It all
began with our forefathers, Adam and Eve. They received a commandment in
paradise not to taste of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (cf. 2:17).
The commandment not to “taste of this or that” is quite well known to any
Orthodox Christian. This is the commandment to fast—the most ancient, beginning
factor of family life.
As we
know, the first family was tempted by satan, the forefather of all evil. That
envier could not calmly watch their happy life. Adam and Eve broke the
commandment of not eating. The Lord called them to account. Then they tried to
place their own blame on someone else, as if they were not guilty at all. Not only
that, but Adam blamed his wife, who, as he emphasized, he had received from
God. That is how the fall into sin happened, and people did not repent of what
they had done. The Lord deprived them of paradise, and gave them a penance.
Let us
briefly recall the words of that penance from God. The wife was told: I will
greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring
forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over
thee (Gen. 3:16). To the husband, the Lord said, In the sweat of thy face shalt
thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou
taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return (Gen. 3:19).
Sorrows
entered the life of human beings. Steadfast endurance of sorrows is an
important part of asceticism.
Our task
is to remember that sorrows came as the result of sins. We have to bear them
without anger, without murmuring against God. It is painful to be sick, painful
to die (to return to dust). This feeling of sorrow must be melted in
repentance. Then those oppressive thoughts of death can become exalted; they
can become the remembrance of death.
After the
fall, Adam not only had to work—he had to work hard. That is how it was in his
life, and that is how it is in ours. Every man has to think about how he will
feed himself and his family. He must at times do work that is both hard and
dreary.
Archimandrite
Sergei (Shevich) often found that his parishioners were sometimes weighed down
by the work that they had to do every day. Fr. Sergei pointed out to them that
work for a married person is the same as an obedience for a monk. As we know,
monks do not choose their obedience according to their own taste. The monastic
does whatever he has been given the blessing to do. Be it unattractive and
boring, obedience nevertheless accustoms a monk to cutting off his own will,
and, accordingly, to do the will of God. For Adam and his descendants, God’s
will is to live after the fall under non-paradisal conditions, not to complain
about this, and to repent. They should also hope in God, Who leads people to
His Kingdom.
For a
woman, a time of particular trial is pregnancy. She has to think more about her
child than about herself, to pay special attention to her own health, keep to a
regime, and, perhaps leave a lucrative job for the sake of her child—to give up
her planned career growth. This is her ascesis of self-restraint. This is not
to mention the pain of childbirth, and the uninterrupted care and fuss over the
newborn.
The
infant’s parents have to deny themselves basic rest, and are sleep deprived.
They worry about their little one, and pray during anxious times for their
child’s well-being: “Lord, You know all things, and Your love is perfect. Take
the soul of (name), and do what I wish to do, but cannot.”
And if
the child was born handicapped… What faith in God’s Providence is needed in
order to bear that heavy cross!
Almost
immediately after the birth of a child a great labor begins—raising the child.
Even if we take the non-religious side of the matter, we know that we cannot
get by without God’s help. Fr. Gleb Kaleda was right when he insisted that the
foundation of upbringing and education is placed in the family, while school
and college serve only to supplement what has been done in the family. The
supplement is important, but it only enhances the main thing.
Often we
see that in school children are required to memorize information, but taught
very little about how to think for themselves. Even less are they taught
morals. What should be done in this case? The family can make up for the
inadequacies of an impersonal and commercial education and upbringing—that is
if the parents seriously take care of their child, and not only of his physical
needs, but also his emotional needs. All this takes many patient years.
Parents
are also called to care for the spiritual needs of their child. It would be good
to teach the small child to pray (in the majority of schools and universities,
he will not be taught to pray to God). But to do this the parents themselves
need to know how to pray attentively, to understand the language of prayer, and
to accessibly explain the essence of the church services to their child. As the
child grows to school age, he should be prepared for his first confession. How
can parents explain to him what sin is, and why he needs to tell the priest
about his sins. Here one’s personal example is needed, the parents’ personal
efforts on the spiritual path. If the mother takes the child to Communion but
does not herself approach the chalice or go to confession, if the father goes
only rarely to church, then it will be pretty hard to convince the child that
all of us need the Church Sacraments.
In the
home where there is no understanding of breakfast, lunch, and dinner, where
everyone eats whenever they want (and even when they don’t want), it is hard
for a child to assimilate the concept of fasting. “You can’t lead children to
fasting if they are allowed to eat whenever they like, if they are allowed to
run through the house with a piece of bread and sausage or a biscuit.
Regularity of food intake is, if you will, the beginning of Christian ascesis…
Through prayer before a meal a person learns to begin everything with prayer.
If there are visitors in the house and it is not possible to pray in front of
them, it is important that all members of the family cross themselves if only
mentally… It is necessary to cultivate both the obvious and secret forms of
everyday Christian life,” Fr. Gleb Kaleda used to say. Domestic life can become
a good support for spiritual life, but it can also become a profound
obstruction.
***
The
passion of self-love stands out as the family’s worst enemy. Egoism is a
dangerous enemy.
When a
married couple does not want to yield to each other in anything, each morbidly
guarding his or her own pride; if each continually counts the times that he or
she did something for the family, then that family will little-by-little fall
apart. If couples easily give place to anger, argue over trifles, and cannot
peacefully live with each other’s close relatives, then they themselves feel
wretched, and their children absorb their bad example. How hard it is to bring
up children by our own example!
True
ascetic labor is required of parents in order not to consign their children to
the education of television, internet groups, or the streets. That is on the
one hand; on the other hand, children must not be tortured with excess care.
After all, super-care leads to infantilism, introversion, and sometimes even
rebellion against parents.
The
family is a school of love.
All
Christian ascesis is directed toward acquiring love. Christ the Savior boiled
down all the commandments to two: love of God and love of neighbor. St.
Theophan the Recluse compares love to fire: if we do not throw logs on the fire
it will go out; if love between husband and wife is not stoked with deeds of
love, it will eventually die out. And what are these deeds of love? They are
the deeds of basic care one for the other, obvious and unobvious signs of
attention. They are the ability during arguments to overcome outbreaks of anger
and to be the first to come and make peace. They are the ability to take your
egotistical inclinations in hand, to correct your actions, always thinking to
yourself “I am not the only one.”
Fr. Gleb Kaleda wrote very well and in detail
in his book about the ascetical life in a family, The House Church. His book is
firmly supported by Orthodox tradition that has gone down through the ages, but
he does not close his eyes on the particulars of Christian life in our complex
times.
By Deacon Pavel Serzhantov
Source: http://orthochristian.com/64414.html
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