БЕЗГРЕШНОСТЬ

The seduction of one's holiness is worse than the fall of sin with repentance In your letter you describe your efforts and observations of yourself and, overcome by many passions and weaknesses, you are embarrassed. From this it is clear that you are looking for sinlessness in yourself and want to be comforted by it and believe in it the hope of salvation. It may very well happen that all your vices will leave you, and only one will remain that can replace all the others, this is pride. We will not see how it creeps in, and is content alone with the destruction of the soul, except for other vices and passions, through which demons constantly fight us with excuses and substances. In this battle we are sometimes victorious, sometimes defeated. In proportion to pride or humility, there is help or abandonment from God. – But how will we achieve humility when we do not reproach ourselves and repent for our efforts and consider ourselves the last of all in thought and feeling? And therefore, when this work is taken away from us, that is, the fight against passions and being overcome by them, and being in imaginary sinlessness, then what will happen? – Seduction by one’s holiness, which is worse than the fall of sin with repentance. When you are in the monastery, be sure that the struggle will intensify even more, to the knowledge of our weakness and to humility (I, 134, 278–279). You might be interested in: