While it was long attributed to St. Gregory the Illuminator, evidence suggests that The Oft-Repeated Discourses was written by an anonymous 6th century Armenian author. As the work is clearly one engaged with monastic discipline and ideas, exhorting its readers to embrace or continue on with an ascetic journey, we often find contained in it the kind of harsh exhortations which is normally associated with monastic literature, including various warnings of what could happen to someone if they do not follow the principles set up by them. While not everything contained in the discourses are beneficial to the ordinary reader, as they were not its intended audience, there is nonetheless much which is interesting and worthwhile in it that a good reader could adapt what they read and find ways to apply its wisdom for themselves. An important concept found throughout the discourses, which could be beneficial for all of us to consider, is the way it says we are to imitate or resemble God by taking upon ourselves qualities which we know God has, such as mercy, kindness, and love:
To resemble God is this: to be beneficent to the ungrateful, to seek the lost, and to keep by one’s own labor and effort the one found, to resemble the Son of God who gave himself to death for our sake – who through his voluntary suffering delivered us from servitude to sin and invited us to the good life and its good things, who made us worthy to receive the Holy Spirit. [1]
So many Christians have lost sight of the importance of kindness. Some even have been led to think that being kind, being nice, is some sort of defect, something to deplore, and in doing so, are led to deny the charity they need in order to be friends with God. For in reality, kindness, when embraced with humility and other virtues, allows us to make room for the presence of God in our lives, that is, to become temples of the Holy Trinity:
Kindness, when combined with humility, obedience, and meekness, is a catcher of good things, a gatherer of all the virtues, and an abode for the Holy Trinity. Kindness, when combined with humility and obedience, binds together those who persevere ascetically and does not allow separation from one another. [2]
Kindness is important because it helps bring people together. The more we embrace it, the more we will find ourselves embracing all the other virtues through it, because we will find ourselves more loving towards others as a result of our kindness. We are called to embrace each other in love; if we cannot be kind to each other, helping each other deal with the burdens and conflicts which we have, we will find ourselves distancing ourselves from each other, and similarly, from God. Sin, which follows from the lack of charity, will destroy our spirituality and our spiritual condition. Such sin will have us build up our ego, letting it get in the way of such kindness and love; the more it builds itself up, the more it will try to have us separate ourselves from all others, including God.
We should be mindful that kindness is important. God works with us in and through such kindness, for it is by such God’s kindness that God’s love is revealed, a love which works to build us up instead of tear us down:
Do you see how after so much scrutiny and examination he does not turn away from (showing) mercy, caring for his creatures? Rather, he brings back the straying one, lifts up the fallen, raises the stumbler, restores the broken, heals the sick, cleanses the filthy one with tears, establishes the double-minded in faith, and enlightens everyone. [3]
As we are called to imitate God, we should imitate that kindness, for in that fashion, we will become God’s co-workers in the world: “Mindful of the beneficence of his sacred love, in keeping with the pleasing will of the benevolent Lord, let us become co-workers with him in grace, to the glory and honor of the Giver of Life.”[4] We should show mercy to others, bringing them back to God with kindness and love instead of finding ways to denigrate them and make them want to distance themselves from us and from the grace which they need. God’s great love God is revealed in all that God has done, and so we, when we imitate God, should reveal a similar love by our action. Of course, we can slip up, finding ourselves far from the love which we should have, but if we understand what we should be like, and so set it up as a goal to be kind to others. we will do what we can to achieve that goal, correcting our mistakes when we notice them. But if we think we can neglect such kindness, if we don’t think it should be a part of our goal in life to be kind to others, our slip-ups will not be corrected and we will find ourselves becoming less and less like we should be, less like God. While being merciful and kind, being love, can be difficult, we must never despair and think it is impossible to imitate God. God’s kindness to us, revealed in Christ and his humanity, shows that the potential is in us and so it is something which, with God’s grace, we can and should eventually achieve (in the eschaton, if not in time):
For (as) the Son of God willingly took body and appropriated every aspect of our human nature except sin, so too should we be able, by the power of God, to pass through everything without sinning, so that we may be able to reach the measure of Christ’s perfection and, being truly in the image of God, inherit the Kingdom of Christ. [5]
Love, and the mercy and kindness which is brought about by such love, is the power which transforms us:
Sacred love is the mother of (spiritual) well-being and immaculate chastity; it prompts and encourages the pursuit of virtue and every good deed. Love is the source of all good things; those who are holy drink from it. It is the pledge of all the blessings and the great gifts distributed by God. Love is the flow of Christ’s beneficence; it adorns his boundless grace; it dissipates strife and grants peace; it illuminates the mind and the members (of the body). [6]
As we partake of such love for ourselves, as we unite ourselves with it, not only will we discover that love is the power which is able to transform us, it transforms us into itself; that is, it is love which, when taken in by us, lets us love in return and in that return of love, we imitate it and so imitate God, who is said to be love.
[1] Moralia et Ascetica Armeniaca: The Oft-Repeated Discourses. Trans. Abraham Terian (Washington, DC: CUA Press, 2021), 248 [Discourse 20].
[2] Moralia et Ascetica Armeniaca: The Oft-Repeated Discourses, 176 [Discourse 11].
[3] Moralia et Ascetica Armeniaca: The Oft-Repeated Discourses, 100 [Discourse 5].
[4] Moralia et Ascetica Armeniaca: The Oft-Repeated Discourses, 180 [Discourse 11].
[5] Moralia et Ascetica Armeniaca: The Oft-Repeated Discourses, 78 [Discourse 2].
[6] Moralia et Ascetica Armeniaca: The Oft-Repeated Discourses, 169 [Discourse 11].
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