Fourth Sunday of Great Lent – St John of the Ladder

(Mark 9:17-31)

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we come to the fourth Sunday of Great Lent. On this day we commemorate a great saint of the church, St. John of Ladder, and we hear the Gospel account of the healing of the boy possessed by a demon. There are some important and fundamental lessons for us to gather from these two sources and, as always, the Holy Church is so wise in giving us these lessons and this encouragement at precisely the right time as we are now past the midway point and can already see approaching the final weeks of the season of repentance that is Great Lent.

St John is an important father of the Church… he lived in the early part of the 6th century and spent 40 years of his life as a hermit in the deserts of Palestine. Toward the end of his life he was called back to the monastery where he was made its abbot, a post which he humbly accepted and dutifully performed until his repose. It was during this time of his abbacy that he wrote his famous work ‘The Ladder of Divine Ascent’. This spiritual magnum opus describes the path to salvation as a ladder of some thirty steps, each virtue building upon the one before it, and leading the Christian toward heaven. In this great work we read first of the rungs of ‘Renunciation of the World’, then ‘Detachment’ and ‘Exile’… cutting ourselves off from our obsessions with the things of this world. We later read of the rungs discussing the struggles against ‘Remembering Wrongs’, ‘Slander’, ‘Despondency’ and the other passions which try to pull us down. As the Christian makes his upward climb we finally come to such things as ‘Vigil’, ‘Simplicity’, ‘Prayer’, and at last we reach the summit of ‘Love’.

The memory of our holy father John of the Ladder is brought before us today to remind us and encourage us in our upward struggles which characterize this time of repentance. St John is a sure guide for us – drawing us in our ascent and always emphasizing the importance of the sincerity of our efforts.

Listen to the words of St John of the Ladder as he describes prayer: ‘Don't use in prayer falsely wise words; because it is often the simple and uncomplicated whispering of children that rejoices our heavenly Father. …One word spoken to God collects the mind in His presence. And if a word, in thy prayer, reaches you deeply, if you perceive it profoundly - dwell in it, dwell in it, because at such moments our Angel guardian prays with us because we are true to ourselves and to God.’

            This kind of honesty and vulnerability in prayer, of being true to oneself and to God, is demonstrated perfectly for us in today’s Gospel reading. In today’s Gospel from St Mark we heard about the boy possessed by demons. The demons caused the child to sometimes throw himself into the fire and sometimes into the water. (And this, by the way, is a constant and recognizable theme of the evil one, who wishes to toss us to the right and to the left, into the fire and into the water of extremes on one side or the other. We need to beware of these extremes and follow the path of the Fathers… the Golden Mean of the middle way – being sober, being patient and persistent in our spiritual life.) So, this poor child was thrown into the fire and into the water. Those who cared for the boy brought him to Jesus and begged Him that, if He was able, to have compassion and heal the boy. Our Lord responded, ‘If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him who believes.’ To this the father of the boy replied, ‘I believe O Lord, help my unbelief!’ In other words, ‘Oh Lord, I believe as far as I am capable of believing in my limitations and imperfections. I want to believe perfectly, but I fall short… and I need your help and your grace.’

This is such an honest and heart-felt prayer! This is the kind of prayer described by St John of the Ladder as a prayer in which we are being honest with ourselves and with God. And it was at this prayer that our Lord gave the command - and the demons fled from the child, leaving him free from their torments.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we have the great hope that ‘all things are possible to those who believe’. We must believe and we must beg God to help us in our lack of belief! And let us remember, to believe is not simply to believe in God… acknowledging that He exists; but to believe in God… the way I might say ‘I believe in you.’ I’m not just acknowledging your existence, I’m saying: I trust you, I have faith in you, I will always think the best of you and assume your good intentions. This is what we must mean when we say we believe in God… we put our trust in Him, we know He loves us and we, in turn, love Him to such an extent that we would give our lives to Him. This is the great paradox of life and of faith - ‘For he who would save his life will lose it; but he who loses his life for my sake and for the Gospel’s sake will save it.’ It is such a seeming contradiction for us to be asked to surrender in order to achieve the ultimate triumph. But this is precisely what our Lord calls us to do and it is through the means of fasting, honest and sincere prayer, and pure-hearted belief that we climb the ladder to our heavenly homeland.

May God, through the prayers of our holy father John of the Ladder, give us the strength and wisdom to make our climb, avoiding the demonic extremes of casting ourselves into the fire of spiritual pride on one side or the water of spiritual laziness on the other side; but ascending with patience, with perseverance, and equipped with the tools of prayer, fasting, and heartfelt belief in the goodness and mercy of God. Let us follow that tried and true middle way… and let us make every effort to be true to ourselves and to God.