#john cassian

[palmofhandtopalmofhand]

Come to my help, O God.

Lord, hurry to my rescue.

[canonizedandotherwise]

It is not without reason that this verse [Ps 70:1] has been chosen from the whole of Scripture as a device. It carries within it all the feelings of which human nature is capable....

'Come to my help, O God; Lord, hurry to my rescue'....

The thought of this verse should be turning unceasingly in your heart. Never cease to recite it in whatever task or service or journey you find yourself. Think upon it as you sleep, as you eat, as you submit to the most basic demands of nature. This heartfelt thought will prove to be a formula of salvation for you. Not only will it protect you against all devilish attack, but it will purify you from the stain of all earthly sin, and will lead you on to the contemplation of the unseen and the heavenly and to that fiery urgency of prayer which is indescribable and which is experienced by very few. Sleep should come upon you as you meditate on this verse until as a result of your habit of resorting to its words you get in the habit of repeating them even in your slumbers.

--John Cassian, Conferences X

[gods-blade]

As John Cassian put it, the goal of having anger subdued by chastity so that a monk "is found the same, day and night, the same in bed as in prayer, quite the same alone as surrounded by men."

—Kathleen Norris, The Cloister Walk

[eternalgaylord]

from Institutes (John Cassian)

A description of accidie, and the way in which it creeps over the heart of a monk, and the injury it inflicts on the soul.

And when this has taken possession of some unhappy soul, it produces dislike of the place, disgust with the cell, and disdain and contempt of the brethren who dwell with him or at a little distance, as if they were careless or unspiritual. It also makes the man lazy and sluggish about all manner of work which has to be done within the enclosure of his dormitory.

It does not allow him to stay in his cell, or to take any pains about reading, and he often groans because he can do no good while he stays there, and complains and sighs because he can bear no spiritual fruit so long as he is joined to that society; and he complains that he is cut off from spiritual gain, and is of no use in the place, as if he were one who, though he could govern others and be useful to a great number of people, yet was edifying none, nor profiting any one by his teaching and doctrine.

He cries up distant monasteries and those which are a long way off, and describes such places as more profitable and better suited for salvation; and besides this he paints the intercourse with the brethren there as sweet and full of spiritual life. On the other hand, he says that everything about him is rough, and not only that there is nothing edifying among the brethren who are stopping there, but also that even food for the body cannot be procured without great difficulty.

Lastly he fancies that he will never be well while he stays in that place, unless he leaves his cell (in which he is sure to die if he stops in it any longer) and takes himself off from thence as quickly as possible.

Then the fifth or sixth hour brings him such bodily weariness and longing for food that he seems to himself worn out and wearied as if with a long journey, or some very heavy work, or as if he had put off taking food during a fast of two or three days.

Then besides this he looks about anxiously this way and that, and sighs that none of the brethren come to see him, and often goes in and out of his cell, and frequently gazes up at the sun, as if it was too slow in setting, and so a kind of unreasonable confusion of mind takes possession of him like some foul darkness, and makes him idle and useless for every spiritual work, so that he imagines that no cure for so terrible an attack can be found in anything except visiting some one of the brethren, or in the solace of sleep alone.

Then the disease suggests that he ought to show courteous and friendly hospitalities to the brethren, and pay visits to the sick, whether near at hand or far off.

He talks too about some dutiful and religious offices; that those kinsfolk ought to be inquired after, and that he ought to go and see them oftener; that it would be a real work of piety to go more frequently to visit that religious woman, devoted to the service of God, who is deprived of all support of kindred; and that it would be a most excellent thing to get what is needful for her who is neglected and despised by her own kinsfolk; and that he ought piously to devote his time to these things instead of staying uselessly and with no profit in his cell.

source (under Book X, Ch. 2)

(paragraphs added for greater readability)

(note: 'accidie' is commonly spelled 'acedia' nowadays)

[justana0kguy]

2023 SEPTEMBER 21 Thursday

"Yes, this is indeed the great miracle of God, that a man of flesh rejected any carnal inclination, that, among so many various circumstances, so many assaults given to him, he keeps his soul in the same disposition , and remains motionless in the middle of the incessant flow of events."

~ Saint John Cassian, On Chastity, Conf. XII, 54

[justana0kguy]

2023 MARCH 04 Saturday

"For [...] sometimes the love of goodness is found to be interrupted, when the vigour of the soul is relaxed by some coldness or joy or delight, and so loses either the fear of hell for the time, or the desire of future blessings. We can then only ascend to that true perfection when, as He first loved us for the grace of nothing but our salvation, we also have loved Him for the sake of nothing but His own love alone."

~ Saint John Cassian, On perfection, Chapter 7, the conferences of St John Cassian

[justana0kguy]

2023 FEBRUARY 08 Wednesday

"It is a much greater thing to be unwilling to forsake good for good's own sake, than it is to withhold consent from evil for fear of evil. For where there is the disturbance of warfare there cannot help being the danger of wounds."

~ Saint John Cassian, Conference 11 'OnPerfection' Chapter 8; The Conferences of St John Cassian

[bulgariastreets]

John Cassian

The monastic ethos finally broke into the western provinces with full strength when one man, John Cassian, arrived from the east in the early fifth century. Cassian was something between a monk and a tourist of monkery in his early days, traveling through the eastern deserts and cities, and sitting at the feet of the revered fathers he found there. Bethlehem, Egypt, and Constantinople saw Cassian come and go, increasingly entangled in the religious controversies of the time. The seasons changed and he found himself in the west, settled at Marseille, where his role became that of sage and guru; in a series of writings over the last decades of his life (he died in 433) he embodied the ethos and offered the anecdotes that would become archetypal in western monasticism. In Institutes and Lectures, he told of life in the eastern deserts and reported the words of the fathers he met there. Invariably, the result takes on a cast of its own that makes us unsure where the received tradition leaves off and Cassian’s interpretive genius takes over.

Lerins in the harbor

His example and books inspired a remarkable place and its people, the island monastery of Lerins in the harbor of what is today Cannes in the south of France. For a long generation in the early fifth century, Lerins was the thrilling center of monastic inspiration, sending its monks as bishops and missionaries throughout Gaul and into the British Isles. Even Patrick of Ireland may have spent time there, for he shows traces of the spirit of Lerins, and he permanently shaped Irish monasticism. In the other direction, Cassian’s influence stood behind the three next most influential western authorities on the monastic life: the Rule of the Master, which comes from an anonymous teacher in northern Italy around 500; the too famous Rule of Benedict, from the mid-sixth century; and then the multiple writings of Pope Gregory I in the late sixth century. For austerity and guidance, Cassian’s texts and his imitators’ rules were authoritative. On many days, in his sermons on Job, Ezekiel, and the gospels, Gregory could keep pace with Cassian’s most demanding biblical meditations; and Gregory’s Dialogues, four books of tales of ascetic heroes we will hear of again, created a powerful textual image of self-denial in obedience, austerity, and a life’s devotion. Benedict’s short, practical Rule did not come to the fore until the ninth century, when Charlemagne’s administration actively promoted it as a standard, at a time when many monasteries were founded.