The Heart That Must Be Guarded

Watchfulness, Divine Mercy, and the Love That Never Fails

“As long as you are in the body, do not leave your heart unguarded.”

— Abba Isaiah

Synopsis of Tonight’s Group on The Evergetinos Volume III Hypothesis IX Section B 8-12

There is something almost relentless about the teaching of the Fathers on watchfulness. They will not allow us to imagine that there comes a point in the spiritual life when vigilance is no longer necessary. Age does not free us from it. Knowledge does not free us from it. Years of prayer do not free us from it. Even great spiritual gifts do not free us from it.

“As long as you are in the body, do not leave your heart unguarded.”

Until the last breath.

At first this can sound severe. The image given by Abba Isaiah is striking: he is like a sparrow tied by the foot. It may fly upward and imagine itself free, but the cord remains. A single tug can bring it back to the earth. Likewise, the Fathers tell us that the enemy waits at the crossroads, lays traps along the path, makes use of small thoughts and seemingly insignificant compromises, and patiently seeks an opening into the heart.

Yet if we read these sayings merely as a catalogue of demonic strategies, we have misunderstood their purpose.

The Evergetinos is not trying to make us fascinated with evil. Nor are the Fathers trying to produce souls that are perpetually looking over their shoulders, anxiously examining every movement of the heart. They are teaching us watchfulness because they desire something infinitely greater for us.

They want us to discover how precious the heart is to God.

Indeed, hidden within these rather frightening descriptions is one of the most beautiful statements in the entire passage. The enemy himself is forced to confess concerning the monks:

“You and your fellow-servants have a good Master, Who speaks to you gently and watches over you as His own children.”

A good Master.

One who speaks gently.

One who watches over us as His own children.

This is the heart of the teaching.

We guard the heart because God guards the heart.

Our vigilance is meant to become a participation in His vigilance over us. The commandments, prayer, repentance, the remembrance of God, the cutting off of thoughts—all of these are expressions of a divine solicitude that surrounds the human person. God desires to protect within us that which He has created for Himself. He desires that nothing should enter the heart that diminishes its freedom, darkens its vision, wounds its capacity for love, or turns its desire away from Him.

The Fathers therefore teach us to recognize temptations, but recognition is not the end. We do not study the passions in order to become experts in the passions. We learn their movements so that we might become free to love.

This distinction is everything.

One can become extraordinarily knowledgeable about the spiritual life and still remain outside of its mystery. Abba Isaiah goes so far as to say that a man might possess knowledge, perform miracles, endure hardships, and yet still find himself vulnerable. None of these things constitutes the final security of the soul.

Only love does.

And so the passage unexpectedly opens into the words of the Apostle:

“Love never faileth… but beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.”

Here the teaching reaches its true center.

The Fathers are not leading us toward an ever more sophisticated fear of temptation. They are leading us toward perfect love.

Watchfulness exists for love.

Asceticism exists for love.

The guarding of the heart exists for love.

Repentance exists for love.

Even the fear of God, rightly understood, is gradually drawing the soul toward that love in which fear itself is transformed.

This is why the smallest thoughts matter. Not because God is fastidious or because the Christian life consists in anxiously avoiding infractions. The smallest things matter because love notices what interferes with communion.

When one loves another deeply, one becomes sensitive to anything that introduces distance. So too with God. The vigilant heart begins to recognize thoughts of resentment, vainglory, judgment, self-pity, lust, anger, curiosity, or self-will not simply as violations of a rule but as movements that draw the heart away from the One whom it loves.

The Fathers repeatedly tell us that great falls ordinarily begin very quietly. A thought is entertained. Then revisited. Then befriended. What first appeared insignificant gradually acquires familiarity, and familiarity acquires power.

“The Devil disdains small sins; yet without them, he cannot lead man into greater sins.”

But precisely the opposite is also true.

Small acts of fidelity gather strength.

A thought rejected for Christ.

A moment of irritation surrendered.

A judgment withheld.

A temptation met immediately with the Jesus Prayer.

A movement of vainglory quietly ignored.

A moment of fear answered by trust.

A suffering borne without abandoning God.

These things too form habits of the heart. Grace upon grace. Fidelity upon fidelity. Love answering Love.

This is why the teaching about vigilance should never leave us preoccupied with the enemy. Abba Makarios does not continue his journey thinking about the devil. He gives thanks to God and goes on his way rejoicing.

That detail is extraordinarily important.

The fruit of true watchfulness is not anxiety.

It is thanksgiving.

It is the growing realization that we are being kept.

The Elder who asked to see the demons surrounding men discovered something similar. He saw them “like bees,” gnashing their teeth. Yet among them stood the Angel of the Lord rebuking them. The revelation was not given so that the Elder might become terrified by the number of demons. It revealed something far greater: the mercy of God was already there.

Before we perceive the danger, God sees it.

Before we understand the temptation, God knows it.

Before we cry out, He has already drawn near.

This is why the proper response to our weakness is not self-reliance but the prayer Abba Isaiah places continually upon our lips:

Help me. Have mercy upon me.

Perhaps this is one of the deepest lessons the desert has to teach us. Watchfulness eventually reveals not how strong we are but how utterly dependent we are upon God. The vigilant man discovers more and more clearly that he cannot preserve himself.

And strangely, this discovery becomes peace.

St. Isaac the Syrian understood this profoundly. The knowledge of one’s weakness is itself a doorway into the knowledge of divine mercy. When a man begins to understand how fragile he is, he ceases trusting in himself and casts himself upon God. Then prayer becomes less an accomplishment and more a cry of the heart.

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.

Not because God is reluctant to give mercy.

Because mercy is already rushing toward us.

This also changes the meaning of constancy.

We remain vigilant until death not because God stands waiting for us to make one final mistake. We remain vigilant because love desires to remain with the Beloved until the end.

The question becomes less, How do I avoid falling?

And more:

How do I remain with Him?

This is the deeper meaning of guarding the heart.

To remain.

To abide.

To keep the inner door turned toward Christ.

To allow nothing to become more compelling than His presence.

There will always be thoughts. There will always be temptations. There will always be some cord around the foot of the sparrow as long as we remain in this present life. The Fathers are remarkably sober about this. There is no moment when we may say, “Now I am beyond danger.”

But neither is there a moment when we are beyond mercy.

And perhaps that is what gives watchfulness its tenderness.

We do not stand guard alone.

The One who tells us to watch is Himself watching over us.

The One who tells us to guard the heart has already claimed that heart as His dwelling.

The One who warns us against the snares of the enemy does so because He desires our freedom infinitely more than we do.

He does not expose the traps in order to frighten His children.

He exposes them because He loves His children.

And gradually the spiritual life becomes less and less a struggle to defend ourselves and more an abandonment to this love. We discover that the safest place for the heart is not in its own vigilance, strength, knowledge, or experience.

It is in Him.

So until the last breath we watch.

Until the last breath we repent.

Until the last breath we cry out.

Until the last breath we refuse the thought that would carry us away.

But beneath all of this there is something deeper and quieter:

we allow ourselves to be drawn.

Drawn by mercy.

Drawn by beauty.

Drawn by the gentleness of the good Master.

Drawn by the One who has watched over us as His children from the beginning.

And perhaps, in the end, perfect watchfulness is simply this:

to love Him so deeply that the heart no longer wishes to go anywhere else.