Слово 18. О нечувствии

1. Insensibility, both physical and mental, is the deadening of feeling from long-term illness and negligence, ending in insensibility. 2. Painlessness is negligence turned into nature, numbness of thought, the generation of bad habits, a snare for zeal, a snare for courage, ignorance of tenderness, the door of despair, the mother of oblivion, who, having given birth to her daughter, again becomes her daughter; this is the rejection of the fear of God. 3. An insensitive person is a mad sage, a teacher who condemns himself, a lover who speaks against himself; the blind man teaching to see; talks about healing ulcers, and meanwhile, incessantly scratches and irritates it; complains of illness, and does not lag behind foods that are harmful to him; prays for his deliverance from passion, and immediately fulfills it in reality; for committing it he is angry with himself, and is not ashamed of his words, the accursed one. “I do evil,” he cries, and diligently continues to do evil. With his lips he prays against his passion, but in deed he strives for it. He philosophizes about death, but lives like an immortal. He sighs about the separation of the soul from the body, and he himself remains in a slumber, as if he were eternal. He talks about abstinence, but strives for gluttony. He reads the word about the last judgment and begins to laugh. He reads the word against vanity, and by reading it he becomes vain. He talks about vigil, and immediately falls into sleep. He praises prayer and runs from it like a scourge. Obedience pleases, but he himself is the first criminal. He praises those who are impartial, but he himself is not ashamed to be angry and quarrel for his rags. Having become angry, he becomes upset, and again for this very upset he is angry with himself: and applying victory to victory, he does not feel it. Having had enough, he repents; and a little later again applies saturation to saturation. He pleases silence, but praises it with verbosity. He teaches meekness, but often in the very teaching he becomes angry, and for his grief he is again angry with himself. Having risen from sinful sleep, he sighs; but, nodding his head, he again indulges in passion. Condemns laughter, and teaches about crying while laughing. He reproaches himself before some as vain, and with this reproach he attempts to gain glory for himself. He looks voluptuously at faces, and meanwhile talks about chastity. Being in the world, he praises the silent; but he doesn’t understand that by doing this he is disgracing himself. He praises the merciful and reviles the poor. He always denounces himself and doesn’t want to come to his senses, not to say that he can’t. 4. I saw many people who, listening to the word about death and the Last Judgment, shed tears; and then, when tears were still in their eyes, they hurried to the meal with care. I marveled at how this lady, the stinking passion of gluttony, being strengthened by long-term insensibility, could overcome crying. 5. To the extent of my feeble strength, I explained the deceits and ulcers of this insane and frantic, rocky and cruel passion; for I do not intend to expand much against her. He who is able in the Lord, from his experience, will apply healing to these ulcers, let him not be lazy to do this; I am not ashamed to confess my weakness in this matter, being myself obsessed with this strong passion. I myself could not have comprehended her cunning machinations if I had not overtaken her somewhere, detained her by force, and tormented her to confess all of the above, beating her with the sword of the fear of the Lord and unceasing prayer. That is why this evil tormentor said to me: my allies, when they see the dead, laugh; standing in prayer, they are completely petrified, hard-hearted and darkened. Before the sacred meal, the Eucharist remains insensitive; and even when they partake of this heavenly gift, it is as if they were eating simple bread. When I see people approaching with emotion, I scold them. From the father who gave birth to me, I learned to kill everything good that is born from courage and love. I am the mother of laughter; I am the nourisher of sleep; I am a friend of satiety: I am inseparable from false reverence; and when I am rebuked, I do not feel sorrow. 6. I, the accursed one, was horrified by the words of this frantic passion and asked about the name of the one who gave birth to her. She told me: “I have more than one birth: my conception is mixed and uncertain. Saturation strengthens me, time increases me, and poor skill strengthens me; those possessed by it will never free themselves from me. If you combine thinking about eternal judgment with many vigils, then perhaps I will give you a little relaxation. Look from what reason I was born in you, and fight against my mother; for I am not in everyone for the same reason. Pray often at the tombs, and indelibly imprint their images on your heart; if this is not inscribed in you with the brush of fasting, then you will never defeat me.” You might be interested in: