Отношение христианина к страстям его

Some great ascetic said: “We must endure our shortcomings just as we tolerate the shortcomings of others, and be forgiving of our soul in its weaknesses and imperfections. At the same time, one should not indulge in negligence: one should take diligent care to correct and improve oneself” 521. “Do not be indignant, do not be perplexed,” said a certain Holy Father, when you see the action of some passion in yourself. When passion arises, strive against it, try to curb and eradicate it through humility and prayer” 522. Confusion and bewilderment, when the action of passion is revealed, serves as proof that a person does not know himself 523. In the light of the Word of God, let us consider our attitude towards our passions and weaknesses in order to obtain a correct concept of ourselves and, on the basis of a correct concept of ourselves, to govern ourselves correctly. Man is conceived in iniquities, born in sins (Ps. 50:7): therefore, passions or sinful ailments of soul and body are characteristic of our fallen nature. Passions are unnatural to our immaculate nature, as it was created; are unnatural to passions and renewed nature; they are natural to fallen nature. So the properties of this disease are natural to any bodily illness; So illness and death are natural to our body, which has lost immortality and the properties of immortality. Before the fall, immortality was natural to our body; illness and death were unnatural. Passion – otherwise “sin”, in the broad sense of the word. The Apostle, when he speaks of “sin living in man” (Rom. 7:14, 7:20), means by the word sin the infection of all human nature with evil, he means passions. This state is also called the “carnal” state (Rom. 7:14, 8:8) and “death” (Rom. 7:24, 8:2). Man, before the redemption of our race by the Savior, could not resist passions, even if he wanted to: they forcibly carried him away; they ruled over him against his will. A Christian, through holy Baptism, throws off the yoke of passions; he receives the strength and opportunity to resist passions and trample on them 524. But a redeemed person, a renewed person, placed in a spiritual paradise - in the Church - is given freedom: according to his will, he can either resist passions and defeat them in the Lord, or submit and enslave them. So in the sensual paradise it was left to the will of the primordial man to either obey the commandment of God or disobey it. Every resistance offered to the demands of passion weakens it; constant resistance brings her down. Each infatuation with passion strengthens it; constant infatuation with passion enslaves the passions of the one who is carried away by it. The Christian's resistance to passions must extend to the crucifixion of “the flesh with its passions and lusts” (Gal. 5:24); it must extend in the chosen spiritual fighters to the shedding of blood: give the blood and receive the Spirit 525. Only “he who has suffered in the flesh is free from sin” (1 Pet. 4:1). This means: only one who suffers in the body, in voluntary or involuntary deeds, is able to resist the sinful desires of the flesh, suppress and drown them out in himself. The body, rested and cherished by various bliss and pleasures, is a container of passions. The God-Man, who suffered and was crucified for us, demands from His disciples and followers that they imitate His suffering, that they sacrifice everything that is temporary for the eternal, that is corruptible for the incorruptible, that they become disciples and followers of the God-Man with their very lives. A feat is necessary for a Christian; but it is not feat that frees a Christian from the dominion of passions: it is the right hand of the Most High that frees him, the grace of the Holy Spirit frees him. By curbing and mortifying the flesh, by works of piety with careful observance of the Gospel commandments, true humility is brought to the Christian. True humility lies in complete selflessness, in complete devotion to God, in unceasing service to God. Such humility attracts Divine grace into the soul. Divine grace, having overshadowed the soul, imparts to it a spiritual sensation - and passions, these sensations and attractions, carnal and sinful, remain idle 526. The action of passions, which delights a carnal man, is painful and painful for a spiritual man—it arouses in him the strongest disgust. At the slightest appearance or arousal of passion, he runs from it, as from a predatory, fierce beast, as from a murderer, he runs under the cover of prayer, under the cover of the Gospel teaching, under the cover of God. A soul not cultivated by the commandments of the Gospel, and a body not cultivated by the works of piety, are not capable of being a church of Divine grace, a temple of the Holy Spirit. The essence of the feat lies in fulfilling the commandments. One who does not curb his body through labor, fasting, vigil, and prayerful standing, and therefore allows carnal wisdom to dominate within himself, feeding and maintaining passions in himself, will not be able to become a fulfiller of the commandments. Death, one death, completely frees even the saints of God from the influence of sin on them. Passions are shameless: they can arise even in someone lying on his deathbed. Even on your deathbed it is impossible to stop being vigilant over yourself. Trust the dispassion of your body when it lies in the grave. Passions, abiding in a Christian, constantly forcing him to be on guard, constantly challenging him to fight, contribute to his spiritual success. Evil, according to the wise dispensation of Divine Providence, promotes good with evil intentions: the Monk Macarius the Great said this 527. A hard and heavy millstone grinds the grains of wheat into flour, making the wheat capable of baking bread from it. A difficult struggle with passions erases a person’s heart, crushes his arrogant spirit, forces him to admit to a state of fall, experimentally discovering this state - forces him to admit the need for redemption, destroys hope in himself, transfers all hope to the Redeemer. We must believe that in original sin lies the seed of all passions, that we are born with an inclination to all types of sin: and therefore we should not be surprised at the manifestation and rebellion of any passion, as if it were something unusual and strange. According to the properties of the soul and body, according to the influence of circumstances, in one person one passion acts and develops with special force, in another - another: in another a special inclination towards the love of money is noticeable, in another - gluttony; one is carried away by carnal lust, the other by the thirst for vain honors. Anyone who is not carried away by any passion should not think that this passion is not in him: only there was no opportunity to discover it. One must constantly be prepared to counteract all passions. In particular, one must be vigilant against the prevailing passion, which manifests itself more often than other passions, and which most disturbs a person. The passions inherent in fallen nature are distinguished by the greatest difference from the passions acquired arbitrarily by each person. The power of the latter is incomparably greater than the power of the former. But repentance, as an omnipotent medicine, taught by the omnipotent doctor - God, heals a person who wants to use this medicine legally, heals with all satisfaction from all sinful ailments. Some passions serve as the beginning and cause for other passions, such as: gluttony, bliss, entertainment, luxury, love of money, love of fame, unbelief. Their consequences: voluptuousness, sadness, anger, resentment, envy, pride, oblivion of God, abandonment of virtuous living. In a spiritual feat one must primarily arm oneself against the initial passions: their consequences will be destroyed by themselves. He who has renounced bodily pleasures, human glory, covetousness, and a distracted life will not indulge in anger and sadness, neither pride nor envy will overwhelm him; he will walk unhindered along the path of God’s commandments to salvation, to the extensive knowledge of God, accessible to only the pure in heart. The leader of all passions is unbelief. It opens the entrance to the soul to the love of money, and ambition, and bad lusts, and anger, and sadness, and the fulfillment of evils - despair. The leader and door of all true Christian virtues is faith. Passions live secretly in people who lead distracted, inattentive lives; for the most part they are satisfied with them, for the most part they are not noticed by them, for the most part they are justified - they are often recognized as the purest, most sublime virtues. One true Christian, constantly paying attention to himself, studying the law of the Lord day and night, trying to fulfill the Gospel commandments with all care, can see his passions. The more he purifies and succeeds, the more passions appear before him. Finally, before the eyes of a mind healed by the Gospel, the terrible abyss of human fall opens. A Christian sees in himself the fall of humanity because he sees his passions. Passion is a sign of a sinful, deadly disease that affects all of humanity. In what position does seeing his passions, his fall, bring a Christian? - Leads to crying for oneself, to crying bitterly, inconsolably. No earthly joy can stop or interrupt this crying. Divine grace alone stops it from time to time, teaching the weeping and torn heart the hope of salvation, spiritual peace and heavenly pleasure flowing from the world of Christ. What position does the revealed action of the passions bring a Christian into? - It raises him to an intensified battle against passions. The ascetic of Christ intensifies his prayers, his fasting, his vigils, his genuflections, and, mentally showing his misfortunes to God, he intercedes with inexpressible contrition and heart disease for mercy. “I,” says the Divine David, “when I was always cold, I clothed myself in sackcloth, and humbled my soul with fasting, and my prayer returned to my bosom. Weeping and lamenting, I humbled myself” (Ps. 34:13–14). How are passions revealed? – Thoughts, dreams and sinful sensations. Thoughts and dreams sometimes suddenly appear to the mind, sometimes they sneak up on it in a mysterious way; similarly, sensations arise in the heart and body. Sinful thoughts, dreams and sensations lead to the commission of sin in reality, or, at least, to the pleasure and captivity of sinful thoughts, dreams, sensations, to the commission of sin in the imagination and feeling. The ascetic of Christ must renounce not only the commission of sin in deed, but also the commission of it in imagination and feeling. Each passion intensifies from the delight of it, from the fulfillment of lawless demands and representations of it by secret spiritual movements. Passion, fulfilled in reality, or planted in the soul by long-term sympathy with it and its nourishment, receives dominion over a person. It takes a lot of time, it takes a bloody feat, it takes special God’s mercy, special God’s help, to overthrow the yoke of passion that was arbitrarily accepted and gained power over a person, either from a person’s fall into mortal sin, or from the criminal, arbitrary enjoyment of sin in the hidden chamber of the soul dedicated to Christ. It is impossible for the passions living inside a person not to be revealed in his thoughts, words and actions. These manifestations of passions, when accompanied by any kind of hobby, are called and recognized as falls 528 in the field of true Christian asceticism, striving for perfection. They are cured by immediate repentance. Such falls are an integral part of the dilapidation of the old Adam: human nature, fallen and infected with sin. Especially a novice ascetic cannot help but be carried away by sinful thoughts, dreams and sensations; he cannot help but sin with sinful thoughts, dreams and sensations; he cannot help but sin in word and in deed. These sins are cured by immediate repentance. It does not speak here about falling into mortal sins and about an arbitrarily sinful life, which is all a fall: here we are talking about light falls from weakness, called venial sins, from which even the most righteous were not at all free. Scripture testifies: “the righteous shall fall sevenfold, and shall rise again” by repentance (Prov. 24:16). According to cleansing through repentance, passions decrease, but together they become more subtle, more inconspicuous, and sometimes deceive and deceive men filled with Divine grace (1 Chronicles 21:1). These hobbies protect from exaltation, serve as a cause of humility, and keep us in the saving pasture of repentance 529. Looking at ourselves from such self-knowledge, we must maintain peace of mind, not be embarrassed or despondent, not bewildered when the action of passions is revealed in us. Sometimes this effect is mild, sometimes very strong. Let us courageously resist passions. They will not stop rising up and attacking us to the death! And we will prepare for lifelong resistance to them, in the firm conviction that we cannot be constant conquerors of passions, that by natural necessity we must be subject to involuntary victories, that these very victories contribute to success when they support and strengthen in us repentance and the humility born from it. Let us not trust our victories over passions, let us not admire these victories. Passions, like the demons who wield them, are crafty: they present themselves as defeated, so that we may become exalted, and so that, because of our exaltation, victory over us will be more convenient and decisive. Let us prepare to look at our victories and victories in the same way: courageously, calmly, impartially. Whether you were carried away by sinful dreams, whether you delighted in sinful thoughts, whether you uttered an idle, reckless word, whether you consumed a lot of food, or did something else similar to this - do not be indignant, do not be cowardly, do not add harm to harm 530. Repent immediately before God, who knows your heart, try to improve and improve, become convinced of the need for the strictest monitoring of yourself, and, maintaining a calm soul, continue your spiritual path with firmness and perseverance. Our salvation is our God, not our works. By works of faith, that is, by fulfilling the Gospel commandments, we prove the truth of our faith and our fidelity to God. Do not pay attention to the thoughts of false humility, which, due to your infatuation and fall, inspire you that you have irrevocably angered your God, that God has turned His face away from you, abandoned you, forgotten you. Know the source of these thoughts by their fruits. Their fruits: despondency, weakening in spiritual achievement, and often abandonment of it forever or for a long time. If people have access to the knowledge that every ascetic in a long and arduous field of spiritual achievement will certainly have victories and conquests, that it is impossible for our limitations, weaknesses, and sinfulness not to be expressed by manifestations, all the more does our Creator and the institute of achievement - God - know this. He looks with mercy at the stumbling blocks of His ascetic, and for his generous constancy and fidelity He prepares for him a crown of truth, victory, and glory. Purity of heart and body is desired! God is seen through it (Matthew 5:8). This purity is acquired through constant and difficult struggle against uncleanness. To begin the feat against impurity, it is necessary that it opens before the eyes of the mind. It opens with thoughts, dreams, carnal sensations. He who has never fought against uncleanness, who is ignorant of it, who recognizes himself as pure, is in the most dangerous self-delusion, capable of unexpectedly and suddenly falling into the abyss of mortal sins: uncleanness is an integral part of fallen nature, and purity is a gift of God’s grace, attracted by the correct work of man to purify himself. The greatest difference is to sin intentionally, out of a disposition to sin, and to sin out of passion and weakness, with a disposition to please God. The greatest difference is to lead a sinful life, to spend life satisfying all your desires, all your passions, and to stumble due to weakness, limitation, due to sinful infection, while walking along the path of God. Premature dispassion is dangerous! It is dangerous to receive the pleasure of Divine grace prematurely. Supernatural gifts can destroy an ascetic who has not learned from his weaknesses through his falls, who is inexperienced in life, who is inexperienced in the fight against sinful thoughts, who is not acquainted in detail with the cunning and malice of demons, with the malleability of human nature. Man is free to choose good and evil; even if this person were a vessel of Divine grace: he can abuse the very grace of God. Because of it, he can exalt himself above his neighbors; because of this, he may be subject to arrogance; the consequence of arrogance is usually negligence, weakening in the feat, abandonment of it. Following negligence, carnal lusts suddenly and furiously rise up in the soul and body of the sanctified, carrying them away like a stormy stream, casting them into the abyss of fornication, often into the very death of their soul. The lover of mankind, God, “who would have all men to be saved and to come into the understanding of truth” (1 Tim. 2:4), allowed His servants, allowed His beloved, for the entire duration of their earthly journey, to struggle with external and internal sorrows. The struggle with passions and suffering that vegetates from this struggle is incomparably more painful than all temptations from the outside. The languor and feat into which a Christian is elevated by an invisible, internal struggle, goes back in its meaning to the feat of the martyrs. “Give blood and receive the Spirit,” we repeat the saying of the Fathers, who have experienced this struggle. The yoke of such feat is borne only by careful fulfillers of the commandments of the Gospel, only by true servants of Christ. “Fulfilling the commandments teaches a person his weaknesses,” said the Monk Simeon 531. The entire edifice of salvation is based on the knowledge and awareness of weakness. A strange course of affairs for a superficial glance! “Keeping the commandments teaches a person his weaknesses.” But these are words of experience. Only by carefully fulfilling the commandments of Christ can a person see the multitude of his passions; Only by carefully fulfilling the commandments of Christ can a person be convinced of the complete powerlessness of the old Adam for the activity of the new, of the justice of the definition pronounced by the spiritual law, the definition that this law can be fulfilled only by the bounties of Christ 532. In the almighty right hand of Providence, sin itself, living inside a person, which has invaded his entire being, which has invaded all the members of soul and body, contributes to his success, if this person is a true Christian. Spiritual poverty, the consciousness of one’s fall, the consciousness of the need for a Redeemer, the desire with the whole being to confess the Son of God and God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who redeemed us, are the fruits of the struggle with passions. These fruits are the key to eternal bliss. Spiritual poverty, the fall of humanity, the living confession of the Redeemer are unknown to the son of this age. He works for passions, recognizes the abundance of merits in himself, sees virtues - and either expects nothing in heaven, never thinking about heaven, or expects rewards there as a duty, expects because of deep ignorance about the only virtue rewarded in heaven. This virtue is Christianity. The servant of God, fulfilling the Gospel commandments, reveals passions in himself more and more, and while the grace of the Holy Spirit forms in him blissful spiritual states, poverty of spirit, crying, meekness, mercy, chastity, spiritual intelligence, he recognizes himself as a sinner of sinners, who has not done any good, guilty of countless sins, worthy of eternal torment in hell fire for the constant violation of the commandments God's The Holy Fathers, seeing the spiritual fruit in themselves vegetating from the struggle with passions, did not want this struggle to end; they wanted to endure in it valiantly, generously 533. Blessed ones! they sought no other perfection than perfection in humility; they did not seek to find the hope of salvation in anything of their own, they sought to find it in Christ. Where there is no humility, there are no Christian virtues, and where there is true humility, there are all the virtues in their entirety; there is Christ; there the passions and the “enemy” the devil, who wields them, “have nothing to gain” against the servant of Christ, “and the son of iniquity”, sin, “will not change to embitter him” (Ps. 89:23). Let us follow in the footsteps of the Fathers, and we will reach the haven of eternal bliss. Amen. Spiritual instructions of the blessed elder Seraphim of Sarov, chapter 10 on exploits, ed. 1844. Reverend Abba Dorotheos, teaching 13, about patience with temptations. Reverend Abba Dorotheos, teaching 1, on the rejection of the world. 4th saying of Abba Longinus. Memorable tales. St. Isaac of Syria, Sermon 43. The Monk Nilus of Sorsky calls them mental falls. Word 3. Venerable Nil of Sorsky, Homily 3. Elder Seraphim, chapter 10. Chapters theological and active, ch. 4, Philokalia, part 1. Venerable Mark the Ascetic, on the Spiritual Law, ch. 32. Venerable Abba Dorotheos, teaching 13th. You might be interested in: