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Thursday, October 6, 2011

It is pitiful to suffer shipwreck in harbor

Venerable John Climacus ~ The Ladder of Divine Ascent
Step 2 ~ On Detachment

¶12. If young people who are prone to the desires of physical love and luxurious ways wish to enter the monastic life, let them exercise themselves in all sobriety and prayer, and persuade themselves to abstain from all luxury and guile, lest their last state be worse than their first. This harbor provides safety, but also exposes one to danger. Those who sail the spiritual seas know this. But it is a pitiful sight to behold those who have survived perils at sea, suffering shipwreck in harbor.

This is the second step. Let those who run the race imitate not Lot's wife, but Lot himself, and flee.

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