It seems certain that I’m going to start quoting this one as I did with “Diary of a Russian Priest” so I might as well give a bit of introduction and information to anyone who isn’t already familiar with this Orthodox gem.

“My Life in Christ” is a volume full of snippets from a short paragraph to 2/3 of a page in length. They aren’t categorized or ordered in any way. Each one is the reflection written by Fr. John of Kronstadt a married parish priest who lived in a small village in northern Russia from 1829 - 1908, and was consecrated a saint in 1988. I won’t go into his lifestory — which is worthy of an article (or maybe a blog) all its own — but here is a short excerpt from this hagiography that gives an indication of why St. John is so revered:

The Wonder-Working Father John Sergiev is another of the great elders and saints who were a part of the spiritual revival started by St. Paisius Velichkovsky. Widely venerated as a saint even during his lifetime, and the only married parish priest in the Russian calendar of saints, Father John is known for his spiritual gifts of powerful prayer, healing, spiritual insight and great love for all people. He also reawakened the Russian Orthodox Church to the Apostolic tradition of receiving Holy Communion at every Divine Liturgy. This is why he is most commonly portrayed holding a Communion chalice.

On the title page of “My Life in Christ”, St. John writes:

I do not precede my book by any introduction: let it speak for itself. Everything contained in it is but a gracious enlightement which was bestowed upon my soul by the all-enlightening Holy Ghost during moments of deep self-concentration and of self-examination, especially during prayer. When I had time, I noted down the edifying thoughts and feelings that came to me, and from these notes, continued for many years, this book has now been compiled; the contents are very varied, as will be seen by the readers. Let them judge of them for themselves. “He that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.” (1 Corinthians ii,15)

The book is a little hard to come by in the complete volume — I was tickled pink when a friend thinned out his Orthodox library and I inherited this copy. But if you want to get the feel of it without paying the $39 or so that people on Amazon wanted for used copies of the whole 560-page book (Link HERE), there is “Spiritual Counsels” (Link HERE) that is a much shorter selection out of “My Life” set into categories to make it more reader-friendly. I started out with that, but found that I just wanted more when I got to the end.

And so now it’s an addition to my daily readings, and at the rate I’m going, I probably won’t be done till 2015 or so. I’ll try not to keep quoting it ALL the time, but rest assured, I’ll want to.

PS: I will mention the one aspect of “My Life” that might be a little problematic, probably not at the time St. John was writing but because of a certain downhill slide in current Christianity. Saint John is especially emphatic about the need for a strong and active prayer life, and as part of prayerfulness, he believed that it was important for Christians to place total faith that God would hear their prayers. Here’s a typical example from “My Life”

If you wish to ask of God in prayer any blessing for yourself, then before praying prepare yourself for undoubting and firm faith, and take in good time means against doubt and unbelief. For it will go ill with you if during the prayer itself your heart wavers in its faith and does not stand firm in it. … Remember that God, during your prayer, is waiting for your affirmative answer to the question which He is inwardly asking you: ‘Believe ye that I am able to do this?’

It is a great and a loving sentiment, and coming as it did from a man who was diligent in ascetic labors it is surely good advice. The danger for 21st century Americans, IMHO, is that we are living in a time and place that already tends to cheapen prayer to a magic wishlist and turn God into ‘a celestial butler’ (as Dennis Prager puts it). It wasn’t all that long ago that “The Jabez Prayer” was a best-seller, and TV evangelists strut the stage telling hapless viewers that God is just dying to give you stuff. It is a sad denigration of what intercession in prayer can be, and St. John can hardly have expected that it would have come to this. But since that cultural message rings so strongly in my ears, I found that I had to be careful with St. John’s very good advice on that one issue.