The spiritual life is not lived out in the abstract. Among the fathers, we find a distinct emphasis on praxis; that is, the practice of the faith. We come to know God and to love virtue not through reading but rather through experience.
As a defense, often used to hold onto attachments, we make our faith into something that is purely intellectual or notional. Yet in this hypothesis, hearing tonight in particular from Saint Ephraim, the Syrian, we are presented with the experience of those tempted by the demons to minimize the effects of the embrace of sin and the loss of grace. Rather than holding onto our virtue as precious and maintaining a clear vision of our identity as temples of the Holy Spirit, we cast it all aside thoughtlessly for a moment of pleasure.
The struggle with sensuality in particular is challenging because of how it is experienced. We covet what we see and when something is seen it is held within the imagination and the memory. It remains with us even if for a moment we are drawn away from it. When we indiscriminately expose ourselves to what stimulates the passions, we make ourselves more vulnerable. Once the demons have been successful in leading us to embrace such thoughts and actions, then the images seep into the unconscious and emerge later in our dreams.
The loss that comes to us is immeasurable, and it is only by the grace of God that healing can come. Saint Ephraim counsels us to keep our eyes downward in their focus and not allow our vision to rove around indiscriminately. On the other hand, we must keep the eyes of our soul constantly turned upward toward God. Only when He fills us with his grace when we turned to him in a spirit of repentance can the imagination, memory and unconscious be healed. The more we fill our hearts with the love of virtue and the things of the kingdom the more we are transformed and begin to experience, once again, the freedom of those who have been made sons and daughters of God.
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Text of chat during the group:
00:12:48 Suzanne Romano: It's certainly been a bad flu season for the chickens... 🥴
00:15:35 paul g.: Whoa. Great !
00:31:28 Forrest Cavalier: Priests can be more firm at setting limits. My wife was confirmed in the 1980's only because Fr. Vanyo at the cathedral refused to baptize her youngest sibling unless all were in catechism. I pray for him often.
00:32:11 Nypaver Clan: Reacted to "Priests can be more ..." with 👍🏼
00:41:59 Mary and Al: Yes scary!
00:55:13 Forrest Cavalier: That reference to wax in this paragraph sounds like a reference to Ps 68:3 "As wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God"
01:03:23 Sheila: I find this holds the same when people tell you gossip about others. It changes how you see the person whether you wanted tonor not.
01:03:29 Sheila: Or not
01:05:13 Sheila: These images, can they be purged? Or are they truly as you say permamently there to be used against yourr charity and thoughts?
01:17:06 Lee Graham: The many “good” things we could do are enemy of the “best”.
01:22:45 paul g.: Yes
01:23:00 Forrest Cavalier: everge Teen o's
01:23:08 Myles Davidson: Reacted to "everge Teen o's" with 😂
01:23:10 paul g.: Reacted to "everge Teen o's" with ❤️
01:23:56 Bob Cihak, AZ: Preach it, Father!! Please! and Thank you!!!
01:23:59 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you🙂
01:24:14 Sheila: Thanks Father!
01:24:16 Forrest Cavalier: No fasting this week, though!
01:24:23 Troy Amaro: Thank You Father.
Philokalia Ministries 