The Ascetic in an Age of War

On the refusal to let hatred enter the heart

“Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.”

Matthew 26:52

The world is loud with the language of justification.

Every nation speaks of necessity.

Every army speaks of defense.

Every leader speaks of protection.

Violence is wrapped in reason.

Blood is explained.

Fear becomes policy.

Men argue about borders, history, rights, security.

Each side believes itself correct.

Each side invokes righteousness.

And beneath the arguments the earth continues to drink the blood of sons.

The Christian ascetic stands in the middle of this world and must learn a terrible truth.

The battlefield is not first the earth.

It is the human heart.

Christ did not come to reorganize the empires.

He came to expose the violence hidden within the soul.

The command of the Gospel is not complicated.

Love your enemies.

Bless those who curse you.

Pray for those who persecute you.

These words are not poetry.

They are judgment.

For the moment war erupts outside us, something awakens inside us that loves it.

A dark satisfaction arises when the enemy is struck.

A secret relief appears when destruction falls upon those we fear.

The fathers understood this.

They did not analyze geopolitics.

They examined the heart.

Abba Poemen said that a man who sees the sins of his brother is like one who has stolen his goods.

The ascetics saw that the human heart constantly seeks enemies in order to justify itself.

War simply magnifies what already lives within us.

Hatred.

Fear.

The need to be right.

The ascetic therefore refuses a deeper violence.

He refuses the violence of the heart.

He does not pretend that the world is simple.

He does not pretend that nations do not defend themselves.

He does not pretend that evil does not exist.

But he refuses to surrender the heart to hatred.

This is the narrow path.

Because the world demands that we choose sides with our passions.

The ascetic stands before the icons and prays for the victims of war.

But he also prays for the men who fire the weapons.

He prays for the soldiers.

He prays for the commanders.

He prays for the rulers.

He prays for the terrorists.

Not because their actions are righteous.

But because Christ died for them.

St. Isaac the Syrian wrote that the merciful heart burns for the whole creation.

For men.

For birds.

For beasts.

For demons.

The ascetic therefore carries the suffering of the world differently.

He does not shout.

He weeps.

He knows that every war begins in the same place.

In the heart that refuses humility.

The same passions that move nations move individuals.

Pride.

Fear.

Greed.

Wounded memory.

The ascetic therefore begins where Christ begins.

With repentance.

He does not say, “They must change.”

He says, “Lord have mercy on me.”

Because if hatred is permitted to take root in the heart, the war has already entered the soul.

A man may live in a quiet monastery and still wage war every day.

He kills his brother with judgment.

He destroys others with words.

He justifies himself.

This is the violence Christ came to end.

The desert fathers fled the cities not because the world was violent.

They fled because they discovered the same violence within themselves.

And there they learned a different weapon.

Tears.

Prayer.

Silence.

The ascetic does not save the world through power.

He stands before God carrying the broken world in his heart.

He becomes a place where hatred stops.

A place where vengeance dies.

A place where the mercy of God continues to breathe in a violent world.

This is hidden work.

It is the work that history rarely records.

But it is the work that sustains the world.

For as long as even one heart refuses hatred, the light of Christ has not been extinguished.

And the true war continues.

Not between nations.

But between the Kingdom of God and the violence within the human heart.