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 This week on Harmony of Thunder, we take our last look at the sermons of St. Dorotheos of Gaza. Today, we explore a sermon by this great desert saint in which he compares the aquiring of the virtues to the construction of a house. His comparison has many spiritually beneficial insights - this is a program you will not want to miss!
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Harmony of Thunder, Program 27:
St. Dorotheos of Gaza, On the Structure and Harmony of the Virtues of the Soul
In our last program, we enjoyed the sermon of St Dorotheos entitled: On the Fear of the Punishment to Come And the Need for One Desiring to be Saved Never to be Negligent about His Own Salvation, and we explored how this great preacher of the church discussed the need for all Christians to be constantly on watch for assaults of sin and the passions. In the sermon we're looking at today, St Dorotheos turns to the task of building up the virtues, the work that naturally comes upon the heels of uprooting the passions. This sermon is entitled, On the Structure and Harmony of the Virtues of the Soul and I'm taking it from the book, Dorotheos of Gaza, Discourses and Sayings, translated and with a good introduction by Eric P. Wheeler and published by Cistercian Publications in 1977.
Hi, welcome to Harmony of Thunder, where we explore and enjoy the rich tradition of Orthodox preaching. I'm your host, Fr. David Smith. Each week, Harmony of Thunder chooses a sermon from scripture, from the works of a saint, or from a contemporary source, and we spend our time together looking at the style, the illustrations, and the spiritual message of the =
preacher.
Lord Jesus Christ, through the prayers of Your Most Holy Mother and of all the saints, bless your Holy Orthodox Church with great preachers and people who want to hear them. Amen.
The opening of this wonderful sermon uses one of my most favorite preaching techniques, which I refer to as the long illustration. In it, the preacher uses an illustration with different parts, then uses each part as an example of a spiritual truth. In this case, St. Dorotheos compares the acquisition of the virtues to the building of a house: How the house of the soul is built we can learn from the building of a material house and from the knowledge and care it demands.
First, we begin with the foundation: A man who wants to build a house must see that it is solid and thoroughly safe and he raises it four-square, on a solid foundation. He does not concentrate on one part and neglect the rest since this is of no use but defeats his aim and makes vain the expense and labor. So it is with the soul: we must on no account neglect any part of it, but build it up equally and harmonically. This is what Abba John means when he says, 'I would rather a man acquire a little of each one of the virtues than master one virtue as some have done, persisting in it and practicing only that but neglecting the rest'. He's quoting here from St. John the Dwarf, by the way, and not from the John of Sts. Barsanuphius and John, for those of you who keep track of those things.
For a time when I was in graduate school, I worked with a group of guys who built houses. I had nothing to do with the planning, the process of building, the reading of blueprints or anything like that. I was a nail pounder, a shingle carrier. It amazed me how the guys with experience knew how to plan ahead so that the building would proceed in order. They would plan for putting up the trim while we were still doing the framing, they would run everything properly behind the walls before closing them in, they would always make sure that everything was exactly level, exactly square, exactly even so that we wouldn't have trouble later on, or even so that the people who lived in the house wouldn't encounter problems in twenty, thirty, or even fifty years.
St. Dorotheos says makes the same observations as he compares the building of a house to the acquiring of the virtues. He uses the words that I've pointed out before, the words used by all good preachers when they link an illustration to a spiritual truth: So it is: So it is with the soul: we must on no account neglect any part of it, but build it up equally and harmonically.
He goes on from here to speak about the various parts of the building, first the foundation of faith, followed by each of the stones built upon that foundation: obedience, patience, self-control, forbearance, mortifying self-will, meekness, and so on. Along with this, the parts of the walls must be held together by mortar, which is humility: If he piles up his stones without mortar, the stones come apart and the house falls down. The mortar is humility, which is composed from the earth and lies under the feet of all. Any virtue without humility is no virtue at all, as it says in the sayings of the elders: 'As it is impossible to construct a ship without nails, so there is no hope of being saved without humility'. (I didn't know you use nails to build a ship.)
The roof is charity, which is the completion of virtue as the roof completes the house. He also suggests that we build a railing around the roof, so that if our children go up on the roof they may not fall off. The railing is humility, and yes, it's the foundation as well as the railing around the roof: As each virtue needs humility for its acquisition and in that sense we said each stone is laid with the mortar of humility so also the perfection of all the virtues is humility. And, who are the children that the Law says must not fall from the roof top? These children are the thoughts generated in our souls, which must be guarded through humility lest they fall out of the house.
This reminds me of a house that my family lived in several years ago. In the attic there was a window that opened out onto a roof that jutted out over the second floor. One day as I walked in through the front door I could hear talking over my head. I ran up to the attic and found two of my children and two neighbor children out on that roof it was very high and very steep. I wanted to yell at them, but I didn't want them to fall, so I quietly walked over to the window and asked them how they were doing. They all scrambled back inside, and only then I spoke rather sternly to them and sent the neighbor kids home. I wonder what kinds of poetic analogies St. Dorotheos would make with my experience?
The reason I wonder this is that he continues to use the long illustration in his sermon to mine more spiritual truths: Is there anything left out? Yes! Something remains to be said. What is that? What about the builder of the house? If there is no craftsman there, the house may finally deteriorate and perhaps fall down. The craftsman is one who acts with a knowledge of what he is doing. For a man may work at the virtues and because he acts without knowledge he may destroy his own work or it may be in secure, so that he can not find the way to complete it but lays one brick only to have to take it up again. Another may lay one and take up two. For example: A brother comes along and says one word to annoy or offend you. You say nothing and defer to him you have laid a brick. Then you go off and speak to another brother, and say, 'That blighter so-and-so said this and that to me and I did not say a word, I just bowed to him in deference'. There you are you have laid one brick and taken up two. (I've never heard the word blighter before, have you?)
And there are many other ways in which a person who seeks after spiritual things may look at this example of the building of a house and see beneficial truths. I know that often I find myself looking at a big construction or renovation project, and I know I can become overwhelmed if I start thinking about the enormity of everything I have to do. But when I take it one step at a time, one phone call, one decision, one waiver or application at a time, then it progresses along bit by bit and eventually we reach a good outcome. So it is with the soul. If you want to become, today, like the most holy person you know, you're going to be disappointed. You're going to fail, like someone who says that he wants to build an entire house in one day. But if you decide to start right now laying the foundation, mixing the cement, gathering the necessary materials, well then in some time you will have a beautiful and safe place to live.
Indeed, Lord Jesus, fill us with your Holy Spirit that we may labor, and seek you, and grow in our faith patiently and joyfully, we pray in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, One God, Amen.
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