"It is better to sin against God than against our father"

Ladder of Divine Ascent (e.g. 4:121), "It is better to sin against God than against our father"

Reading the Fathers shows us a variety of Rules of life. All of them are based on the gradual abandonment of my own will. As I abandon what "I want," I will become more vulnerable to God's actiovity to form His Will within me, that I may do what He wants.

Cenobitic (monastic community, within a monastery) life stresses absolute obedience to the Abbot. A long period of being an Observer, Postulant and Novice precedes tha taking of final vows. The entire process can take as long as twelve years, or as short as seven.

The phrase needs to be seen as a "koan" a seemingly-contradictory phrase. The key to it is absolute trust in God, and the suspicion of my own will to the extent that I am not really competent to discern if I am disobeying God, and if I think I am, I'm probably wrong. After all, He has led me to this vocation and this monastery, so I must trust that His Will is being expressed through the Abbot.

All cenobitic rules have this in common. On the other hand, most of the anchorites (individual monks who live indiviodual Rules and co-operate in loose and informal community) refused to take this sort of responsibility. The ultimate anchoritic response to a reresponsibility. When asked to do a younger monk's thinking for him, their advice-of-choice was, "Go sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything."

The "Ladder" was written by a very experienced, very advanced ascetic. It needs to be read with extreme caution.