This Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Great Lent, we commemorate the life of St. John of the Ladder, the saint who lived in the late 6th century and the early 7th centuries.
St. John was a tonsured monk from one of the oldest Orthodox Monasteries in the world. According to tradition, St. John spent most of his life in complete solitude and in unceasing prayer in an area outside of the Monastery walls. This is where God had spoken to Moses by the Burning Bush and later where the Law was given to him.
St. John serves as the supreme example of monastic ideals of continuous prayer, perpetual fasting, unwavering faithfulness to God and His Kingdom. St. John’s call was a radical call to uncompromising obedience to the teachings of Jesus emblematic of the cry, “Love God and you will find eternal grace”.
During the last years of his life, St. John, was called to become the Abbot of St. Catherine’s Monastery where he eventually wrote his famous work, “The Ladder of Divine Ascent”, which offers us his wisdom on spiritual and moral perfection, thru a life in union with God, the summit of the human quest for true life and ultimate fulfillment.
Christ, when he spoke the Sermon on the Mount, said: “You must be perfect just as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matt.5:48) an instruction not only for the immediate Apostles, not only for monastics and ascetics, but for all of us Christians. Christian perfection is simply put, “live just as Jesus did”. (1 John 2:6), so that we may “become mature people, reaching to the very height of Christ’s full stature” (Ephesians 4:13). Spiritual Ascent for St. John is a “Jacob’s Ladder”, which brings us to the very presence of God.
Let us ascend up the rungs of the Ladder towards Christ as we continue our Lenten Journey.
