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Part 2: On Battling Pride
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Part 3: The Spirit, and Spirits
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Part 4: The Role of Christian Women
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Part 5: On Seeking the Kingdom of God
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Part 9: The Silence of the Theotokos
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Part 10: On the Monastic Life
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Part 12: The Path to Healing and Salvation
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Part 13: Every Man Must Guard His Heart
Photo: Y.Kostygov / expo.pravoslavie.ru
Degrees of faith
The degrees of faith vary. Just as our body goes through three stages—youth, adulthood, and old age—so too does the soul pass through three stages: the beginning of faith, being established in it, and finally, the perfection of faith. The holy Apostle John illustrated this in his epistle: I write unto you, little children … I write unto you, young men… I have written unto you, fathers… (1 Jn. 2:12–14).
In the first degree, when the soul begins to believe, it is born in Christ. At that point, the mind is still unable to comprehend the Mysteries of God, to understand the Gospel teaching in its entirety, in all its contrasts to earthly laws and reasoning. But the soul already begins to feel the boundless love of Christ the Savior with its childlike sensitivity and gives itself to Him with trust, feeling the need for affection, comfort, pity, and parental warmth.
In the second degree, the soul acquires a heartfelt conviction of the truth of the Gospel, that the salvation of mankind has been arranged the way the Gospel preaches, and that there is no other salvation and cannot be other than that in the Lord Jesus Christ. But this conviction follows the awareness of our human infirmity and the inevitability of condemnation for our past sinful life. The Church, the Sacraments, everything eternal and blessed, inexplicable in words, becomes the most precious.
This is how the soul perceives the image of a youth grown in Christ: one who has come to know himself, who has believed in the Son of God with heart and mind, who has affirmed the truths of faith in his contrite heart, who has been reborn to a new life by Divine grace, and who hopes only in the merits and mercy of his Savior. A man begins to believe consciously. And why? Because faith is a gift of the Holy Spirit, and grace penetrates only a contrite heart, even if it’s not yet purified, is still sinful and full of passions. Grace itself burns and purifies all this, miraculously changing the man.
First of all, it’s as if a veil falls from a man’s eyes. In an instant, the mind opens and begins to discern all things spiritual with clarity and wisdom; the revived heart is filled with spiritual joy. This joy in the Lord, in grace, immediately acquires the highest value, the greatest significance in the man himself, and there appears an irresistible need, a thirst for the constant sensation of this power, peace, love, and forgiveness that are granted by grace.
The loss of these or their temporary disappearance—due to the fact that grace, because of our impurity and sinfulness, sometimes departs and then approaches again—becomes an unbearable sorrow, and understanding the reason for this difficult change, the soul, mind, and heart incite a fierce battle with the passions and tempting fallen spirits.
This invisible warfare, with small breaks during days of grace, continues until a man is established in the third degree of faith, when, gradually strengthening with God’s help, he acquires the perfection of faith and unceasing prayer as a need for the constant movement of the spirit.
Passions and the struggle against them
Repentance must be followed by a struggle with passions or sin so that we might be delivered from the trap and the fall forever. To rise just to fall again is the lot of most people, but we mustn’t look at this as something normal and inevitable, and most importantly, as something that’s not dangerous.
Everyone is obliged to take up the spiritual struggle, for which we must first of all understand how and against whom or what we fight. Everyone has many sins, whether of the mind, the heart, the soul, or flesh. What must we do in order to immediately act against such a sinful human nature?
Since the first man sinned, few people have acquired the ability to determine where is the source and focus of this sinfulness. Therefore, the majority confuse the terms and get lost in the struggle; sometimes we direct all our attention exclusively to the mind, to our deeds or actions, and then to carnal desires. So, without achieving any results, we weaken in this unseen struggle and end up not only repeating the most terrible sinful falls, but even choosing a worse path than the original one.
Why is this so? We know that to treat a bodily disease, you have to figure out the cause of the sickness and monitor the condition of the organ where the disease is centered; in the same way, our spiritual sicknesses first of all require a clear understanding of where evil thoughts (cf. Mt. 15:19) and all the passions proceed from—from the mind, the heart, the spirit, or our nature—in order to watch over them and wage a spiritual struggle.
Just as in the body every localized disease affects the whole body, so in the spirit the main passion affects all of a man’s senses and thoughts, and in order to cure them, it’s necessary to act on the underlying disease.
Let no one dream of being good and serving God as he should unless he rids himself of self-pity and fights not only against great passions, but also against small ones.
It happens that, having conquered certain large passions, we don’t pay attention to the small ones, we don’t want to force ourselves to give up the small ones that seem insignificant. But since these small ones come precisely from the big ones, then the latter continue to live and act in the heart, although they appear insignificant. Therefore, the heart remains passionate, impure, and still attached to self-indulgence and self-pity.
For example, some don’t appropriate others’ possessions, but love their own excessively, rely on their own wealth, and aren’t inclined to charity. Others don’t want to get honors through improper means and don’t seem to recognize them, but still don’t mind if these honors come as if against their will. Others observe fasts, but eat in abundance and enjoy tasty food, which destroys the dignity of fasting. Rarely does anyone take care to destroy their shortcomings, such as a lack of sociability, a short temper, hastiness, abruptness in words, movements and actions, severity, grumbling, argumentativeness, and so on—yet these greatly hinder the spiritual life.
A weak man who doesn’t submit to moral healing by his own will because he doesn’t want to struggle, doesn’t want to better himself, doesn’t strive toward Christ, doesn’t long for grace-filled healing, doesn’t pray to the Lord for it, and doesn’t think about true repentance, cannot avoid being affected by passions.
After the usual repentance, he again continues to envy, judge, mock, get angry, lie, and strive for the goods of this world. But being in such a transitional state for a long time is dangerous, for no one knows either the day or the hour of death. Even those who have overcome the habit of sinful actions, but still sin in thought, can’t consider themselves healed from passions and moral ailments. Who doesn’t know that before the face of God, thoughts and actions have the same value, as they have the same destructive effect on the soul and heart?
If we don’t rid ourselves of our passions and shortcomings while still on earth, these passions will pass with us into eternal life, where they can’t be satisfied and will only torment us, preventing our souls from entering the bright abodes. The healing of the soul is an absolute requirement for salvation, just as repentance is a necessary condition for the healing of the soul.
The Dread Judgment
Speaking of the future Dread Judgment, the Lord clearly expressed what response will be required of us. Those who died in repentance will receive absolution from the pastors of the Church, while those who don’t repent will feel their own condemnation.
Christ will only ask about what we’ve done on earth for Him Who voluntarily sacrificed Himself for us. Out of love for Him, out of gratitude, did we do even the smallest deed for Him? Did we give water to the thirsty, feed the hungry with a piece of bread, comfort the sorrowful with kind words, guide the lost, offer shelter to the traveler, help the sick, or teach the young the commandments of God?
Truly, the Lord doesn’t require great or difficult things from us!
Shame before your spiritual father
For many, the power of repentance is destroyed by a sense of fear and shame before their spiritual father. This is the last means of fighting the enemy of salvation. Who doesn’t know that not acknowledging our sins before our spiritual father means we’ll inevitably have to confess them before the entire world at the Dread Judgment? Who can doubt that for our own self-imposed small punishment, a wound to our pride, we immediately receive justification and freedom?
This irrational fear before a spiritual father exists only for those who have poorly prepared for Confession. But please believe, my beloved, that those who have fasted, who have been in solitude, in vigils and prayers, without which it’s impossible to acquire contrition and repentance, are always ready to declare their lamented and hated sins—not only before their spiritual father, but also before the whole world!
Superstitions
Both life and learning have long shown that the weaker a man’s faith, the stronger superstition and false faith seize his heart and mind, for man can’t live without religion, with a complete lack of faith. Rejecting one faith, he creates another, his own.
In our time, this decline in religion and true knowledge is especially facilitated by modern trends in philosophy and the natural sciences, which lead to the denial of evangelical truths.
Preaching the power of matter and arguing that all of Holy Scripture with its spiritual realm and supernaturalism is fabricated, they tend to attribute mysteriousness and power to certain forces of nature that are still little studied by science. Thus, they develop in their followers a different thirst—also for miracles, but of a different kind, for communication with an unknown force—and force them to mistakenly accept fallen spirits as the appearance of the souls of deceased relatives, friends, or famous national and scientific figures.
Spiritual influences of all kinds are called magnetism or hypnotism, and communication with the afterlife—spiritualism. Undoubtedly, there are many people engaged in sorcery in one form or another. Thus, thanks to false enlightenment, people substitute truth, faith, and religion with lies, vain wisdom, and superstition.
Strength of spirit
It’s not he who rules the world who should be considered strong, but he who proves his strength and power by renouncing the world and its works. It’s not those who subjugate the great and powerful, ordering them around, who display their courage and strength of spirit, but those who willingly obey others out of obedience for the sake of Christ.
Pharisees
Our Lord Jesus Christ rebuked no one so strongly, loudly, and often as the Pharisees, who stood at the head of the Jewish people and enjoyed great influence, love, and false glory at that time. He didn’t address them other than with indignation, calling them hypocrites, blind guides, snakes, a brood of vipers.
He constantly reproached them for placing heavy and unbearable burdens upon men, while they themselves didn’t want to lift a finger. All their deeds, even prayer, they did for show, so men would see and glorify them; they love to be the first everywhere, presiding over feasts and synagogues, to be welcomed at popular gatherings and to be called teachers; that they, observing external righteousness, violate the most sacred commandments of judgment, mercy, and faith, and by the example of such behavior they corrupt the people, accustoming them to the hypocritical fulfillment of lesser commandments and the violation of greater ones; they shut up the Kingdom of Heaven to men; they don’t enter themselves, and they don’t permit those who do want to enter (Mt. 23:1-36). The Son of God, in the person of His Apostles, warned His disciples and followers in general may times, saying: Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees! (Mt. 16:6).
Pharisaic pride, lies, dishonesty, and criminality have become the vices of all human societies, of all times, modified according the spirit of the times but always having the same dangerous, harmful, murderous, deceitful, and hypocritical spirit at its core and foundation.
The spirit of pharisaism or the spirit of pride doesn’t allow the grace of God to settle in the human heart. And yet how many people cover their pharisaism with false humility and outward piety. They’re convinced that they’re truly humble, brotherly, virtuous, and even grace-filled, while vanity and the pernicious belief that they’re something important lurk in their heart.
Processional banner
What is a processional banner? It’s the banner of Christ’s victory, which we’re accustomed to seeing in the right hand of the Son of God Who rose from the dead, rose from the tomb, and proclaimed victory over hell. It’s the banner of a victory not with a sword, but with truth and love!
Before Christianity, palm branches served as a symbol of peace, and they were used to greet victors and kings. Recall how as the Savior entered Jerusalem, the people greeted Him with palm branches and laid a path for their King with them (Mt. 21:8).
But after the Resurrection of the Lord, the processional banner became the banner of Christian victory. And it’s not hard to understand what feelings fill the hearts of Orthodox people who gather and unite under these banners to fight against unrighteousness, treachery, enslavement, and to defend their Orthodox faith.
The temple of God
The Lord lives not in temples made by hands, and if He were pleased to arrange a place for His glory among us, then of course it’s not for Himself, but for us, so we would know where to find Him, boundless and indescribable, where to call upon Him, unseen and unsearchable, where to strive for Him to receive truth and light from Him, and spirit and life, grace and mercy.
If He were pleased to place the treasure of grace in His holy temple, then undoubtedly, it was so our hearts and souls might be sanctified in the dwelling of God. This external material temple is only a means to create, adorn, and sanctify a spiritual temple in ourselves.
