Someone recently wrote me the following: Can you please give us a word regarding the topic of “how to overcome thoughts of pride in our hearts that inevitably come after labouring on good works for our families and people around us.” I have been struggling with that lately. How is it that we can reach a point where we don’t count and remember the good we have done for others? I would…
My bedtime reading these days has been the letters of Sts. Barsanuphius and John. I enjoy reading these letters because they almost always send me to sleep with an edifying thought of practical spiritual wisdom. In letters 540 and 541 the Saints are asked how one should deal with a conflict with a superior. The specific situation is as follows: One of the Fathers of the community is accompanying a Brother on…
A confusing aspect of our Christian growth is that we can, sometimes even at the same moment, have a very peaceful, godly thought full of love for God and neighbour, and then have a terribly sinful and embarrassingly nasty thought. How can this be? If God is alive in us, how can such terrible thoughts keep appearing in our minds? How do we combat this? One unhelpful way to combat this experience…
Some of the most accessible and practical wisdom from the ancient Christian desert tradition can be found in the letters of Sts. Barsanuphius and John. They lived in Gaza (Palestine) in the early sixth century. Over 800 letters are preserved for us, and in these letters we get an inside look at what spiritual guidance looked like in the desert monasticism of those early years. And although much is different in the…
A catechumen once asked what he could do to get victory over bad dreams: especially lustful dreams that roused his passions and often led him into temptation. I told him that this is one of those aspects of life in a fallen body that must be resisted and endured. One of the ways satan seeks to weary and wear out the saints (or those who strive to be holy) is through the…
St. Isaac the Syrian says that there are several ways the devil attacks a person. The goal of these attacks is to make us pull back from our pursuit of godliness. Transformation into the image of Christ is a synergistic experience. We labour together with Christ. On the other hand, it is also all Grace. There is no love, joy, peace or patience (or any other of the fruit of the Spirit) without…
For when the causes of [temptation] are distant from [a person], he is not endangered by the twofold warfare, that is, the one which is both inward and outward. See how much easier is the struggle when [a person] desires things that are afar off than when the very things themselves are close at hand and by their sight inflame the thoughts; for the struggle in the latter case is twofold. …
