Среда

(Gal. 6, 2–10; Mark 7, 14–24) “From within, from the heart of man, come evil thoughts, adultery, fornication, murder, theft, covetousness, malice, deceit, lasciviousness, the envious eye, blasphemy, pride, madness” (Mark 7:21-22). Walking sins are listed here, but all others, big and small, come from the heart, and the form in which they come is an evil thought. The first seed of evil comes from the thought of doing this and that. Why and how does it fall? Some of these occurrences can be explained by the well-known laws of combinations and couplings of ideas and images, but only a part. Another significant part comes from the self-propelled irritation of passions. When passion lives in the heart, it cannot but demand satisfaction. This requirement is revealed by the urge to do both; This or that object is connected with the urge. Hence the thought: “here’s what needs to be done.” Here the same thing happens as, for example, during hunger: the one who feels hungry feels the urge to eat; food itself comes to mind with an urge; from here - get this or that and eat it. The third, perhaps more voluminous part comes from unclean forces. The air is filled with them, and they scurry around people in flocks, and each one, according to its kind, scatters around itself an impact on the persons in contact. Evil flies from them like sparks from hot iron. Where there is acceptability, a spark takes root, and with it the thought of an evil deed. This, and not anything else, can explain the incipient evil thoughts, for some unknown reason, in the midst of activities that are decidedly unrelated to them. But this difference in reasons does not make a difference in how to deal with evil thoughts. There is only one law: when an evil thought comes, throw it away and the matter is over. If you don’t throw it away in the first minute, it will be more difficult in the second, even more difficult in the third, and then you won’t even notice how sympathy will be born, desire and decision and means will appear... that’s sin at hand. The first resistance to evil thoughts is sobriety and vigilance with prayer. You might be interested in: