60. Как поступать, если и при борьбе со страстями проторгаются в нас страстные мысли и желания. Очищение сердца

God's mercy be with you! I believe that you have taken up the matter as you should and are diligently straining to always remember the Lord, to listen to your heart and pursue any wrong movement in it with hostile rejection, at the same time turning in prayer to the Lord for help. But at the same time, I just can’t believe that as soon as you take it up, there is complete success: your thoughts are all pure, and your feelings and desires are holy. Because that doesn't happen to anyone. Thoughts will be pacified, passionate movements of feelings and wishes will become more and more rare. But they will still break through, and sometimes with great force. If they break through - kick them out, if they break through again - kick them out again. But that's how it's supposed to be. Now I just want to tell you how you should react to these violations according to the judgment of your conscience. Should we be indifferent or should we grieve that this happens and repent of it to the Lord? You cannot be indifferent to these interruptions, and after driving them away, you must every time be sick and repent before the Lord that this happened. Even when thoughts, feelings, and passionate desires burst forth suddenly, without any participation of the will, they still mean that the heart is unclean and from it “evil thoughts come” (Matthew 15:19). And you must have a pure heart. So regret that your heart is unclean, and repent to the Lord of this uncleanness, promising to work on cleansing it and begging Him for help in this. But in reality, arbitrariness is rarely not mixed in here. You, through inattention, gave a place to a passionate thought, and it managed to give rise to a passionate feeling - it’s your fault, why didn’t you pay attention? Due to the same inattention, or even due to the sweetness of feeling, you did not hasten to arm yourself against him and drive him away, and it managed to give rise to a passionate desire - you are to blame, why did you not immediately arm yourself, but allowed the co-indulgence of the sinful and passionate. So that you allow a wish to give rise to an inclination to action, I do not allow this in you, but you can in any way allow the duration of a wish and not immediately take up arms against it. And this makes you even more guilty. Thus, a bad thought is allowed - guilt; a bad feeling is allowed to arise from him - another; from a bad feeling a bad wish is allowed to be born - third; a bad wish is allowed to linger - fourth. That's a lot of guilt! And do not deign to disguise yourself, hiding behind fig tree leaves, and hide in the bushes from the Lord, who comes to you in conscience and convicts. Blame yourself rather all around and ask for forgiveness, without placing the blame on anyone. For example, you got angry with the maid, and even more so if you said sharp words to her, don’t blame it on the maid. Even if the maid made a mistake, it’s not about her, it’s about why you were angry. Wasn't it possible to correct the mistake without getting angry? Yes, even if it’s impossible to fix it, everything can be settled without getting angry. Here there was anger, there was condemnation, there was envy, there was vanity. There were, of course, external reasons for all this. But it’s not the reasons that are to blame, it’s you who are to blame for why you allowed such bad feelings. And please, without hiding, directly blame yourself before the Lord and ask for forgiveness. Do this every time you notice faintness and drive it away. Through this repentance and contrition, make peace with the Lord and conscience, and you will calmly look to the Lord again. And if you don’t repent, you can’t look like this - it will be difficult and dangerous for you. Until the evening, do not leave such passionate outbursts unpurified by repentance, but immediately cleanse them as soon as you drive them away in the name of the Lord. The whole day will pass with you - all in repentance, because at first these relapses will be frequent among you. And in the evening, before praying, in your turn again review all your passionate outbursts, again regret it with contrition and repent. This is the matter of daily repentance. Here's a lesson from St. Hesychius again for you. “We must weigh our daily affairs carefully every hour and how much we can lighten their severity in the evening through repentance, if we want to overcome passions with the help of Jesus. We must also see whether we perform all our visible deeds according to the will of God, before God and for God alone, so that (passionate) feelings do not hide you as fools” (paragraph 124). If you act as prescribed with merciless determination towards yourself, you will soon see the fruit: your heart will be pacified and the joy of the Lord will shine in it. Why is the heart restless? Because he is consumed by passions. Beat passions - and it will perceive peace. One of the fathers likens the heart to a hole full of snakes. These snakes are passions. When it is shown that something passionate comes from the heart, it is the same as a snake poking its head out of its hole. Hit her on the head in the name of the Lord and she will hide. Another one appears - hit her too. And hit everyone. A dozen times you will have to strike such a snake - passion - and it will forget to stick out, or even die completely. Anyway, if you fill up a hole or don’t give food to snakes, they will die. Likewise, passions will die away if you do not feed them with sympathy for their suggestions, but, on the contrary, tear them off with anger as soon as they appear. Behold the shortest path to cleansing your heart from passions. If you love this purity, flow towards it this way, for there is no other. If you don’t agree to act this way, passions will remain in your heart. You can correct your behavior and make it impeccable even without this, but your heart will remain passionate and will not allow you to see the Lord. Don't forget the holy fools (Matthew 25:1-13)! God help you! Save yourself! You might be interested in: