Fighting the Good Fight: Habits and Asceticism
Patterns for Life Audiobook Chapter 13
This month, instead of including an excerpt of our own words, we have included the segment of the chapter that lists the 55 Maxims of the Christian Life by Fr. Thomas Hopko, of blessed memory. These are worth much contemplation and meditation. Here they are in written form, followed by an audio recording of them.
55 Maxims of the Christian Life
Be always with Christ and trust God in everything.
Pray as you can, not as you think you must.
Have a keepable rule of prayer done by discipline.
Say the Lord’s Prayer several times each day.
Repeat a short prayer when your mind is not occupied.
Make some prostrations when you pray.
Eat good foods in moderation and fast on fasting days.
Practice silence, inner and outer.
Sit in silence 20 to 30 minutes each day.
Do acts of mercy in secret.
Go to liturgical services regularly.
Go to confession and holy communion regularly.
Do not engage intrusive thoughts and feelings.
Reveal all your thoughts and feelings to a trusted person regularly.
Read the scriptures regularly.
Read good books, a little at a time.
Cultivate communion with the saints.
Be an ordinary person, one of the human race.
Be polite with everyone, first of all family members.
Maintain cleanliness and order in your home.
Have a healthy, wholesome hobby.
Exercise regularly.
Live a day, even a part of a day, at a time.
Be totally honest, first of all with yourself.
Be faithful in little things.
Do your work, then forget it.
Do the most difficult and painful things first.
Face reality.
Be grateful.
Be cheerful.
Be simple, hidden, quiet and small.
Never bring attention to yourself.
Listen when people talk to you.
Be awake and attentive, fully present where you are.
Think and talk about things no more than necessary.
Speak simply, clearly, firmly, directly.
Flee imagination, fantasy, analysis, figuring things out.
Flee carnal, sexual things at their first appearance.
Don’t complain, grumble, murmur or whine.
Don’t seek or expect pity or praise.
Don’t compare yourself with anyone.
Don’t judge anyone for anything.
Don’t try to convince anyone of anything.
Don’t defend or justify yourself.
Be defined and bound by God, not people.
Accept criticism gracefully and test it carefully.
Give advice only when asked or when it is your duty.
Do nothing for people that they can and should do for themselves.
Have a daily schedule of activities, avoiding whim and caprice.
Be merciful with yourself and others.
Have no expectations except to be fiercely tempted to your last breath.
Focus exclusively on God and light, and never on darkness, temptation and sin.
Endure the trial of yourself and your faults serenely, under God’s mercy.
When you fall, get up immediately and start over.
Get help when you need it, without fear or shame.
The content below was originally paywalled.
Ah! Habits.
The magical fix to all problems of will and intention!
This is an area where the temptation to establish a system that will produce specific products is especially strong. But even though it’s right to avoid such temptation, we cannot ignore the importance of building good habits to help us in our journey through this life.
Looking at the way we approach fasting is an excellent starting point as we figure out how to form habits in a healthy way. The Church emphasizes for us that the disposition of our hearts matters more than the particular foods from which we abstain, but we also see that the fast track to acquiring that disposition in the first place is by following the prescribed fasts to the best of our abilities. As the Apostle James says, “Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” (James 2:18).
The thing is, we don’t just wake up one morning as the person we’ve always wanted to be — able to make all the right choices and to do all the right things. That ability only comes through practice, and practice requires deliberate, intentional, repetitive effort. This applies to all the different habits we may want to form; from hygiene to electronics to work to play and everything in between.
So let’s chat about habits!
How have you approached habits in your family?
What habits have proven, over time, to be the most beneficial in your life?
How do you handle it when your habits slip?
How do you overcome bad habits?
What does Charlotte Mason mean when she says that taking the time to form good habits in our children will secure smooth and easy days for us?