On Holiness

Holiness is not to be defined. It is a living, glorious re-birth; it is an active condition, not a struggle with or against self, but a struggle for self, to bring oneself back, back to that pure and fragrant spring of man’s creation.

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First, then, we must recognize that all conscious striving towards purity of life is not the ruthless extirpation of all natural feelings, emotions, endeavours, appetites; if it were, then as weeds they would be back in no time to harass and throttle. The true ascetic labour is not an act of disintegration but of integration. It is the effort of gathering up all these feelings, emotions, endeavours and appetites, and – within the stillness of concentration upon the Divine – gradually assimilating such fleshly ‘enemies” and re-directing them as a healthy, vigorous, integrated part of ourselves. It is fundamentally the same with our own selves as what we are told to do with others: ‘love our enemies’. The quest for holiness is not disintegration of self, but integration; this integration the Saints have longed for and sought throughout the centuries. (Tavener, John, and Mother Thekla, Ikons: Mediations in Words and Music, Fount Paperbacks, London, 1994, pp. 2, 3.)