Today I thought I'd share an interesting quote from The Mountain of Silence (Kyriacos C. Markides. The Mountain of Silence: A Search for Orthodox Spirituality. Doubleday: New York, 2001).
What better way of approaching "love" in an unsentimental and deep manner; the ways in which we willing lose ourselves in the other that this day celebrates!
Humility, or the overcoming of egotistical passions, can be attained either within the context of monasticism or within life in the wider world with its myriad positive and negative “temptations.” Marriage, or example, is considered by the Ecclesia [the church] as a form of askesis [spiritual exercises], an arena for transcending one’s ego absorption for the sake of the other. It is a mistake, Father Maximos argued, to consider marriage, as many traditional Christians do, as first and foremost a means for procreation. The primary aim of marriage is askesis engaged in by two people who are asked to overcome their separateness in their common ascent towards God (214-5).
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