Letters of Spiritual Direction to a Young Soul - Letter Sixty Part II

Sometimes a great question can lead a group in exactly the right direction!  That was true this evening in our discussion of Letter 60 of Saint Theophan‘s correspondence with Anastasia.

So often the spiritual life can seem amorphous. Yet, how is it lived practically? How is it that we direct anger at the passions and what does that look like? Sometimes the spiritual life and the warfare that Theophan describes can seem frightening - let alone confusing. Understanding this leads us right where we need to be. The Fathers of the Church understood that our faith is not simply a set of beliefs or an ideology. It is essentially ascetical; that is, a response to God‘s revelation of Himself to us and His revelation of what the Paschal Mystery has made possible for us.

Our destiny in Christ is to share in the life of the most Holy Trinity. But this involves a response to the grace that God has given to us. That response is repentance; a constant turning toward God and away from the passions.

The nature of the passions make this a Warfare. We must invest ourselves with a kind of aggression to kill the passions. They are like serpents seeking to reach the surface from within a pit. The Saints tell us we must strike each one of them down until we have killed them. We must not nourish them through a kind of sympathy towards their presence in our lives. In fact, we must poison them with a holy anger that would strike down anything within the human heart that becomes an impediment to our sharing in the love of God.

This is, Theophan tells us, the “shortest path” to purifying the heart and there is no other. We may develop our natural virtues to a high extent but without engaging in this battle we will remain passionate and we will become like the foolish virgins described in the gospel who run out of oil.  We cannot borrow virtue, faith, or love from another. Our hearts must burn with desire for the Heavenly Bridegroom.

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Text of chat during the group:

00:20:16 Ashley Kaschl: Don’t know how long I’ll be able to stay/have service but hopefully I’ll get to stay the whole time.

00:44:28 Ashley Kaschl: I think the problem, at least that I’ve confronted, is that people are afraid to start in earnest in any spiritual warfare in their lives because they have a preconceived notion or image from the culture that they’re scared off.

00:56:14 Ashley Kaschl: Gotta go, everyone. Taking off again 😁 great to see you all!

01:02:13 Carole: Safe travels!!