It can be the same way with the soul. If we disobey God, the enemies of the soul will take the soul over. Passions can seduce it. The day will come when we cease to pray or even think of God. The soul can become a desolate place, a ghost town. The grand monuments along its avenues crumble from neglect. Snarling animals prowl the deserted parks. A house with no one living in it deteriorates rapidly. The soul that does not celebrate God becomes a dark, ruined, deserted place.
It's sad to think of a road no one travels.
It's sad to see an abandoned house.
It's sad to come upon a farm grown up in weeds.
It's sad to see a derelict ship.
It's sad to find a soul in the stormy sea of life who is not navigated by Christ.
It's sad to discover a soul that is not carefully cultivated by Christ, bringing forth good fruits.
Christ is a Master Gardener. The Cross is his tool. He can take a soul that is overgrown with thorns and briers and turn it into a beautiful paradise of the Spirit.
Pseudo-Macarius, The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter
Who is Pseudo-Macarius? Pseudo-Macarius, also known as Macarius Symeon, lived 949 to 1022 A.D. He was born in Galatia, Phaphlagonia. He was educated to be and served as a courtier to emperors in Constantinople. At the age of 27 he retreated to a monastery. He eventually became the abbot of St. Mammas Monastery in Constantinople. The Eastern Orthodox later deemed Macarius Symeon a saint. He was a poet deeply steeped in a meditative practice of retiring inward, by ceasing to register the sense in order to gain experiential knowledge of God.
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