I am fortunate to have a boss at my workplace who I respect and admire. He is very intentional about the human side of managing, which I seek to emulate. Today in our monthly one on one meeting, he started the meeting by asking me “What is one way that you grew as a person over the last week”? A very thoughtful question. This quick reflection is the story I told him, and the answer I gave him, in addition to a couple of extra thoughts simply for this format. I pray that through the kindness of God almighty that this may be of some benefit to you on your journey towards salvation.

Very recently, a prominent independent fundamentalist baptist pastor posted a video online of himself and multiple children smashing an icon of the Lord Jesus Christ with a sledge hammer, and then burning it in a fire. I found myself saying this through tears. The video was profoundly offensive. (It would be easy enough for you to find it if you searched, but in order to make it as difficult as possible to view it, I decline to link the video or mention the name. I don’t advise watching it.)

I continued this answer to my manager, Jesus Christ taught in His Gospel according to Saint Matthew 7:3-5 (RSV): “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

Now, there are a number of ways that you can apply this to your own life depending on your immediate context. Here is a paraphrased excerpt of St. John Chrysostom’s teaching on this passage:

“And if it is an evil not to see one’s own sins, it is a double and triple evil to sit in judgment on others while you yourselves, as if past feeling, carry beams in your own eyes, since no beam is as heavy as sin.

The command of Jesus in these words is therefore this: that the one who is guilty of countless evil deeds should not be a harsh critic of other men’s offenses, especially when those are small. He is not overturning reproof or correction, but forbidding men to neglect their own faults and boast over those of others.

For this was a cause of men falling into great vice, bringing in a double wickedness. For the one whose habit it was to treat his own faults lightly, great as they were, and to search bitterly into those of others, which were slight and of no account, was harming himself in two ways: first by thinking lightly of his own faults, and next by stirring up enmities and feuds with all men, and training himself every day in extreme harshness and lack of feeling for others.”

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This answer is an example of how I applied these teachings to my own life when the rubber met the road.

Continuing to my manager, I explained that, of course, it isn’t always improper to critique or call out when you see something wrong. In fact, it is often the right thing to be bold and to call men to repentance. At the same time, we see so often that Christ is asking us to look within ourselves and to empty ourselves of our own passions and sins as we work out our own salvation with fear and trembling.

If I see sin in another person, this is a prime opportunity to change the focus and examine my own heart. In fact, every opportunity is a prime opportunity to examine our own hearts, but perhaps none better than when refocusing my judgement on someone else back onto myself. And then in some strange sense, I may even be able to thank this other person and say in earnest, “thank you for helping me repent of my own sins”.

As a side note, I came to love icons slowly and with difficulty; now I treasure Orthodox Iconography, and I treasure what the images represent even more than the images themselves, which are nonetheless sacred and holy. Yes, as the Church has always taught, what is offered at the icon passes through to the prototype. Perhaps the greatest point of the icon is that we examine not only the wood and paint, but the person who is imaged, and in this examination we magnify God in our hearts.

Actually, let me quickly share with you a personal anecdote of the first time an icon meaningfully connected with me. I had only just recently intellectually accepted the tenets of Orthodox Christianity, among them that Holy Iconography is a necessary consequence of the Incarnation, and I had purchased a couple of my first icons. A dear friend had visited our home for supper and she was asking me about the icons. At first, I was eager and excited to share. However, as I was in the middle of explaining, I found myself unable to continue speaking, as my heart began to catch up with my words and I began to weep. You see, I was explaining my favorite icon - the “Theotokos of the Passion” icon. In this icon, the blessed Theotokos, the true Mother of God, holds her son on her lap. The image depicts our Lord, who even as a child, was fully the incarnate God, and knowing all things, the precious child was having a vision of his coming crucifixion. To their left and to their right are angels who are holding the instruments of the God-man’s suffering, and young Jesus Christ is startled at this vision, and he jumps in fright, knocking one of his sandals off his feet, as his blessed virgin mother holds and comforts him. What a scene to marvel at.

We do get distracted and desensitized very easily. But thinking on these things should stir in us awe, wonder, and affection to our great and glorious God. We should not be able to speak of such things flippantly or profanely. Meditating on such things ought to affect us, it ought to change us.

This is the true beauty of an icon - that an image drawn by human hands would stir up affection and admiration to God.

If respect and veneration can pass through to the one imaged in the icon, it does stand to reason that so too can disrespect and irreverence. Thinking about this caused deep grief to me as I watched this video, and as I retold the video to my manager.

But again, here is the opportunity to look inwardly, and when I did, it was incredibly easy to see my own log. Maybe I had not smashed an icon. But if I am honest with myself, how many times, daily even, do I fail to show proper reverence for Christ? How many times do I, with an overfilled stomach, pass by the hungry? How often do I look at myself as greater than others? The list can go on. Ultimately, all of these things are faithless acts of irreverence toward God and are destructive to my soul. Now, after seeing my own sin more clearly, I am that much more motivated to pursue holiness in the good fight. I will inevitably fall again and will have the chance, or the choice, to examine my own heart and, in so doing, get back up again.

And so this is how I grew last week, and with God as my helper will continue to grow each week to come, that I may be quicker to fight my sins and passions, and less eager to judge others.

May Jesus Christ, our Lord, our God, and our Savior have mercy on us and save us, through the prayers of the all-pure Theotokos and of all His Holy saints. Amen.

I have been reading the Institutes from St. John Cassian and writing short reflections on some of the bits that particularly stood out to me or were helpful to me. Earlier in the week, I wrote a reflection on St. Cassian’s teaching on the danger of fasting from food while not also fasting from vices and putting on virtue. Not long after, Father Spyridon posted a teaching on his YouTube channel about how TVs and phones are harmful to our souls. In this teaching, Fr. Spyridon included the Church’s instruction on the meaning of the story of Mary and Martha. This was very timely for me, as it coincided beautifully with the instruction I had been receiving from the blessed St. Cassian. As a result, I decided to attempt to enhance my earlier reflection by weaving in the additional insights and some additional personal connections in order to create a proper essay. I pray that by God’s kindness, this may be of some use to your journey towards salvation.

Coming in as a convert to Holy Orthodoxy, one of the many contributions to the immense culture shock that I experience is the amount of time for which faithful Orthodox Christians fast from food. Just about every Wednesday and Friday throughout the year are fasting days. Then you have a few single-day fasts such as the Eve of Theophany and the Beheading of John the Forerunner. And then of course there are the four major fasting seasons: Great Lent, the Nativity fast, the Dormition fast, and the Apostles’ fast. All told, that is fasting roughly 190 days per year.

This is something that was, for all intents and purposes, completely foreign to my personal spiritual practices. It was very intimidating to me at first, and honestly still is, and I have not been able to keep the fasts very faithfully at all so far, if I’m being transparent here. But one thing that typically helps me when attempting new things is taking some time to understand the why behind the what, and if I can understand and buy into that why, I may not magically be able to easily succeed, but I can at least begin to try with my whole heart. At least this way when I clumsily stumble, I am falling forward towards God.

This is actually one of the main reasons why I started reading St. John Cassian in the first place—because I’d heard that he offers some of the most essential teachings on bodily discipline and asceticism, and this seemed like a good source to learn from. That, and having heard Fr. Dr. Stephen De Young recommend multiple times that all men read more Cassian.

So, in the spirit of discipline, I have been trying to change my relationship with food, am putting forth effort trying to make it to my prayer corner each day, and I got a copy of the Institutes, reading a little day by day. So far, these disciplines have been helping, little by little, and I hope that by your prayers, and the prayers of all of our holy Fathers, I may persist with humility.

In my original reflection, I wrote, “Walking the narrow path of Jesus requires bodily discipline, bringing the physical appetites under control so that we can grow spiritually.”

“Requires” is a strong word. What do I mean by that? Why is fasting so important that it could be said it is required? As clearly demonstrated above, it is obvious that the Church is serious about fasting, but why? There are a great many explanations that can be given, but let me offer just three.

First of all, our Master Jesus Christ did not frame ascetic bodily restraint as a preference when He was giving His core ethical discourse in His Sermon on the Mount, stating “When [not if] you fast” in Matthew 6:16 and again, when He taught that “[those particular demonic forces] cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting” in Mark 9:29. The very fact that Jesus can assert these things without elsewhere giving an instruction on fasting best practices illustrates for us that fasting was always a paramount discipline to the lover of God.

Second, we can see that, in a certain sense, fasting is actually a type of reversal of the ancestral fall of mankind through Adam and Eve. Through that Genesis account, we learn that Adam and Eve placed physical consumption and bodily desire above communion with God and, in so doing, fell away from Him. And through that lens, we are able to see that salvation in Christ, then, requires reversing this original failure through self-restraint. St. Basil the Great wrote, “Since we did not fast, we fell from paradise. Well, now let’s fast, so that we may go back again.”(About Fasting, Sermon 1)

Finally, similar to ancient Platonic philosophy, Gnostic dualism that separates physical matter from spiritual reality is fundamentally rejected in Christianity. The wisdom of the Church has always taught that a sated, undisciplined body directly inflames the passions of the mind and heart such as pride, gluttony, lust, and other sins. St. John of the Ladder states, “He who cherishes his stomach and hopes to overcome the spirit of fornication, is like one who tries to put out a fire with oil.” (The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 14). The teaching is that bodily fasting physically subjugates the irrational appetites of the flesh so that the spirit can direct the person. This is a good segue into the heart of this reflection.

I’ve made a concise case for why it is actually accurate, and is not an exaggeration, to say that following Jesus faithfully requires fasting.

And yet, in the very same text in which the Venerable John Cassian teaches about this discipline, he also takes time to warn:

“And we should not believe that mere fasting from visible food can suffice for our perfection of heart and purity of body if a fasting of the soul has not also been joined to it.” (I am quoting from the copy I own, Cassian, Institutes, trans. Boniface Ramsey [Paulist Press, 2000]; but a different English translation is available for free at https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/350705.htm).

And so again, while we can see that physical fasting is an essential Christian practice, refraining from food accomplishes very little if we do not also abstain from sin. A true fast is one that, of course, sets aside food, but it also sets aside gossip, greed, anger, and pride. Proper fasting is never just about giving things up; it is also about taking things on. We don’t stop at laying down our vices, but we actively exchange them for love, charity, humble service, and mercy.

Many times, when given an opportunity to sum up the Christian calling, I love to cite the great Philippians 2 passage where we read: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:5–8, RSV).

And so, in our pursuit of “putting on the mind of Christ”, we can say that one of the primary ways to mimic Christ is in self-emptying. When we turn away from sin and clothe ourselves in virtue, we empty our hearts of self-will and prepare a place for Christ to dwell within us.

Again, not simply fasting, but proper fasting, is a way in which we walk the narrow path.

The Beloved Physician and Apostle, St. Luke records in the 10th chapter of his Holy gospel: “Now as they went on their way, he entered a village; and a woman named Martha received him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving; and she went to him and said, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.’ But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things; one thing is needful. Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her.’” (Luke 10:38–42, RSV)

I have read this passage 10s of times in my life and never connected it to fasting. Actually, I never even considered a wider ascetic instruction and instead would just spend time wondeirng if I was embodying Mary or Martha more closely on that day.

This is where Fr. Spyridon’s teaching really helped to open my eyes. He pointed out that the Church Fathers don’t look at Martha and Mary as an “either/or” personality test. Instead, they see them as two essential halves of our walk with God: physical effort and inner stillness. As I mentioned earlier, Christianity teaches a psychosomatic reality, rejecting a dualism or opposition between spirit and body. When we examine this story as an ascetical teaching, we can see that our inner spiritual life has to start with outward, bodily discipline because our bodies and souls are bound together.

Martha represents that necessary physical work like showing up, serving, praying, and abstaining from food. We need Martha’s effort because, without physically restraining the belly and putting our bodies to work, we simply don’t have the spiritual grounding to sit quietly at the feet of Jesus.

But Martha also shows us the exact danger that St. John Cassian warned against. She was doing good, practical work, but her heart was unguarded. Because she lacked inner watchfulness, all her busy service quickly turned into stress, irritation, and comparison. She ended up resentful of Mary, and while I don’t think I ever saw it this way before, I can now see that she was even bold enough to snap at the Lord: “Tell her then to help me.” It is wild to imagine barking orders at our Savior. But this is exactly the type of absurdity that results from the wrong kind of fasting, from fasting only with our stomachs. If I white-knuckle my way through a fast without humbling my heart, I end up cranky, proud, and critical of everyone around me who isn’t keeping the rules like I am (which is ironic, because, again, I’m not even good at keeping the rules myself. You see the absurdity?). The discipline ends up feeding my ego instead of killing my passions. It fills me up instead of emptying me.

Mary shows us what all this physical effort is actually aiming toward: quiet communion with Christ. Sitting silently at the Lord’s feet isn’t a waste of time or lazy daydreaming; it is the difficult place where all our noise and distractions are stripped away, forcing us to see our own brokenness and our desperate need for a Savior (this is why practicing inner stillness and reciting the Jesus Prayer is an essential regimen in our spiritual discipline). This type of raw honesty is what produces true humility. Christ says Mary chose the “good portion” because cooking, chores, and even earthly fasts will eventually come to an end, but this quiet, loving connection with God lasts forever. And so my goal can’t be to pick between Martha or Mary. I need Martha’s bodily discipline to quiet my flesh, but only so I can sit with Mary’s humble, quiet heart at the feet of Christ.

I don’t want to give an opportunity to unintentionally deceive the reader into thinking that I am some spiritual master. I am not. At the end of the day, I am still very much at the beginning of this journey, clumsily learning how to fast and pray without letting my own stubbornness get in the way. But doing the work of trying to shift my perspective from a checklist of dietary rules to an act of genuine self-emptying is slowly starting to change things. I’m able to see that fasting isn’t a badge of endurance or a tool to prove how holy we are; it is simply the physical broom that sweeps the clutter out of our inner room so that we can finally see our need for God. By offering our small bodily stumblings like Martha, while begging for the quiet, attentive heart of Mary, we take that small step into Christ’s humility. When we set aside our plates, lay down our vices, and make room at our table for the only One who can actually feed our souls, Christ will be faithful to complete the work in us that He started.

May our Lord and God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who loves mankind, have mercy on us and save us through the intercessions of the most holy Theotokos and ever-virgin Mary, and of all the saints. Amen.