Page 78 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 5

Church Traditions for a Christian Psychology

and anger” to such a degree that he “is always crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncer-
ahead of himself,” living not by hope, but in a tainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air.
“fear (Angst) . . . [that feeds on his] belonging But I discipline my body and bring it into sub-
to the world.” The hallmark of the passionate jection, lest, when I have preached to others, I
individual is crippling uncertainty in the face myself should become disqualified (1 Corinthi-
“of the possibilities which” life offers. And all of ans 9:25-27, NKJV). What else can this prize be
this is further “nourished by the feeling that he but love? Not God’s love for us but our love for
is at the mercy of his responsibilities. [That he Him; ascetical struggle is the process of moving
has] to forever launch out toward [some] futu- from a life of passive and fearful uncertainty to
re possibilities, in other words, towards [some] a life of personal communion with God, creati-
more appropriate opportunity.” This is “the edge on, neighbor and self. The ascetical life then is
of the abyss of nothingness” (Staniloae, p. 116) more than simply a life of renunciation. Those
that has consumed modernity from Nietzsche, authors, Christian or not, who frame asceticism
through Sartre, to popular culture’s love of nihi- only as renunciation confuse means and ends.
lism and “shows about nothing” (Hibbs, 2012). Rooted in the sacraments, ascetical struggle is a
The passions for Maximos are both the cause return to a way of life that was ours “in the be-
and the symptom of my enslavement to sin and ginning” through the intentional cultivation of
it is these that need to be healed. Or, as Maxi- those habits of thought and action that fosters
mus himself says, the “inner transformation of the human per-
son, [and] his being progressively conformed to
It is not food that is evil, but gluttony … not Christ” (Pontifical Commission on Justice and
material things but avarice… [I]t is only the Peace, 2005, #42). While the need for a shift in
misuse of things that is evil, and such misuse behavior is obvious to those interested in psy-
occurs when the intellect fails to cultivate its chology and psychotherapy, the centrality of
natural powers (Four Hundred Centuries on
Love, 3.4 in Sherwood, 1942). the Christian sacraments to a life of ascetical re-
formation and transformation might elude us.
To stop at this point would mean leaving the After all, isn’t a change in behavior what really
reader with a misapprehension of the therapeu- matters?
tic character of the ascetical life. While the as- In word, no. While behavior must be changed,
cetical struggle embraces our relationship with such a change is not in and of itself sufficient to
the material world, it does so at the service of cure what ails us.
restoring us to a personal likeness to Christ. It
is this likeness, rather than the imago dei, that Born From Above
was lost by Adam’s sin. “Of old you formed me During graduate school I had a classmate who
from nothing and honoured me with your di- was also a Southern Baptist minister. Explai-
vine image, but because I transgressed your ning the goal of pastoral care in his tradition
commandment, you returned me to the earth he told me about what he called the two great
from which I was taken; bring me back to your mountaintops of the Christian life: Justification
likeness, my ancient beauty” (Orthodox Fu- and Sanctification. He went on to say that the
neral Service). Rightly understood, the goal struggle he had as a pastor was that he knew
of Christian asceticism is this: The restoration that he was to lead his congregation from one
of our ancient beauty through a restoration of mountaintop to the other but he just didn’t
what was lost—our personal communion with know how. Let me suggest that the classical
the Most Holy Trinity. Christian understanding and practice of asceti-
cism is the path we take from one mountaintop
Restored to Love to the other; it’s how we move from justificati-
St Paul reminds us that “everyone who compe- on to sanctification, or “from glory to glory” (2
tes for the prize is temperate in all things.” We Corinthians 3:18). As co-workers with Christ (2
do this in the pursuit of a goal, some “to obtain Cor 6:1; see also Cor 4:1- 20, 1 Cor 9:16 – 27,
a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable 2 Cor 5:17 – 21, 2 Cor 6:1- 10)—asceticism is

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