Sunday of St. John Climacus / Memory of St. John of Sinai and the "Ladder of Divine Ascent".
On the 4th Sunday of Lent, commemoration of Saint John, author of the theological treatise "Climacus".
The reason why the Saint is called by this surname, it is because he wrote an important book, which is considered one of the masterpieces of our Ecclesiastical Secretariat, the well-known "Scale", a spiritual and ascetic book. It consists of thirty discourses on virtue, where every reason includes a virtue, τους οποίους συνέγραψε ο ίδιος.
Η Ακολουθία του Όρθρου και τη Θεία Λειτουργία της Κυριακής Δ’ Νηστειών (St.. Ιωάννου της Κλίμακος) στον Ιερό Ναό της Παναχράντου, in Mykonos Town, που φιλοξενεί το Ιερό Εικόνισμα της Παναγίας της Τουρλιανής για την περίοδο της Αγίας και Μεγάλης Τεσσαρακοστής, τελέσθηκε σήμερα από τον Αρχιερατικό Επίτροπο Δήλου και Μυκόνου, in the afternoon at the Holy Monastery of Paleokastro Ano Mera Mykonos. Πέτρο Μαραγκό πλαισιούμενος από τον Διάκονο Γεώργιο, με την παρουσία Μυκονίων Πίστών.
Epistle Reading / The Reading is from St. Paul’s Letter to the Hebrews 6:13-20
ΑΠΟΣΤΟΛΟΣ (Ἑβρ. στ΄, 13–20)
Brethren, τῷ Ἀβραὰμ ἐπαγγειλάμενος ὁ Θεός, on cat’ no one had a greater counterpart, ὤmose prof’ saying to himself: "I will bless thee not of the blessed, and I will multiply thee of the many"; and thus long-suffering he succeeded in the promise;, and to all these contradictions, the oath was confirmed; in which God, being more willing, showed to the heirs of the promise the immutability of his will, sworn to, so that for two things immutable, in whom it is impossible to lie to God, We, the refugees, have a strong prayer to hold on to this hope, which we have as an anchor of the soul, safe and certain and entering "inside the veil", where Jesus entered as a forerunner for us, "after the order of Melchizedek" high priest born "in the age".
Gospel Reading / The Reading is from the Gospel According to Mark 9:17-31
Gospel Reading / Fourth Sunday of Lent - St. John of St. Climacus. θ΄ 17-31
Τῷ καιρῷ ἐκείνῳ, A man came to Jesus saying. Teacher, I owe my son to you, having a different spirit. And wherever he understands him, tell him, and foams and gnashes his teeth, and it dries up: and I told your disciples to put it out, and they didn't work. But the one who answered him said: I am an unbelieving generation, how long shall I bear with you? how long shall I bear with you? bring him to me. and they brought him to him. And seeing him directly, the spirit pierced him, and he fell to the ground covered with foam. And he asked his father: How long has it been since this thing happened to him? And he said: Child.. And many times he put him in the fire and in the water, in order to destroy him;’ What are you capable of?, help us, those who are afflicted’ us. But Jesus said to him: If you can believe it, always strong to the believer. And immediately the father of the child cried out with tears saying: I believe, Lord, help me in unbelief. But when Jesus saw that a crowd was gathering, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to him: The spirit is dumb and deaf, I command you, come out of him and do not enter him. And they cried and broke him a lot and he came out, and he was born as dead, so many say that he died. But Jesus took him by the hand and raised him up, and arose. And when he entered his house, his disciples questioned him’ indeed, because we were not able to bring it out. And he said to them: This generation can come out in nothing but in prayer and fasting.. And leaving thence, they journeyed through Galilee, And they did not want him to know them, for he was teaching his disciples and saying to them that the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of men., and they dispossess him, and having recovered on the third day, he is resurrected.
The Scale of Virtues and the Devil's Obstacles
St. John of Climacus, whom today our Church particularly honors, it is a precious gift of God to our Church, because he left us a precious legacy, the Scale, with which he teaches us two great things.
Firstly, progress in the spiritual life must be made by science, not without a program, not casually, not without consequence, but with care and effort to strive to shake off the passions and acquire the virtues.
And the second, in this struggle one cannot reach perfection from one moment to the next, but he must ascend the virtues by degrees, to pursue them, to desire them, to pray for them until he reaches the highest virtue, Where is Love.
And Saint John tells us 30 rungs on the ladder of virtues, which the struggling monk and Christian must climb.
The "Scale" includes thirty discourses on virtue, where each reason includes a virtue, starting from the most practical and climbing like stairs he ended up at the theoretically high. In spiritual life we have low and high levels, lower and higher states. That is why the book is called the Scale of the Virtues.
Some of his reasons, from the Scale:
1) Humility is a heavenly whirlwind that can lift the soul from the abyss of sin to the heights of heaven.
2) The mother of the fountain is the abyss of waters, and the source of distinction is humiliation
A. Εικόνες από την Θεία λειτουργία στον Ιερό Ναό Παναχράντου
B. Κυριακή Δ’ Νηστείων Σύναξις του Αρχαγγέλου Γαβριήλ & του Οσίου και Θεοφόρου Πατρός ημών Ιωάννου του Σιναΐτου, συγγραφέως της Κλίμακος
Divine Liturgy at the Holy Metropolitan Church of Megali Panagia!
