The Sunday of the Ladder reminds us that the Christian life is not a sprint, but a long obedience marked by small, repeated acts of faithfulness. St. John shows that the real struggle takes place in our thoughts, where healing begins with recognizing them and learning to turn back to Christ. Step by step, through endurance and humility, the heart is purified and made capable of peace.
Sunday of the Ladder
Winning the Battle of Thoughts
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Today the Church gives us St. John Climacus—St. John of the Ladder. And she gives him to us right here, in the middle of Great Lent. Not at the beginning, when everything feels fresh. Not at the end, when Pascha is in sight. But here.
When we are a little tired. A little worn down. Maybe a little discouraged.
And that is not accidental. Because St. John is not here to inspire us with dramatic moments. He is here to teach us how to keep going.
St. John was a monk, writing for monks. And sometimes we hear that and think: “Well, that’s not for me.” But that’s not how the Church reads him.
The Church puts him in front of all of us and says: this is what the spiritual life looks like. Not because we are all called to live in monasteries—but because we are all called to be healed, to be purified, to be united to God.
We are all, in that sense, spiritual athletes. And the Ladder is not a museum piece. It is a training manual.
Now here is something we have to get clear right away. The Ladder is not a sprint, a quick transformation, or a series of glorious spiritual breakthroughs. It is a lifetime slog. Step by step. Fall, get up. Fall, get up again. No drama. No shortcuts. Just faithfulness.
And this is where many people get discouraged. Because we want clarity, peace, and victory—and we want it quickly. But St. John shows us something different.
The spiritual life is not built on big moments. It is built on small, repeated acts of faithfulness.
So where does that struggle take place? Not primarily out there. Not in circumstances, other people, or events. But in here—in our thoughts.
Think about your own experience. How much of your energy goes into replaying conversations, imagining arguments, worrying about what might happen, remembering what did happen, getting distracted in prayer, getting distracted in conversation—getting distracted, pulled away from what matters, from our responsibilities, from love.
Most of our spiritual life is decided before we ever act—long before anyone else sees it—and often long before we notice it ourselves. At the level of thought.
Now we need to say something very important. A thought is not a sin. Thoughts come. They arise. They pass through.
You are not responsible for everything that appears in your mind. There are crazy people living within everyone’s mind.
No, you are not responsible for everything that appears in your mind—but you are responsible for what you do with it.
Because the difference between peace and chaos often comes down to a very small moment: what do I do with this thought?
Let me give you three very simple rules for dealing with intrusive thoughts. Not easy—but simple.
Do not enter into conversation with them. When a bad thought comes, do not engage it, do not analyze it, do not argue with it, do not “just think about it for a second.” Because once you start that conversation, you’ve already lost.
Do not identify with them. Instead, you say: “This is not me. This is a thought passing through. This is normal. This happens all the time.” That concept alone creates space. The resulting separation creates freedom.
Redirect immediately. Don’t wrestle—replace. Turn your attention to prayer, to a psalm, to something concrete, to crossing yourself, to saying “Lord, have mercy.” Again and again.
The teaching is clear—this is not where we need new insight. The difficulty is in doing it—this is where we need endurance. Because this is where the real work is.
St. John says in Step 26 on discernment: “The beginning of salvation is the recognition of thoughts.” Not controlling everything. Not fixing everything. Just recognizing—seeing thoughts clearly. Yes, that is where the healing of our minds—the salvation—begins.
And most of us don’t even get that far. Because we are already inside the thought, carried within it, buoyed along by the current of our emotions. We are already moving downstream, sometimes far downstream, before we even notice.
In Step 4, speaking about obedience, St. John says: “Obedience is the burial of the will and the resurrection of humility.”
Now that sounds very monastic. But apply it here, to your life in the world. Every time you refuse a thought, every time you redirect, you are practicing obedience. You are saying: “I will not follow this. I will follow Christ.”
And that commitment does not happen once. It happens ten times, fifty times, a hundred times a day—quietly, unseen. Small victories that grow into a habit of victory. This is the Ladder.
In Step 15, on purity, St. John says: “A pure mind sees things as they are.” That’s the goal. Not just avoiding bad thoughts—but becoming the kind of person whose perception has been healed.
Because right now, our thoughts are not neutral. They are shaped by fear, pride, habit, passion—even something as simple as what we had for dinner last night.
Please accept this: in our fallen state, we don’t see reality clearly. We interpret everything through the distorted landscape of our minds—uneven, shadowed, and unstable. And the work of guarding our thoughts—slowly, patiently—allows Christ to begin to level that ground, so that what is crooked becomes straight and what is confused becomes clear. Not the clarity of desire or pride, but of Truth.
Now, the fathers speak about this very strictly—especially in the monastery. And we might hear this and think: “Well, I’m not a monk.”
And that’s true. But that does not mean the struggle is different. It means the context is different.
As Metropolitan Saba has emphasized: the parish and the monastery are not competing paths. They are parallel paths. Same goal. Same healing. Same Christ. Different context. The struggle is the same. The setting is different.
In the monastery, the structure supports watchfulness. In our lives, we have to build that structure ourselves—in our homes, our work, our friendships, through habits of sacrificial love, prayer, and worship.
Let’s be very clear about one more thing. You cannot drift up the Ladder. We don’t expect strength without exercise or knowledge without study—but somehow we expect peace without discipline.
Guarding your thoughts is work. Redirecting your attention is training. And this is why it feels like a slog. Because it is. It is the long, slow slog of our salvation.
So what does this look like in practice? When you are replaying a conversation—stop. Do not continue. Distract yourself and focus on something else—something less destructive, something more useful.
When anxiety starts spiraling—cut it early. Not later—early. Even a small, deliberate act of joy—something as simple as a change in expression—can give us enough freedom to return to the source of all joy.
When you are standing in prayer and your mind wanders—don’t chase it. Return. Immediately. Be comforted and instructed by their truth, and the way they connect you with the source of all truth.
This is where endurance comes in—not in overpowering thoughts, but in returning again and again to what is good, what is beautiful, what is true.
And now we come back to the image: the Ladder. You do not fall all at once. You do not rise all at once.
You ascend—or descend—one thought at a time. Not in dramatic moments, but in quiet decisions, repeated daily over a lifetime.
And this is the encouragement. If you feel like this is slow—it is. If you feel like this is repetitive—it is. If you feel like this is a slog—it is.
But this is how we are healed. Not in flashes of glory, but in steady faithfulness.
Because the Ladder is not climbed in monasteries alone. It is climbed in the hidden work of the heart. And when that work is done—even a little—we begin to live and to serve with clarity, with peace, and with joy.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
