What Should I Read? Part 3

 Lives of the Saints

There are few "best-practices" in the business world that I think can be incorporated into the spiritual life without a great deal of modification or a total change in the underlying motivation. One of those so-called "best-practices" however can. 

If you read books like Think and Grow Rich, How to Win Friends and Influence People, or even more recent books like Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life, you'll quickly discover that promoters of "success" (as the world sees it) identify reading biographies of other successful people as a foundational practice for those who want success in the business world.

And that totally makes sense!

After all, if I'm shooting for a certain goal that I know others have hit before, doesn't it make sense for me to study what they did in order to achieve their goals?

The stories and actions of successful people provide a roadmap for those pursuing similar success in the business world.

If this is true in the business world, it's all the more true in the spiritual life. And frankly, I believe the business world hijacked this practice from the spiritual life. In part, I believe this because the Desert Fathers were counseling one another to read the lives of the saints - those who have been "successful" in the spiritual life - centuries before studies like Think and Grow Rich were ever conceived.

The goal of the Christian life is to become a saint - i.e. someone so passionately in love with God that he orients his thoughts and actions according to that love. Few of us, however, personally know a living saint. And so we need to seek examples to follow.

It only makes sense that we would closely examine and deeply meditate on the lives of the saints because by their lives they show us the roadmap we should follow on our journey to heaven.

1. Conversion

It's important that when we read the lives of the saints, we're not just reading to satisfy our curiosity. Unless you're an academic theologian (which poses it's own spiritual challenges) our reading should be for the sake of conversion. St. Theophan the Recluse warns us:

You have a book? Then read it, reflect on what it says, and apply the words to yourself. To apply the content to oneself is the purpose and fruit of reading. If you read without applying what is read to yourself, nothing good will come of it, and even harm may result. Theories will accumulate in the head, leading you to criticize others instead of improving your own life. (The Art of Prayer: An Orthodox Anthology, pg. 130)

We need to apply to our lives what we discover in our spiritual reading. Otherwise the knowledge that we glean from spiritual reading because the "knowledge" that puffs up, like Saint Paul warns us against.

2. Imitation

We all aspire to become something more than what we are. I aspire to become a professional writer, and so I examine authors I admire and try to incorporate their writing practices into my own. Some of us inspire to get in shape, and so we seek out folks who have that ideal body we aspire to, and imitate their workout routine. Athletes all have other athletes that they look up to. Musicians all have other musicians they copy...

The point is, in every walk of life we need good role models: someone whose already either traveled the path we're walking, or are at least further ahead on it than we are.

The Desert Fathers recognized this need.

When you really dive into their stories, you see how many of them would travel from one desert hermit to another, seeking a word of wisdom or an example which they could take back to their own cell and imitate.

Palladius, in his Lausiac History, writes very extensively of his travels. The stories and sayings in the writings of St. John Cassian are all collections of conversations that he had with various monks throughout the wilderness.

Why did these men (and some women) travel around so much?

St. Athanasius, in his biography of Saint Anthony the Great, tells us:

The... monks came (to Saint Anthony) that they might copy the manner of his life and deeds. (Paradise of the Holy Fathers, vol. 1, pg.29)

And later on, after he's shared the story of Saint Anthony's life, Saint Athanasius warns us:

Let all the brethren then who are monks read these things so that they may know how it is right for them to live their lives. (Paradise of the Holy Fathers, vol. 1, pg. 79)

Of course, most of us aren't monks or nuns, and so when we read the Desert Fathers, we have to read with a certain amount of discretion because not everything they say or do will apply to our lives. But there is much in their writings and stories that does apply to us as well.

3. Encouragement

It's easy to get discouraged when the going gets tough.

I remember while learning to play music how discouraging it would feel when I would hear a beautiful melody that I wanted to play, but I just couldn't get my fingers to cooperate. It always helped to hear other musicians who had similar struggles with the same piece of music.

Even better if I was fortunate enough to know the person whose performance inspired me to learn that particular melody. They would often share how they struggled with that same tune before finally mastering.

The encouragement of my teachers, and knowing that they too had to struggle in order to master their instrument is often what encouraged me to keep going.

It's tricky with the lives of the saints though. There's so many biographies out there that make it seem like the saints were either conceived without sin, or were from a completely different planet. Older biographies attempted to make it seem like certain saints were just "born that way."

But when you take an honest look at their lives, you soon find their struggles weren't really any different from ours.

It can be shocking to read the lives of the Desert Fathers and Mothers. They struggled with temptations to sexual sins (including homosexuality), gluttony, covetousness, even violence. I read a story this morning about how in one monastery the brethren used to get into such heated debates that they would start contemplating murdering one another!

I've read stories of hermits who used to steal from other hermits, spiritual fathers who would physically and verbally abuse their directees, even men or women who left their vocations as monks/nuns in order to go into the world and indulge their sexual lusts.

Reading the lives of the saints will reveal to you how human the saints really are. It's encouraging because you'll see that they struggled with the same stuff we all struggle with. And they didn't always come away from a struggle smelling like roses.

4. Attraction/Inspiration

The last reason given in The Paradise of the Holy Fathers for reading the lives of the saints is "attraction" or "inspiration."

Holiness is attractive. Most of us here can recall the vast crowds of people drawn to Pope Saint John Paul II or Mother Teresa.

What drew those crowds to them?

Ultimately it was that they radiated Christ. That's holiness, and holiness is attractive.

Once more, Saint Athanasius reminds us that in reading the lives of the saints, we're not just fulfilling our curiosity. We read so as to imitate, get some encouragement, and change our lives. But we also read their lives because we need that inspiration, that draw...

...by constant meditation on the... stories [of the saints] your mind may be drawn to perfection... (Paradise of the Holy Fathers, vol. 1, pg. 15)

What saints inspire you? I encourage you to really dive into their lives. Study them. Get to know their struggles, their failures, their repentance, and their successes. Find out what made them saints, then go out and do what they did, but according to your vocation.