It may seem naive to speak of innocence when we look at the world around us, and even when we look at ourselves.
To draw near to this innocence hidden in the depths of our Reality, perhaps the best thing would be to begin by contemplating the duplicities, the inner divisions of our being, our anxieties and our unease. For the strategy of evil is not something chaotic in itself; rather, it presents itself to us with great coherence. The ‘dia-bolos’ is always that which seeks to divide us at our deepest core, drawing us into a process of disintegration that leads us away from the path of reintegration to which we are called.
To come closer to an understanding of this state, we borrow the words of Pavel Florensky, which express this process and its causes with great depth:
To the extent that the power of creation, of personal action and of freedom is extinguished in consciousness, the whole person is cornered by the mechanical processes of the organism and, projecting outwards the consequences of his own weakness, lends animation to the circumstances of the world around him.
Just as spiritual sobriety and vigilance are the conditions of the life of the person, so all intemperance and all drowsiness contribute to that weakening of cohesion, of the recollection of the spirit within itself. (…)
The whole organism, the bodily as well as the psychic, ceases to be an integral and organised instrument, the organ of the person, and becomes a chance colony, a jumble of mechanisms incoherent with one another and animated by spontaneous movements.
The partial loss of the reality of the creative I in neurasthenia is another aspect of the lack of spiritual sobriety, and it is difficult to escape the conviction that its cause lies in the disorganisation of the person.
By altering his relationship with God, man thereby perverts his own moral life, and afterwards his bodily life as well. (…)
As the soul grows heavy, becoming more earthly, it loses its freedom; slowly but irresistibly, the cancer of the wound of sin eats away at the heart. Sins besiege the heart, enclose it in a thick layer and bar my way to it, blocking the access of the refreshing breeze of grace. The soul falls into anguish1
This inner division, which can have so many facets and which all of us, to a greater or lesser degree, may know, gradually deprives us of authentic love insofar as it draws us away from God, the Source of Unity and of Love. And for that very reason it leads us at the same time to relate to others from the arrogance, more or less violent, of our disoriented, groundless self. It is here that the presence of evil, of despair, of anguish can become manifest.
How, then, can we think of speaking of innocence in so desolate a situation?
Simply because, in spite of all this, the depth of the person can never be corrupted. The centre of our being is luminous, because our personal spirit comes from the very breath of God. A divine spark dwells within us. And so the first step towards recovering hope lies in ceasing to identify ourselves with our shadows, with our own sin. To go beyond despair or anguish, it is a matter of delving into that transparent depth of our person and recovering our original innocence.2
On our life-and-spiritual journey, and specifically in our contemplative prayer, instead of adding more masks to hide the unnameable pain that afflicts us, we allow the Spirit to groan within us, acknowledging the sickness, the evil that besets us. We open ourselves with humility, with simple truth, to the tender mercy of the Father. We surrender ourselves and surrender to Him our pain and our whole being. That is why times of silence and meditation are so important: in them we renew our trust that the God of Life can give us back our freedom and lead us once more along the way of Truth, cleansing the shadows of our heart.
Often, with our thoughts, conscious or unconscious, we magnify and dramatise our lives. In a certain way we thus keep feeding our ego and our shadows. To take the drama out of the events and situations that befall us, and out of our reactions and thoughts about them, we cannot allow the poison of the lie to penetrate our being, to distort what we really are and disfigure our deep dignity, which is in truth unalterable. From a vigilant attitude (nepsis), both in meditation and in our way of living, it is then a matter of not inwardly accepting anguish, doubt or hopelessness, of not feeding resentment, and of trustfully remembering that within us the light of our original innocence remains alight. From this disposition the memory and the joy of being loved are also rekindled, of being deeply loved, and therefore blessed. So John of Dalyatha conveys it to us:
‘Whoever, in the midst of this terrible temptation, does not inwardly yield to anguish and hopelessness has not only not fallen from the hands of God, as it might seem to him; not only is his soul not stained, but he is moreover blessed!’3
As an antidote to this poison that seeks to darken our being, we need the joy of praise, an ascesis of joy that turns its gaze towards God and towards the original holiness of His creative plan. He has impressed His image upon us, and it remains beyond our falls.
The antidote of joyful praise sets us back in life and restores to us our lost innocence. John of Dalyatha recommends this to us on many occasions, for example when he says:
‘As for you, face all this with patience, keeping praise continually in your heart, whether you are sitting or lying prostrate because you have no strength to stand. Do not live dejected by these things’4
To take up the struggle for innocence that this mystic defends is a call to love Life, not consenting to even the slightest thought that smells of death, for his conception of man goes beyond death. In this same sense we find the following counsel of Nicholas Cabasilas:
‘… what we must contribute on our part is nothing other than this: to welcome grace, not to give up the treasure, not to put out the lamp already lit; in other words: to let nothing into ourselves that is contrary to life, nor anything that begets death. Here is what all good and all virtue consist in for man: not to turn the sword against himself, not to flee from happiness, not to let the crowns of grace and the gift of God fall from his head’5
With these words we wish to open ourselves to taking up again each day, with joy, our walking in Christ, our abiding in Him. Beyond every storm and tempest, contemplative prayer keeps us watchful, with our lamp alight, in an attitude of grateful praise and of welcome of grace and of Life, awake to the Presence of God.
May this awakening allow us to contemplate how innocence blossoms anew in our heart.
Take heart and keep going.
Pilar de Mambré
1 Pavel Florensky, The Pillar and Ground of the Truth, Seventh Letter: Sin
2 The development of this theme is inspired by notes taken from reading John of Dalyatha, Homilies, Sígueme edition
3 Homily 4, 8
4 Homily 3, 4
5 La vie en Christ I, 16
