The Sweetness of Those Who Breathe the Same Air

Not Information, but Communion

“Take for yourself the remedy of life from the table of those who fast, keep vigil, and labor in the Lord, and so raise up the dead man in your soul. For the Beloved reclines in their midst, bestowing sanctification.”

— St. Isaac the Syrian, Homily 15

Synopsis of Tonight’s Group on the Ascetical Homilies of St. Isaac the Syrian Homily 15 paragraphs 14-17

There are passages in St. Isaac that seem less like theology and more like glimpses through an opened door into the Kingdom. These words are among them.

He speaks of a table around which those who fast, keep vigil, and labor in the Lord gather. Yet he is not describing merely an ascetical fellowship or a pious community of like-minded people. Something infinitely greater is taking place. The Beloved Himself reclines in their midst. The angels overshadow them. The bitterness of their struggles is transformed into ineffable sweetness. Earth and Heaven become one.

How impoverished our understanding of communion often is.

We think of fellowship as friendship, conversation, common interests, or shared projects. St. Isaac speaks of something far more profound. Communion arises when hearts are turned together toward God. It is born of a shared hunger. It comes into being when men and women desire the Lord above all things and seek Him with simplicity of heart. Such souls begin, as it were, to breathe the same air.

The desert fathers understood this deeply. The bond between them was not built primarily upon personality or affinity. They recognized in one another a common thirst for God. Their love arose from seeing another soul struggling toward the same Kingdom, carrying the same burden, shedding the same tears, and longing for the same Face.

This is why the company of the saints becomes so sweet.

One can sit in silence with such souls and experience a communion deeper than many conversations. One can eat their frugal bread and feel nourished. One can hear a few simple words from their lips and depart inwardly changed. Their very presence becomes sacramental because their hearts have become places of divine habitation.

Indeed, St. Isaac dares to say that their table is sweeter than musk and precious perfumes. Why? Because Christ Himself is there.

Perhaps many of us have tasted something of this together as fellow pilgrims sitting at the feet of the fathers. Though separated by thousands of miles and unknown to one another in ordinary ways, there has emerged a real communion among us. We have breathed the same air. We have sat before the same elders. We have listened to the same words of Abba Isaac, Abba Arsenius, and the great company of witnesses. We have found ourselves drawn toward the same beauty and compelled toward the same repentance.

This communion cannot be explained by sociology or common interests. It is born from a shared turning toward God.

And this is why our reading of the fathers must never become merely informational.

One can know every saying of the desert and remain untouched. One can quote Isaac and remain hard of heart. One can speak eloquently about prayer while never having prayed.

The fathers are not information to be mastered. They are witnesses before whom we sit as children.

We come to them as disciples. We come to them docile and teachable. We suspend judgment and lay aside the need to be experts. We allow ourselves to be questioned, exposed, and gradually transformed by what we hear. We sit quietly before these saints because they themselves are sitting quietly before Christ.

This is where communion is born.

As the heart is purified, our vision changes. We begin to perceive the image and likeness of Christ in one another with greater clarity. The other person ceases to be a rival, an annoyance, or merely a personality to be managed. He becomes mystery. She becomes icon. Every human being becomes one for whom Christ died and one in whom the hidden beauty of God waits to be revealed.

This is the reality we must foster in our homes, our monasteries, our parishes, and our friendships. Not mere association. Not the exchange of religious information. Not even activity done in God’s name.

Rather, we must cultivate together a common hunger for God.

For where men and women gather with hearts turned toward Him, desiring Him above all things, the Beloved still reclines in their midst. The angels still draw near. The waters of life still well up from within. And those who have learned to breathe the same air already begin, even now, to partake of the life of the Kingdom.