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Skills have a power similar to natural qualities: a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ must acquire good skills and avoid bad skills. Young man! be prudent and prudent: in the years of your youth, pay special attention to acquiring good habits: in your mature years and old age, you will rejoice in the wealth that you easily acquired in the years of your youth. Do not consider the fulfillment of your wish, apparently the most insignificant, unimportant: each fulfillment of a wish certainly leaves its impression on the soul. The impression can sometimes be very strong, and serves as the beginning of a harmful habit. Did the card player know when he first touched cards that the game would be his passion? Did someone susceptible to the disease of drunkenness know when he drank his first drink that he was committing suicide? That’s what I call this unfortunate skill that destroys both soul and body. One careless glance often causes an ulcer to the heart; several repeated glances deepened this ulcer so much that it could hardly be cured by many years of prayer, many years of feat and crying. Educators and mentors! Provide young people with good skills, distract them from vicious habits as if from a great disaster. Vicious habits are like shackles on a person: they deprive him of moral freedom, forcibly keeping him in the stinking swamp of passions. For the destruction of a person, one vicious skill is enough: it will constantly open the entrance to the soul to all sins and all passions. Learn to be modest: do not allow yourself any insolence, do not even allow yourself to touch your neighbor unless absolutely necessary - and the skill of modesty will make the great virtue of chastity convenient for you. Your neighbors, sensing the guarantee of modesty that lives within you, will be bold before you, as if in awe of the fragrance of the holy. Nothing shakes chastity more than the habit of insolence, of free circulation, rejecting the rules of modesty. Learn to be abstinent in food: by abstinence you will bring health and strength to the body, and special vigor to the mind, which is so necessary in the matter of salvation, and very useful for earthly exercises. Gluttony is nothing more than a bad habit, a reckless, unsatisfied satisfaction of a natural desire damaged by abuse. Accustom yourself to the simplest food. For those accustomed to it, it is tastier than the most exquisite foods, not to mention how much healthier it is than them. What freedom and moral strength the ability to eat simple food gives a person, a skill that is apparently so insignificant and material! With it, a person needs the smallest costs for the table, the smallest time and the smallest worries to prepare it. If someone who is accustomed to simple food is poor, then he is not burdened by his poverty. The transition from a lush and refined table to simple dishes is difficult! Many were forced by circumstances to make this transition, and many, while making it, lost their health and even became morally unstable. A prudent and timely habit of simple food would have protected them from this disaster. Especially for those who want to devote themselves to the service of Christ, the habit of simple food can be said to be invaluable in its consequences: it allows you to choose the most secluded place to live, makes frequent contact with people unnecessary - thus, eliminating all reasons for entertainment, it makes it possible to completely devote yourself to the thought of God and prayer. All the saints were very concerned not only about the habit of eating food in moderation, but also about the habit of eating simple food. Apostle Peter's daily food cost several copper coins. Drunkenness is a terrible vice! This is a passion, an ailment that enters the physique by weakening the desire, receiving from the skill the strength of a natural quality. A servant of Christ must be protected not only from drunkenness, but also from the habit of drinking a lot of wine, which warms the flesh and arouses bestial desires in it. “Do not get drunk with wine, for there is fornication in it” (Eph.5:18), said the Apostle. It is permissible to drink wine in very small quantities; Those who cannot limit themselves to moderate use will do better if they completely abandon it. Pimen the Great said: “What an ascetic needs most is a sober mind” 411. Wine deprives a person of the ability to keep his mind sober. When the ascetic is exposed to the action of wine, then his adversaries attack his weakened and darkened mind, and the mind is no longer able to fight them. Bound by the action of wine, he is drawn into the abyss of sin! In an instant, the fruits of a long-term feat perish: because the Holy Spirit retreats from those defiled by sin. That is why the Monk Isaiah, the Egyptian hermit, said that those who love wine will never be granted spiritual gifts: these gifts, in order to remain in a person, require constant purity, which is possible only with constant sobriety. Love of money, hot temper, arrogance, impudence are malignant ailments of the soul, resulting from indulgence in the vicious attractions of fallen nature. They strengthen, mature, and enslave a person through skill. Carnal lust will also follow this law, despite the fact that it is natural to fallen man. Blessed is the young man who understands, at the first appearance of the actions of lust in him, that he should not indulge in lust, that he should be curbed by the law of God and prudence. Lust, being curbed at its first demands, conveniently submits to the mind, and makes weaker demands, acting like a slave bound in chains. Satisfied lust intensifies demands. Lust, to which reason will transfer power over a person with long-term and constant satisfaction, already dominates like a tyrant over both body and soul, destroying both body and soul. In general, all passions develop in a person from indulgence in them; increasing relaxation turns inclination into skill, and skill makes passion a violent ruler over a person. “Fear evil habits,” said the Monk Isaac of Syria, “more than demons” 413. When a sinful desire or attraction acts in us, we must refuse it. Next time it will have a weaker effect, and will finally subside completely. But when it is satisfied, it acts each time with new force, as it acquires more and more power over the will, and finally gives birth to a habit. The sins that we are accustomed to commit seem easy to us, no matter how serious they are. A new sin for the soul terrifies it, and it will not soon be decided to commit it. Passions are evil skills; virtues are good habits. Here we are talking about passions and virtues acquired and assimilated by a person through his activities, through his residence. Sometimes in the writings of the Fathers, various properties of the illness produced in us by the fall, various types of sinfulness, common to all people, are called passions; We are born with these passions; Virtues are the natural, natural, good qualities of a person. Such passions and such virtues do not impose any decisive stamp on a person; imposes its inclination, acquired arbitrarily, acquired by constant or frequent satisfaction of it, constant fulfillment of its demands. The servant of Christ must be as free as possible from bad habits, so that they do not hinder his march to Christ. He must move away from habits, not only directly sinful ones, but also from all those that lead to sin, such as: from skills to luxury, to effeminacy, to absent-mindedness. Sometimes the most insignificant skill binds our feet and leaves us on earth, while we should be in heaven. Young man! I repeat to you the saving advice: as long as you are in moral freedom, avoid evil habits, like shackles and prison; acquire good habits, by which moral freedom is preserved, affirmed, and imprinted. If someone in adulthood has decided to serve Christ, and, by misfortune, has already acquired many vicious habits, or habits of luxury and delicacy, which usually keep the soul in a state of relaxation, he should not indulge in despondency and double-mindedness; he must courageously enter into the fight against evil skills. Victory over them is not impossible, with God's help. Decisive will, overshadowed and strengthened by the grace of Christ, can overcome the most stubborn habits. The habit at first fiercely resists those who want to overthrow its yoke; at first it seems insurmountable; but over time, with constant struggle with it, with every disobedience to it, it becomes weaker and weaker. If during the continuation of the struggle you happen, due to some unexpected circumstance, to be defeated, do not be embarrassed, do not fall into hopelessness: start the fight again. The violent struggle against vicious habits is imputed by God to man as martyrdom, and the one who wins in this struggle is crowned with the crown of confessors, as one who strives for the sake of the Law of Christ. The merciful and almighty Lord accepts everyone who comes to Him, stretches out His right hand to support our weakness. And therefore, even if you were covered in evil habits, as if in heavy chains, do not despair of obtaining freedom. Enter into invisible warfare, fight courageously and constantly, endure your victories with generosity. From time to time, God leaves us to ourselves, so that we learn by experience how weak we are in our loneliness, and because of this knowledge, we relentlessly cling to God, Who alone can be the conqueror of sin in those who truly will to see sin defeated in themselves. Amen. Memorable Tales about Abba Pimen, ch. 135. You might be interested in: