athos.
Francis fasted and struggled with much contrition and repentance, humbling his un-submissive
body and making his soul more receptive to the freely given grace of God.
These efforts may seem extreme, but they were an expression of his great love for God and
the desire to keep the commandments.
Then one day, Fr.
Fr. Hariton became stern with Francis and gave him penances and restrictions.
Discouraged, Francis wept and prayed in the wilderness for several hours.
He repeated the Jesus Prayer out loud each day because he still did not know how to say
it with his nous.
He begged the Mother of God and the Lord to give him the grace to say the prayer noetically
just as he had read in The Philokalia.
One day, Francis invited a priest to the hut to bless his cell.
Afterward, he brought a tray with some tea and sugar to the priest.
Just then, Fr.
Hariton entered and, when he saw what Francis was doing, struck the tray from underneath
causing everything to crash to the floor.
Francis lowered his head, did a prostration, and said, “Bless, Father.”
Even with such a humble victory, Francis again felt discouraged.
He went into a nearby cave and wept and prayed for twelve hours.
It was not the insult that caused him to weep
but rather frustration over not finding a teacher.
“Even in the wilderness I encounter passion,” thought Francis.
That same night, he sat exhausted and gazed at the chapel of the Transfiguration which
rests upon the summit of Mount Athos.
“Oh Lord, as you were transfigured to Your disciples,” he prayed, “Transfigure Yourself
also in my soul!
Stop the passions and bring peace to my heart!
Grant prayer to him who prays and restrain my unrestrained nous!”
He continued praying with pain of heart and humility, when suddenly a gentle breeze full
of fragrance came from the chapel.
His soul filled with joy, illumination, and divine love as the prayer flowed from within
his heart with such bliss that he thought, “This is paradise!
I don’t need any other Paradise.”
He marveled at how the prayer, which he once said with his mouth was now being said within
his heart like a clock with much precision and without any effort.
“What’s happening to me now?”
wondered Francis.
Is this the light?”
He entered the cave and synchronized the prayer with his breathing, until suddenly his nous
was caught up into theoria, the first of many times in his life.
Totally beside himself, he bent his head upon his chest and tasted the sweet spiritual honey
that gushed forth.
He was beyond the rocks and walls, beyond all volition, without body and in deep tranquility
and extraordinary light.
His only thought, “May I never return to the body, but remain here forever.”
When Francis finally returned from this mystical communion with the divine presence which transcended
even time and space, he found that the prayer continued within his heart and did so unceasingly
until his final breath almost forty years later.
This gift of being taught by God is rare, much like that received by St. Symeon the
New Theologian and St. Maximos the Hut-Burner.
Although God’s grace is freely given, He often waits to see if a person is willing
to exert himself.
Francis had followed the road of repentance all the way to the Athonite desert.
He sought advice with humility and pursued God through self-denial, pain of heart, and
many tears, and now, through God’s grace, his heart continuously cried out,
"Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.”
Many years later, after Francis became the monk known as Joseph, after enduring numerous
trials, afflictions, and temptations from demons, even while ascending step-by-step
the ladder of Christ-like virtues, and after forming a brotherhood with his co-struggler
Fr. Arsenios, one of his spiritual children asked, “Elder, why do you still fast after so much exhaustion?"
“I fast now, my child, so that our good God may give His grace to all of you.”
Such divine eros and longing for God dwelled in the Elder’s heart, that he could go without
food but not without prayer.
He prayed for others out of love even to the point of enduring the same temptations and
warfare from which they suffered.
He so purified his heart as to be counted worthy of the gifts of discernment, clairvoyance,
and clear-sight.
Yet, he remained humble and even up to his final day he wept for his sins.
St. Joseph “was unlettered as far as secular schooling was concerned,”
recalled Elder Ephraim.
“But he was wise in things divine, for he was tutored by God.
The University of the Wilderness taught him what we basically need: the Divine.
And in the vastness of that silence he could hear the whispers of grace.
So let us, like St. Joseph, seek the Lord with our whole heart.
Let us cry out to Him with love and faith, for He is everywhere present and willing to
purify us of the passions and bring us His peace if only we repent, if only we struggle
and endure temptations, if only we say with humility,
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.