What’s in a name?

I decided on the title of this blog after re-reading Tito Colliander’s Way of the Ascetics. His starting point is striking. Because he believes that faith must be active, he begins:

If you wish to save your soul and win eternal life, arise from your lethargy, make the sign of the Cross and say: ‘In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.’

And it is never too late to start. Whatever your situation, however dark your life seems to be, it is not too late to arise and return to God. Like the prodigal. But you must do it . . . now. Don’t add it to a ‘to do’ list. Stop whatever else you are doing. Arise, and go now to God.

And tomorrow . . . do the same.

And every day . . . arise and go now.

Elsewhere in the book, he writes of a visitor to a monastery who asks an old monk what he and his fellow monks do all day. Instead of the stock answer about work, study, and prayer, the old man replies, ‘We fall and we get up. We fall and we get up.’ In other words, we are always beginning again. To put it in more theological terms, he is talking about repentance, which is at the heart of Orthodox spirituality.

Repentance is more radical than saying sorry (even if you mean it). It involves a fundamental change of direction. Then we were headed away from God (towards non-being); now we are headed towards God (and Being). And that’s why repentance cannot be a once and for all event (as some Protestants seem to think). We must recommit ourselves to that new direction every morning (also every afternoon and evening and every moment in between). It is about constantly checking that we are on the right course.