On How to Wage War Against the Irrational Sensory Will, and on the Practices the Will Must Undertake to Acquire the Habit of Virtue

Every time the irrational sensory will, on the one side, and the will of God as declared by the conscience, on the other, assail your free choice and draw it toward themselves, each seeking to overcome it—you must, if you are a sincere lover of good, employ appropriate means on your part to help the will of God gain the victory. To this end:

1) The moment you feel the movements of the lower, sensory, and passionate will, resist them with all your strength at once, and by no means allow your free choice to incline toward them even slightly. Suppress them, drive them away, repel them from yourself by a powerful effort of the will.

2) So that this may be accomplished more successfully and bear good fruit, hasten to kindle in your whole soul a deep hostility toward movements of this kind, as toward enemies who seek to steal away and destroy your soul—grow wrathful toward them.

3) But at the same time do not forget to call upon our Helper in the struggle, the Lord Jesus Christ, for aid, protection, and the strengthening of your good will—for without him we can succeed in nothing.

4) These three inward acts, sincerely reproduced in the soul, will each time give you victory over evil movements. But this is only the routing of enemies. If you wish to strike them to the very heart, do now, if possible, something contrary to what the passionate movement was urging, and if you can, resolve to do this always. This last will, in the end, entirely deliver you from the recurrence of the attacks you have experienced.

Let us illustrate this with an example. Suppose that someone has offended you in some way, great or small, and movements of displeasure and irritation have arisen in you with the suggestion of retaliation. Be attentive, and hasten to recognize that these movements wish to lead you not toward good. Therefore take up the stance of one at war and defend yourself: 1) Cut off these movements; do not allow them to proceed further inward, and by no means permit your free choice to take their side as if they were right. This will be—resisting them. 2) But they still stand before you, ready to attack again; therefore rouse hostility against them as against enemies, and grow wrathful toward them out of a sense of self-preservation—until you can sincerely say: ”I hate and abhor falsehood” (Ps. 118:163) or: ”I hate them with a perfect hatred; they have become my enemies” (Ps. 138:22). This is a strong blow to them, and they will fall back, though not disappear. 3) Cry out to the Lord: ”O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me” (Ps. 69:2). And do not cease crying out until not even a trace of the enemy’s movements remains, and peace is established in the soul. 4) Having made peace in this way, do something for the one who offended you that would show your peacefulness and goodwill toward him—a friendly word, a helpful service, and so on. This will be the fulfillment of what holy David commands: ”Depart from evil and do good” (Ps. 33:15). Actions of this kind lead directly to the habit of the virtue contrary to the passionate movements that were disturbing you, and this habit is the striking of those movements to the heart—their mortification. Strive to precede, accompany, or follow such actions with that inward resolve which would make similar passionate movements impossible forever—in the example proposed, by reckoning yourself worthy of every offense, arouse in yourself the desire for offense and all manner of wrongdoing, come to love them, and be ready to meet and receive them with joy as most wholesome remedies. In other circumstances, strive to rouse and establish in yourself other corresponding feelings and dispositions. This is what it means to cast out a passion from the heart and replace it with the contrary virtue—and this is the goal of the unseen warfare.

I will offer you a general guidance for all circumstances, based on the teachings of the holy fathers. In our soul there are three parts, or powers: the intellectual, the desiring, and the irascible. From these three powers, owing to their corruption, there arise three corresponding kinds of wrong thoughts and movements. From the intellectual power arise thoughts of ingratitude toward God and murmuring, forgetfulness of God, ignorance of divine things, lack of discernment, and all manner of blasphemous thoughts. From the desiring power arise thoughts of love of pleasure, love of glory, and love of money, with all their numerous variations, which constitute the domain of self-gratification. From the irascible power arise thoughts of anger, hatred, envy, revenge, malicious joy, ill-wishing, and all evil thoughts in general. All such thoughts and movements you must overcome by the means described, striving each time to rouse and establish in the heart the good feelings and dispositions contrary to them: instead of unbelief—unwavering faith in God; instead of murmuring—sincere thanksgiving to God for all things; instead of forgetfulness of God—unceasing, deep remembrance of God who is everywhere present and sustains all things; instead of ignorance—clear contemplation or inward review of all salvific Christian truths; instead of lack of discernment—feelings trained in the discernment of good and evil; instead of all blasphemous thoughts—praise and glorification of God. Likewise, instead of love of pleasure—all manner of temperance, fasting, and self-mortification; instead of love of glory—humility and a thirst for obscurity; instead of love of money—contentment with little and love of the poor; also, instead of anger—meekness; instead of hatred—love; instead of envy—rejoicing with others; instead of revenge—forgiveness and peaceableness; instead of malicious joy—compassion; instead of ill-wishing—goodwill. I will sum all of this up briefly, together with St. Maximus, in the following precepts: adorn your intellectual power with unceasing attention to God, prayer, and knowledge of divine truths; your desiring power with complete self-renunciation and the rejection of every self-gratification; your irascible power with love. And, a faithful word: the light of your mind will never be darkened within you, and the said evil thoughts will find no place in you. If you actively rouse in yourself—morning, evening, and at other hours of the day—the enumerated good feelings and dispositions, the invisible enemies will not draw near to you, for in that case you will resemble a commander who continually reviews his troops and keeps them in battle order, and—as enemies know—it is not easy to attack such a one.

Dwell at greater length on the final point—the actions contrary to what the passionate thoughts urge, and the establishment in the heart of feelings and dispositions contrary to the passions. Only by this means can you uproot the passions within yourself and reach a safer position. For as long as the roots of the passions remain within, they will always produce their own offspring and use them to cloud the countenance of the virtues—and sometimes to completely conceal and crowd them out. In such cases we are in danger of again falling into our former sins and losing all our labors.

Know, therefore, that this last method must be employed by you not just once, but frequently, repeatedly, and without interruption—until you have shattered, disrupted, and destroyed the passionate habit against which you are armed. For just as this habit gained power over the heart by the frequent repetition of certain acts in the satisfaction of the passion dwelling within it, so conversely, in order to weaken and destroy this power, it is necessary—besides repelling it from the heart—to employ actions contrary to the former ones, actions that are opposed to the passion and strike and wound it. Their frequent repetition will drive out the passionate habit, kill the passion moving within it, and root in the heart the contrary virtue and the habit of the corresponding actions. I will not dwell at length on what is already evident of itself: that to acquire good habits more good acts are required than bad ones were required for bad habits—because evil habits take root more quickly, having living sin within us, or self-gratification, as their helper and accomplice. Therefore, however difficult and impractical these acts contrary to your passion may seem to you—sometimes because of the still-feeble state of your good will, and sometimes because of the resistance your passionate and self-indulgent will puts up against them—do not abandon them under any circumstances, but compel yourself in every way to perform them. Let them be imperfect at first, but they will in any case sustain your steadfastness and courage in the struggle, and smooth the path to victory for you.

Let me add: stand vigilantly, and gathering all your attention, fight manfully—and fight not only against the great and powerful movements of each passion, but also against the small and light ones. For the small ones open the way for the great ones, especially when they become habitual. Experience has more than once confirmed that when someone pays little attention or care to repelling the small passionate desires from the heart, after having already overcome the great ones, such a person becomes subject to sudden and unexpected attacks from enemies—and such strong ones that he cannot withstand the struggle and falls worse than any previous fall.

I remind you also that you must cut off and mortify every attachment to things that, while permitted, are not necessary—whenever you notice that they weaken the tension of your good will, draw your attention to themselves, and disrupt the ordered way of devout life you have established. Such things include: walks, social evenings, conversations, acquaintances, food, sleep, and the like. You will gain great benefit from this: you will prepare yourself to overcome yourself in everything else, will become stronger and more practiced in resisting temptations, will avoid the many, many snares of the devil, who knows how to spread them along these seemingly blameless paths; and I assure you, you will perform acts that are not displeasing to God.

Therefore, beloved, if you follow my guidance and enter vigorously into the holy struggles described above, be assured that in a short time you will make progress and become truly and genuinely spiritual—not falsely and in name only. But know that self-opposition and self-compulsion here are an indispensable law, admitting no self-gratification, even in the spiritual order of life. If you mix into this, or choose exclusively, only such practices as are pleasant—even from the spiritual order—you will ruin your entire work; you will labor but receive no real fruit, only empty blossoms, and in nothing spiritual will you truly and firmly be established. It will seem as though you possess something spiritual, but in reality it will not be so. For everything truly spiritual is produced by the grace of the Holy Spirit; and this grace dwells only in those who have crucified themselves through sufferings and voluntary deprivations, without any self-pity, and have thereby been united with our crucified Lord and Savior.