OUR WAR AGAINST THE VILE PASSIONS

My beloved brothers and sisters in Christ Our Only True Lord, God, and Savior,

CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE.

OUR WAR AGAINST THE VILE PASSIONS

"Therefore put to death your members which are on the
earth: FORNICATION, UNCLEANNESS, PASSION, EVIL
DESIRE, AND COVETOUSNESS, WHICH IS IDOLATRY"
[Colossians 3:5].

Passion [Gr. πάθος] is translated as suffering, misfortune, calamity. However, the Orthodox Christian understanding is that the passions are uncontrolled desires that are derived from our carnal needs, desires that place our own will and needs above God’s commandments. Our Holy Orthodox enumerate them eight in number: Gluttony, Lust, Avarice, Anger, Dejection or Sadness, Acedia, (sloth/apathy) and the most dangerous of all PRIDE.

Saint Macarios the Great writes: "Through the first man’s disobedience, we received in ourselves an element alien to our nature: THE MALICE OF THE PASSIONS, which having passed into habit and inveterate disposition has become our nature." The passions entered the world through mankind’s first sin (the "ancestral sin"]. Passion is a desire while a sin man surrenders willingly to it. All sins originate from the passions. Man’s inclination toward sin gives the demonic powers the ability to tempt us and to separate us from the Almighty God.

The Holy Fathers of the Church write about the "passions" as uncontrolled desires or negative emotions that can lead to sin, and they emphasize the significance of actively fighting against them through spiritual practices like prayer, fasting, repentance, with prominent examples including gluttony, lust, avarice, anger, despondency, despair, vainglory, and pride, each considered a "giant" that needs to be overcome to achieve spiritual growth and union with God. The Holy Fathers also describe passions as interconnected like links in a chain, where one passion can easily lead to another.

Saint John Chrysostomos wrote about the dangers of pride and the importance of humility, comparing pride to a root that can corrupt the entire spiritual life. Saint Isaac the Syrian stated the destructive nature of anger and the need for patience and meekness in dealing with others. And Saint Anthony the Great described the passions as "wild beasts" that can be tamed through spiritual ascesis.

The great ‘giants’ of passions, as our Holy Fathers describe them, are: love of pleasure, love of money and love of glory (or ambition). If these three passions reign in the soul, they produce three other tyrants worthy of them, which crash the forces of the soul and the mind: negligence, forgetfulness, and ignorance. Sin begins with a logismos (evil thought) that enters our mind. It is therefore imperative that all Orthodox Christians remain vigilant and have the discernment to immediately acknowledge it and combat it.

The most basic of our passions is our desire for food. This is a natural and good desire God gave us for our well-being. There is nothing sinful about food itself or our desire for it. The sin is when we are no longer in control of this desire for food. The problem is when eating becomes an obsession and over powers us. This strong desire to food is why the Holy Fathers of the Church put such an emphasis on fasting. In their wisdom they believed that if people learned to control this one passion, we will have the strength and will power to confront the other passions.

Our attention should be, especially during the season of the Holy and Great Lent to virtues. The virtues are TEMPERANCE, CHASTITY, GENEROSITY, MILDNESS, HAPPINESS, DILIGENCE, AND HUMILITY. Our Holy Orthodox Church understands passions as the distortions of the natural tendencies. Lust is an unnatural use of sexuality. Gluttony is an unnatural use or connection with food. Greed is the unnatural attachment with the material world. Envy is an unnatural need and want for what one does not possess. The passion of anger is an unnatural form of wrath. God, Himself, can be wrathful, but obviously doesn’t sin. We are called to not sin our anger (Ephesians 4:26). Sloth or what may call procrastination is an unhealthy form of ‘rest’ or ‘letting go.’ We must work very hard to acquire healing from the passions.

Elder (Geronda) Ephraim of blessed memory in his book , "Counsels from the Holy Mountain" wrote: "Struggle, my child, for God’s road is narrow and thorny; not inherently, but because of our passions. Since we want to eradicate from our heart the passions, which are like thorny roots, so that we many plant useful plants, naturally we shall toil greatly and our hands will bleed and our face will sweat. Sometimes even despair will overcome us, seeing roots and passions everywhere! But with our hope in Christ, the Repairer of our souls, let us diligently work at clearing the earth of our heart; Patience, mourning, obedience, cutting off one’s will–all these virtues help cultivate it. We must apply all our strength, and then God, seeing our labor, comes and blesses it, and thus we make progress. Take courage, for the toil is temporary and ephemeral, whereas the reward is great in heaven. Struggle and be vigilant with your thoughts. Keep a firm hold on hope, for this shows that your house is founded on the rock–and the Rock is our Christ."

It is very important during Holy and Great Lent not to be distracted from combating the death-inflicting passions. Our entire attention must not be invested only on abstaining from certain kinds of foods. The greater danger of damnation comes from the passions because they separate us from our Savior Christ. The passions are the enemy of humanity and lead to the destruction and death of our soul. Genuine fasting is liberating our souls from all the wicked vices and passions who poison them. In the divine service of Great Compline there is a prayer directed to our Lord Christ: "…Arrest the drives of passion, extinguish the burning arrows of the Evil One which insidiously fly in our direction, suppress the rebellions of our flesh, and calm our every earthly and material thought.." Fasting is a discipline to strengthen our willpower to resist temptations and free us from the enslavement of carnal pleasures and desires. However, the purpose of spiritual fasting is to free us from the domination of the slavery of the passions. It is to illuminate and purify our minds, souls, and hearts with the Divine light of Christ, the Light-giving life.

At God’s Final Judgment when "Book of Life" will be opened "the dead are judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books" [Revelation 20:12]. "Standing before God" [v.12] at His Throne at the Final Judgment, "the dead" are confronted with "their works." "The books" of judgment [Daniel 7:10] contain A RECORD OF MEN’S OWN DEEDS; THEIR OWN WORKS WILL JUDGE THEM. Therefore, although fasting from foods may be important, people will be judged not by the food they consumed or a record of one’s Lenten diet and how well one adhered to it, but BY THEIR "DEEDS" OR "WORKS". The Orthodox Divine Liturgy thus petitions God for a "GOOD ACCOUNT BEFORE THE DREAD JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST." When anyone surrenders completely to the evil passions, he or she then rejects the grace of God, and without His grace there is no salvation, only eternal death.
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PRAYER OF SAINT EPHRAIM

Lord and Master of my life, cast away
from me the spirit of laziness, idle
curiosity, love of power and vain talk.

But grant me, Your servant, the spirit of
moderation, humility, patience and
love.

Yes, Lord and King, grant me to see my
own faults and not to judge my brother
and sisters.

For You are Blessed Forever. Amen.

_______
"Glory Be To GOD
For
All Things!"
– Saint John Chrysostomos
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With sincere agape in His Divine and Glorious Diakonia (Ministry),
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
+ Father George