What is Orthodox Asceticism? | Dr Daniel Opperwall 

If I didn't have children, I'd probably imagine myself a pretty good person. My impatience, anger and pride are constantly being laid bare as a father. It ain't easy, but I know it's for my salvation. Lord have mercy!

A good or right perspective is important. What's the good purpose or end or telos of asceticism? Is it a discipline or is it an art, or is it both? Does it start as a discipline which ends (telos) as an art? Can asceticism become aesthetical? Can something that starts difficult eventually flow with ease? Can work and labor turn into rest and peace? Can a chore turn into joy? Yet art or aestheticism should also have a good end or telos as well. Asceticism should lead to the virtue of sophrosyne which is wise, temperate, sober, sound mindedness. It's foundational for inner well-being or happiness, or the spirit of eudaimonia. Once acquired, the other virtues flow. This is the telos of asceticism and any spiritual endeavor, discipline, or art. Jesus told his disciples that the ill spirit possessing the boy which they couldn't cast out could be cast out with prayer and fasting. You could say with contemplative prayer and asceticism. They go hand in hand. You can't enter into deep restful, peaceful, contemplative, sabbath, shalom prayer without the inner discipling or taming or reining in the soul of the appetites of the flesh, the inordinate desires of the heart, the driving willfulness, the vain train of thoughts, and the ever distracted attention. Bringing restful, peaceful well-being to the soul into the heart by casting out all other ill spirits or vices is preparation for ultimate well-being, both in spirit and in truth, who is the Holy Spirit of Truth and Well-Being. The Holy Spirit is the Father's Telos or Eudaimonia restored to the faithful, prayerful soul by the Father's Logos or Son. The Logos disciples souls faithful to him. The soul may feel like it is being disciplined. Self-denial of the appetites of the flesh, and the desires of the heart, and the pleasurable fantasies in the thoughts is like entering into an inner desert or wilderness. It may feel like you are wandering not knowing where the sojourning or pilgrimage is going, or what good purpose or good end it is serving. It can feel laborious for the soul instead of sabbath resting. Take courage. Pace yourself. Have fortitude or endurance. (Rome wasn't built in a day, nor was Solomon's Temple. A living temple is being erected in you.) Remain temperate. Be fair or just to yourself. These are the cardinal virtues. Proceed with faith, maintain hope, practice charity or mercy (including towards yourself). These are the spiritual virtues. These virtues are graces. Jesus told his disciples that God is a good Father who provides for His children. He gives bread, not stones, fish not serpents, eggs not scorpions. He provided the children of Israel a path through the sea, manna from heaven, quail from a favorable wind, living water from a rock. He also gave them a guide through the wilderness, ie, Moses. Had they had faith they would have entered straight into the Promised Land. Instead they wandered due to their lack of faith. Our Father provides us someone better than His servant Moses, ie, His Son. The disciplining Law came through Moses, but truth and grace came through Jesus Christ. If we only have the facilitating faith of a mustard seed, we would charitably move his mountain size ability. Faith provides the facility for his ability to work on and in and through us. It's synergy. The pharisees criticized Jesus and his disciples for not being as ascetic as John the Baptist and his disciples. Jesus told them it wasn't the time and season to fast. He was the bridegroom. His disciples were his groomsmen. (John the Evangelist was his bestman.) Virtue has to do with good timing in the appropriate season. There is a time and season for everything under heaven. I imagine when they walked from village to village through the wilderness, they lived ascetically. They endured the long, tiresome dusty roads. They probably ate spartanly. At the appropriate time Jesus sent them out to preach the good news two by two with very little materially, but with much spiritually with faith or trust. Not until they reached a village would a hospitable well-off person invite them to rest and dine, sometimes feast, and wash their feet. (Though Simon the pharisee failed to do the latter.) So, it's possible to be inappropriately, overly, inordinately ascetic. Moderation or being virtuously temperate is important when practicing asceticism or any piety. Virtue is the moderate mean between the extremes of the vices which are either of excess or deficiency. Jesus told his disciples to stay on the straight path when walking through the wilderness of life. The straight path is the virtuous mean. The vices are on either side. Too little courage is cowardliness. Too much is foolhardiness. Too little generosity is miserliness. Too much is prodigality. (The prodigal son was prodigal materially. His brother was miserly spiritually. Their father was both generous materially and spiritually.) Too little morality or justice is immorality or injustice. Too much is judgemental moralism or self-righteousness, or worse, exacting retribution without tempering grace and forgiveness. Ecclesiastes advises not to be too moral. It's imprudent to come across as being moralistically superior to others. Taking pride in being holy is sanctimony. It's excess piety. Holiness is a virtue. Sanctimony is a vice along with its deficiency or profanity. Too little humility is pride. Too much is false humility. Taking pride in being humble is self-defeating and an absurdity (it's an absurdity of absurdities, a vanity of vanities). Even being moderate in one's moderation, or temperate in one's temperance, is important. Too little temperance is unbridled pleasure to one's own or others' detriment. Not all that glitters is gold. There's fool's gold. Not all pleasurable things are good. Similarly, not all gold glitters. Some is hidden in ore needing refining. Some painful things are good for the soul's well-being. The heart needs refining. Asceticism if used appropriately, proportionately, in good time or in due season refines the soul. But in excess, it is the vice of oppressive scrupulosity, austerity or rigorism. It becomes a heavy burden or difficult yoke. Taking pride in mastering the flesh takes asceticism to excess. When done for its own sake, or as a point of pride, or for moral triumph, or for spiritual superiority, one loses one's perspective of the good end or telos, or of that narrow golden gate ahead. It becomes viciously and spiritually detrimental. It becomes a chore never turning into joy. Its labor never finds its sabbath rest. Ignoring the Bridegroom's celebratory presence, it stays in perpetual mourning. Christ aptly guides his disciples. He is his disciples' good Perspective. He has the awareness and perspective of the Holy Spirit. He has the perspective of the One high on the Cross on a mount called Golgotha. Though he expects us to help carry the disciplining Cross there (often reluctantly like Simon of Cyrene) for our own good or well-being, he is the one who hangs on it there for us. His yoke is easy and his burden is light for those faithful, who are weary and heavy laden, who come to him. He gives them rest. His peace he gives them. His peace he leaves them. The Cross is shaped like a T or tau for Telos which is the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet which fulfills (telos) all preceding letters and words ever written or spoken in Scripture. The Word had the first word at the Beginning, and he has the last word, "Finished", as he spoke up on the Cross written down for us. He is the First and the Last, the Alpha and the Omega, the Aleph and the Tau, the Beginning (Arché) and the End (Fulfillment). Amen.