Secrecy as Spiritual Virtue

Thursday of the Second Week of Lent – March 5, 2015

AMMA SYNCLETICA said, “Money in an open treasury is soon spent. Any virtue will be lost if it becomes public knowledge. Wax in front of a fire will melt. Shower vain praises on a soul and it will become weak. The soul will look for goodness with less fervor.”
[Bernard Bangley, By Way of the Desert, p. 93.]

The Desert Mothers and Fathers believed that spiritual practices could have their full effect on us only when we practice them in secrecy. This is another aspect of solitude. In fact, many took up “secrecy” (as it relates to one’s virtuous actions or spiritual practice . . . NOT as it relates to one’s addiction , brokenness, or sin) as a spiritual practice.

They took their cue from Jesus in Matthew 6 . . . praying in secret and not before a crowd for recognition . . . fasting, but washing your face so that your countenance does not announce that you are fasting . . . giving alms, but not letting your right hand know what your left is doing.

It is possible for spiritual practice to be simply another ploy of our ego to get attention. It is possible for our virtuous actions to announce to others how pious we are, or how holy we have become. The very practices that are supposed to lead us to surrendering our small self (the false self) in order to live into the larger, God-created self (the true self), when we make them public, become ways for us to hold onto the recognition we crave and the attention for which we hunger.

Amma Syncletica said that when we do our spiritual practices in order to be publicly virtuous, the soul becomes weak. We grow pleased with ourselves, proud of our accomplishments, thankful for the acclaim our spirituality has gained for us.

So in the end, we may have looked like a very, VERY spiritual person. Amma Syncletica would say that, in truth, we are spent.

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