Concerning Repentance and Spiritual Warfare
The whole of our earthy life, from birth to our last breath, in the end will
look like one concise act. Its content and quality will be seen in a flash.
Imagine a glass of the clearest crystal full of water. A glance will tell
whether the water is clean or not. So will it be with us when we have
crossed into another sphere. The most transitory reflex of heart or mind
leaves its mark on the sum total of our life. Suppose that just once in the
entire course of my existence I have a moment’s wicked impulse, say, to
murder. Unless I reject the idea from my heart in an act of contrition, it
will remain with me, a black stain impossible to hide. ‘For there is nothing
covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known’
(Luke 12.2). We often comfort ourselves with the thought that no one saw
what we did or knows what we think. But when we look upon this life as a
preparation for eternity; when we strive to get rid of the dark places
within us, the picture changes.
‘If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not
in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our
sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness’ (1 John 1.8,9). When we
repent, resolutely condemning ourselves before God and man, we are cleansed
within. The water in the glass is purified, having been passed through the
spiritual filter of repentance. So when I make my confession I convict
myself of every evil because there is no sin in all the world of which I am
not guilty, even if only for a second. Who can be quite certain that he is
altogether free from the power of passionate thoughts? And if for a fleeting
moment I have been held by an evil thought, where is the guarantee that this
moment will not be transmuted into eternity? Therefore, in so far as we can
see ourselves we must thoroughly confess our sins, lest we carry them with
us after our death.
Straightforward resistance is not always the most successful way of trying
to defeat wicked or simply idle thoughts. Often the best method is to stay
our minds on the ‘good pleasure of the Father’s will’ (cp. Eph. 1.5) for us.
To conduct our lives fittingly, it is of cardinal importance to know that
before the very creation of the world we were intended to be perfect. To
belittle God’s initial idea for us is not just mistaken: it is a sin.
Because we do not see in ourselves, and still less in our fellow men, any
permanent virtue, we behave towards each other like jungle beasts. O what a
paradox is man- to contemplate him provokes both delighted wonder and
consternation at his savage cruelty! The soul is constrained to pray for the
world but her prayer will never fully achieve her purpose, since nothing and
no one can deprive man of his freedom to give in to evil, to prefer darkness
to light (cf. John 3.19).
Prayer offered to God in truth is imperishable. Now and then we may forget
what we have prayed about but God preserves our prayer for ever. On the Day
of Judgement all the good that we have done during our lives will stand at
our side, to our glory. And vice versa: the bad, if unrepented, will condemn
and cast us into outer darkness. Repentance can obliterate the effects of
sin. By Divine power life may be restored in all its plenitude- not,
however, by unilateral intervention on God’s part but always and only in
accord with us. God does nothing with man without man’s co-operation.
God’s participation in our individual life we call Providence. This
Providence is not like heathen Fate: at certain crucial moments we do,
indeed, decide for ourselves on one or other course. When we are faced with
various possibilities our choice should be conditioned by the final aim that
we have in view: the Kingdom of the Father. But too often we are influenced
by other, more temporary considerations, and we turn aside from the true
path offered to us by God, on to false tracks which will not lead to the
hoped-for dawn. In any case, whatever we choose, suffering is inevitable.
But when we opt for the way of God our sacrifice likens us to Christ.
‘Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my
will, but thine, be done’ (Luke 22.42).
When it is given to man to know the overriding value of prayer as compared
with any other activity, be it in the field of science, the arts, medicine
or social or political work, it is not difficult to sacrifice material
well-being for the sake of leisure to converse with God. It is a great
privilege to be able to let one’s mind dwell on the everlasting, which is
above and beyond all the most splendid achievements of science, philosophy,
the arts, and so on. At first the struggle to acquire this privilege may
seem disproportionately hard; though in many cases known to me the pursuit
of freedom for prayer became imperative.
Prayer affords an experience of spiritual liberty of which most people are
ignorant. The first sign of emancipation is a disinclination to impose one’s
will on others. The second- an inner release from the hold of others on
oneself. Mastery over the wish to dominate is an extremely important stage
which is closely followed by dislike of constraining our brother. Man is
made in the image of God, Who is humble but at the same time free. Therefore
it is normal and natural that he should be after the likeness of His
Creator- that he should recoil from exercising control of the presence of
the Holy Spirit within him. Those who are possessed by the lust for power
cloud the image of God in themselves. The light of true life departs,
leaving a tormenting void, a distressing tedium. Life is bereft of meaning.
When the Holy Spirit by its gentle presence in our soul enables us to master
our passions we realise that to look down on others is contrary to the
spirit of love. And if I have not charity everything else- even the gifts of
prophecy, of understanding all mysteries, or of performing miracles- profits
me nothing (cf. 1 Cor. 13.1-3).
Spiritual freedom is a sublime grace. Without it there is no salvation-
salvation revealed to us as the deification of man, as the assimilation by
man of the divine form of being.
It is essential that man of his own free will should determine himself for
all eternity. The one true guide in the fight to fulfil this ineffably high
calling is the bondage of corruption, waiting for deliverance which will
come through ‘the manifestation of the sons of God’ (cf. Rom. 8.19-23). It
is sad to see that hardly anyone perceives what the genuine, divinely royal
freedom of ‘sons of God’ consists in.
Intense prayer can so transport both heart and mind, in their urgent desire
for the eternal, that the past fades into oblivion and there is no thought
of any earthly future- the whole inner attention is concentrated on the one
interest, to become worthy of God. It is a fact that the more urgent our
quest for the infinite, the more slowly we seem to advance. The overwhelming
contrast between our own nothingness and the inscrutable majesty of the God
Whom we seek makes it impossible to judge with any certainty whether we are
moving forward or sliding back. In his contemplation of the holiness and
humility of God, man’s spiritual understanding develops more quickly than
does his ability to harmonise his conduct with God’s word. Hence the
impression that the distance separating him from God continually increases.
The analogy is remote but this phenomenon is known to every genuine artist
or scientist. Inspiration far outstrips the capacity to perform. It is
normal for the artist to feel his objective slipping farther and farther
from his grasp. And if it is thus in the field of art, it is still more so
where knowledge of the unoriginate inapprehensible Divinity is concerned.
Every artist knows the torment of trying to materialise his aesthetic
vision. The soul of the man of prayer is often even more dreadfully racked.
The dismay that invades him when he sees himself in the grip of base
passions drives him ever deeper into the core of his being. This
concentration within may take the form of a cramp whereby heart, mind and
body are contracted together, like a tightly clenched fist. Prayer becomes a
wordless cry, and regret for the distance separating him from God turns to
acute grief. To behold oneself in the black pit of sin, cut off from the
Holy of holies is distressing indeed.
Prayer often proceeds without words. If there are words they come slowly,
with long pauses between. Our human word is the image of the Word that was
‘in the beginning’. When words reflect intellectual knowledge they
undoubtedly have metaphysical roots, especially where knowledge of God is
involved. In this connection the fathers of the Church, in an endeavour to
express the inexpressible in concepts and modes within the limits of our
worldly experience, suggested a certain parallel between the God-the-Father
and God-the-Word relationship and the correlation of our mind and our word.
They distinguished between the inner, immanent word of our mind- the έμφυτος
logos and the word pronounced, expressed- the έναρθρος logos. The former
manifests a certain analogy with God-the-Word ‘which is in the bosom of the
Father’ (John 1.18); the latter can be seen as an analogy of the
incarnation. And if in His incarnation as the Son of man He could say: ‘My
Father is greater than I’ (John 14.28). Thus the human word uttered aloud
conveys less than divine reality, knowledge of which was given in visions
and revelations to the prophets, apostles and fathers. However, the vision
when proclaimed was diminished more for the hearer than for the prophets
themselves, since the revelation prompting the words was not lessened for
them with their utterance. Just as for the Father the Incarnation did not
diminish the Son.
Throughout the ages the doctors of the Church sought ways and means whereby
to communicate to the world their knowledge concerning Divine Being. In
their attempts they constantly found themselves torn between unwillingness
to abandon their imageless contemplation of the essentially one and only
mystery, and the love which impelled them to communicate the mystery to
their brethren. God did, and does indeed, constrain His saints to tell of
the gifts from on High. We see how this affected St Paul: ‘For though I
preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon
me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel! For if I do this thing
willingly, I have reward’- an effusion of grace- ‘but if against my will, a
dispensation of the gospel is committed unto me’ (1 Cor. 9.16,17). Thus it
was with many ascetics through the centuries of Christian history. We note
the same feature in Staretz, who writes: ‘My soul doth love the Lord, and
how may I hide this fire which warms my soul? How shall I hide the Lord’s
mercies in which my soul delights? How can I hold my peace, with my soul
captive to God? How shall I be silent when my spirit is consumed day and
night with love for Him?’
Impossible to keep silent; impossible to give voice. And this not only
because words fail but also because the Divine Spirit inclines the mind to
profound stillness, carrying one into another world. Again, blessed Staretz
Silouan says: ‘The Lord has given us the Holy Spirit, and we learned the
song of the Lord and so we forget the earth for sweetness of the love of
God…
‘Merciful is the Lord!’
‘And the mind falls silent.’
