Passions and Spiritual Illness Youth Conference January 2014 - Talk 2

Tips for the ConferenceYou are not here by accident.

This topic is not there by chance.

The Lord is more than willing to set you free.

The Spirit yearns to give you freedom.

Talk to the Lord personally expressing your wishes and dreams of freedom.

Expose yourself admitting wrong choices.

The Image

Those Who are Christ’s

And those who are Christ’s have

crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Gal

5:24

Passions are aliens to our nature

They (passions) were not included in the image of God. St

Basil the Great

It is not right to say that they (passions) belong to the soul, even though the soul might be led by the passions. It is clear ,

then, that the soul is directed by what is exterior to it and not by what belongs to it. St Isaac the

Syrian

The soul can be impassible

When it is on high, it is found to be

impassible. But when nature is out of its

proper order, then the passions are in it. St

Isaac The Syrian

Passions are man’s inventions

Through the first man’s disobedience , we have 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 . St Macarius the Great

Basics passions are the results of man’s misuse of his free will

Logicos , according to the Fathers means in conformity with the Logos, in whose image and likeness man was made

It is we ourselves who have changed the constitutive qualities of our nature into passions. St John Climacus

Madness and Illness

Man fallen into the madness of the passions. St Athanasius of Alexandria

Ever since the transgression of the commandment, the soul lies fallen in the illness of the passions. St Macarius the great

St Maximus the confessor classification

to passionsThe quest of pleasure : gluttony, pride,

vanity, presumption, greed, ….and every other vice of this kind

The avoidance of suffering: angry, envy, hatred, hostility, negligence, faintheartedness, bitterness, jealousy, false accusation of Divine Providence and all vices of this kind

The mix of pleasure and suffering: hypocrisy, guile, dissimulation, flattery and all vices of this kind

St Evagrius Classification

The core of all of them : self love

Major three: Gluttony, greed and vainglory

( the Lord’s Temptation)

Lust, love of money, sorrow, anger, and Pride

How to conqueror Passions

1) The aim : Restoring the image

2) The Goal : reaching the likeness

3) The Means : all means of Grace

The Lord’s Advice

 However, this kind does not go

out except by prayer and

fasting.” Matt 1:21

Fasting

 “For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live

as enemies of the cross of Christ.  Their destiny is destruction, their god is

their stomach, and the glory is their shame.  Their mind is on earthly things.”

 (Phil. 3:18-19 NIV)

 "A stuffed belly produces fornication, while a mortified stomach leads to purity.”

St John Climacus

St. John Climacus on humility with temperance

 The man who imagines he can conquer the demon of fornication by gluttony

and by stuffing himself is quite like someone who quenches fire with oil. And the man who tries to put an end to this struggle by means of temperance

only is like someone trying to escape the sea by swimming with just one hand. 

Therefore, join humility with temperance, for the one is useless

without the other

Repetitious, Meaningful Prayer

St. John Climacus writes:

 “When you pray do not try to express yourself with fancy words, for often it is the simple repetitious

phrases of a little child that our Father in heaven finds most

irresistible. . . . One phrase on the lips of the tax collector was enough

to win God's mercy; one humble request made with faith was enough

to save the good thief." 

The Refusal to Despair

“Repentance is the daughter of hope and

the refusal to despair.”

(The penitent stands guilty-but not disgraced.)

St John Climacus

Using the sign of the cross

 St. Athanasius tells of how St. Anthony fought temptation with the sign of the cross.

“Sign yourselves therefore with the cross, and depart boldly, and let

these make sport for themselves.' So they

departed fortified with the sign of the Cross.

The Liturgical Power

Agypia Prayer

Midnight praise

St Cyril Fraction

The Prayer of Reconciliation