Daily Devotional: December 16th

Daily Prayer XVII

Hail, Bacchus, liberator of our captive souls,

Breaking chains that bind, releasing from cyclical tolls.

Thy revelry transcends earthly strife and birth's decree,

Purifier divine, setting our spirits forever free.

In thy ecstatic dance, the soul finds its release,

From the shackles of rebirth, you bring sweet peace.

Thou art the vine, the nectar of divine elation,

Bacchus, our guide to the realm of transformation.

Through the chalice of thy grace, impurities dissolve,

As the soul ascends, in thy mysteries we evolve.

Oh, Bacchus, in thy rapture, our essence refined,

The soul's salvation, in thy presence enshrined.

Daily Meditation

"Regarding that part of God’s own nature which He plucked from Himself and gave to us—if He had made it something which could be obstructed or limited by Himself or anyone else, He would not be God, and He would not have been taking care of us like He ought to…If you choose, you are free. If you choose, you don’t have any need to blame or accuse anyone else. Immediately, everything will be in harmony with your desires and with the desires of God.”

—Epictetus

Free will isn’t just a gift from God but a necessity for God’s goodness. Since we share in a part of God, if he were to obstruct our free will, he would also be obstructing himself, which would make him less than God, who is totally free in will and action. God cannot separate Himself from us because to separate Himself from us is to cause a separation within Himself.

Monthly Ascesis: Repentance

"Repentance is the beginning of philosophy"

—Hierocles

“Repentance is often seen as a particularly Christian idea, but philosophers were quite fond of reminding people to repent. Pythagoras, in particular, suggests two ways that we can begin to repent and take a better inventory of who we are. The word ‘repent’ is related to the Latin word for regret. The idea is that we should look over our actions and judge them if they are unworthy. However, the Greek word for repentance is metanoia, which means the transformation of the mind. Platonic repentance is about creating an inner change that leads us back to a life of holiness in harmony with the divine.

Pythagoras says we should “do nothing shameful, neither in the presence of others nor privately; Thus, above all things, sit as a judge over [ourself].” This suggests we should watch our actions, and when we do something wrong or shameful, we should repent, that is, regret that action. If we never do this or shun it as a practice, we effectively say we have no reason to regret our actions. However, regretting an action is recognizing an area where we fell short of our ideals. If we never regret or repent, we make any spiritual or ethical growth impossible. This is why Hierocles, commenting on Pythagoras, says, “repentance is the beginning of philosophy.””

Excerpt from Ascesis: The Handbook of Platonic Practice

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