Step 9 of The Ladder of Divine Ascent

from Ascending Heights: A Layman’s Guide to The Ladder of Divine Ascent 

by Father John Mack

Letting the Past Be Past

In the last chapter we talked about Step Eight (On Meekness) and we saw how dangerous anger is for our spiritual ascent towards God. At the end of this discussion, I quoted Saint John Climacus’ description of the “daughters” of anger: Remembrance of wrongs: Hate:  Hostility; and Self-justification.  In Step Nine, he takes up one of these daughters:  Remembrance of wrongs.  He writes:

Remembrance of wrongs comes as the final point of anger.  It is keeper of sins.  It hates a just way of life.  It is the ruin of virtues, the poison of the soul, a worm in the mind.   It is the shame of prayer, a cutting off of supplication, a turning away from love, a nail piercing the soul.

When we become angry, upset, and bothered by the actions of others, if we embrace that anger and claim it as our own (rather than rejecting it as belonging to the devil), if we take it into our hearts and into our souls and nourish it, feeding it with our memory (which has a tendency to exaggerate what it remembers, tilting it in our favor), we have practiced what Saint John is describing.   Remembrance of wrongs is refusal to forgive, it planning revenge; it is nourishing hurt feelings. It is practicing what is called the “broken record” syndrome: playng the hurts over and over again in our minds.

Saint John is correct in pointing out that this practice is spiritually (and emotionally) destructive.  He writes:

I have seen hatred shatter a …. relationship, and then afterwards remembrance of wrongs stood in the way of restoring the relationship.

When anger is taken into our hearts and fed by our memory, it soon pushes every other thing out of our hearts. you cannot have anger and love in the same heart for long   The nature of anger is that it is always growing.   Have you ever noticed that you can’t stay angry at just one person?  Anger against one person tends to spill over.

Once I have turned the corner and have embarked on my own self-pity party, I soon begin to notice now many people treat me poorly and speak to me rudely.  I then begin to add them to my broken record, and my list of offenses grows larger.  I become more angry and more bitter.  I become more and more self-absorbed. I love less and I am able to receive love less. Ultimately, I become so embittered that I experience no love and I give no love   I am alone in hell!   The demons have me just where they want me to be.

How do I escape from this hell?  How do I keep from descending into it in the first place?   Saint John has lots of good, practical advice.  Firstly, he says it is better not to get angry, not to notice wrongs, which have been done against us.

The man who has put a stop to anger has also wiped out remembrance of wrongs.

Secondly, when we get angry (and which of us is at the place where we do not get angry?), we must immediately reject the feelings of anger, and disturbance as being Satan-inspired and spiritually destructive.

Forgive quickly and you will be abundantly forgiven.  To forget wrongs is to prove oneself truly repentant, but to brood over them and at the same time to imagine one is practicing repentance is to act like the man who is convinced he is running when in fact he is fact asleep.

Thirdly, if we find ourselves unable to forgive the person, we must remind ourselves who is the real source of sin and destruction.

Let your malice and your spite be turned against the devils.

The people who offend us and sin against us are not the real culprits!   Satan and his demons are behind every sin and injustice committed in the world.  We must pity the one who has been used by Satan, and we must despise Satan.  To remember his wrongs is spiritually helpful. To remind ourselves constantly of his ability to deceive is to remind ourselves to stay far away from his devices and close to the Holy Church.

Fourthly, if after all of this, we are still unable to rid ourselves of remembrance of wrongs, Saint John advises the following:

If, after great efforts you still fail to root out this thorn, go to your enemy and apologize, if only with empty words whose insincerity may shame you  Then as conscience, like a fire, comes to give you pain, you may find that a sincere love of your enemy may come to life.

Hard words!   But how much harder is hell!   In case you don’t see how these words apply to you, consider the following:

Never imagine that this dark passion is a passion of no importance, for it often reaches out even to spiritual men.

Such is the ninth step.  Let him who has taken it have the courage henceforth to ask Jesus the Savior to free him from his sins.