How Long One Should Exercise Oneself in Each Virtue, and What Are the Signs of Progress in It

How much time is needed to exercise oneself in a virtue in order to become established in it cannot be determined theoretically. Let each person determine this for himself, based on his own condition, his own circumstances, and his own progress in the spiritual life—especially according to the counsel of his elder or spiritual father who is guiding him. However, one whose zeal for progress is alive and who does not stop before any difficulty or means will soon show clearly no small advance.

A sign of progress is this: if one who has entered the path of virtue presses along it zealously with a firm resolve not to step off it, no matter how hard that may be or what sacrifices it may demand—regardless of the occasional coolings and darkening of the soul, and regardless of the failing of spiritual consolations and gracious joys that is permitted by God’s providence toward us for our benefit.

A second, no less reliable sign of progress is the degree of intensity of the warfare that the flesh wages against good resolves and good deeds. The more this warfare weakens, the more clearly the advance in virtue is moving forward. Therefore, when you feel no warfare or attacks from the lower, sensual part of yourself—especially at a time when you have before your eyes circumstances that stimulate it—you may believe that your virtue has already received sufficient strength. But if you have begun to perform your acts on the path of virtue with greater readiness and spiritual joy than before, you may count this as a sign of progress in virtue even more reliable than the subduing of the flesh.

St. Isaac also advises that, having fixed a goal toward which all the acts of one’s life should be directed, one should keep in mind the signs and tokens—having inquired about them from experienced persons—of whether one is going by the right path or has strayed from it onto some side path outside the true road. The signs and tokens he sets down are the following: “If you see that your mind endures no coercion, but acts freely and flows in good thoughts, this is a sign that you are pressing on toward what lies ahead. Likewise, when during prayer your mind does not wander here and there, and a verse suddenly breaks off on your tongue, and chains of silence come upon your soul without any act of your own will—also when you notice that at each good thought and recollection arising in your soul, and at each spiritual vision, your eyes fill with tears and the tears flow without constraint down your cheeks; or when sometimes you see that your thought, of itself, without your cooperation, plunges into the depths of your heart and remains in this state for some hour, while peace reigns over your thoughts—all these are signs that you are making good progress on the path of the spiritual life you have taken up” (Discourse 44).

Nevertheless, one ought not to hold the full assurance that one has completely settled into the virtue one seeks or definitively conquered any passion—even if one has not felt its onslaughts and movements for a long time—because the wicked cunning of the man-hating devil and the deceitfulness of the sin dwelling within us may be concealed there; by these it often happens that we perceive in ourselves as good, and by our hidden pride consider to be so, what is in truth of a completely opposite character. And besides this, if we reflect on the perfection to which God calls us, we shall be more inclined to think—even if we have already traveled the path of virtue for a considerable time—that we have scarcely laid the beginning of a proper life, rather than that we have established ourselves in it. This is why the holy fathers call even the life of the most perfect people imperfect and not free from defects. “Even the perfection of the perfect is imperfect,” says John of the Ladder. And holy Paul places perfection in this: to press on and on toward what lies ahead, never looking back and never thinking one has already attained what is sought; and therefore calls himself imperfect and one who has not yet reached what he is striving for: ”Not that I have already attained,” he says, ”or am already perfect; but I press on, if indeed I may lay hold… Brothers, I do not consider that I have laid hold; but one thing I do—forgetting what lies behind and pressing on toward what lies ahead, I press on eagerly toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” — And wishing to show that in this alone our perfection consists, he adds: ”Let those of us who are perfect think this way” (Phil. 3:12–15)—as if to say: this is perfection, not to think that we have attained perfection; this is to be in a state of virtue, not to stand still but to press on unceasingly toward virtue.

Moreover, in the depths of our heart there dwell at times such subtle and hidden passions that we do not know at all that they are passions. How then can we allow ourselves such boldness as to think that we are entirely cleansed from the passions? And if the keen-sighted and prophetic eyes of David could not discern this in himself, how can we claim such discernment for ourselves? Therefore, just as he always prayed to God: ”Cleanse me from my hidden faults” (Ps. 19:12), so much the more do we have need to entreat him for the cleansing of our hidden passions. For we feel only the effects and branches of the passions; their forces and roots we cannot know without enlightenment from the Holy Spirit. Therefore we are aware of the passions in ourselves only when they are active; as soon as they grow quiet, we imagine that we have already attained dispassion.

By what can we assure ourselves that the passions have merely grown quiet in our heart and have not been put to death? By this: when, after we have grown calm regarding them, we happen to encounter the objects on which the passions hidden within us feed—especially when this happens suddenly—they immediately revive and make themselves felt through their sometimes not insignificant movements, so that, being troubled by them, we marvel ourselves at where they had been hiding and how they could have grown so suddenly. St. Isaac the Syrian explains this by the following beautiful comparison: just as in winter, though grasses and flowers disappear from the face of the earth, their roots remain intact, sheltering in its depths, and as soon as they sense the spring rain and warmth, they immediately grow up again and cover the face of the earth—so it is with the passions. And again: just as the cursed earth naturally produces thorns and thistles, so human nature, corrupted through the fall and now conceived and stirred up in sins, in a certain sense naturally produces the passions, from which come sins, and it can never be trusted or relied upon.

Therefore, you, as one still new to the spiritual warfare, exercise yourself in virtue with all zeal, as though you have not yet made a beginning in it—remembering besides that it is better to be concerned with always pressing on toward what lies ahead in virtue than with observing and determining the signs of perfection in it.

The Lord and our God, the sole Knower of our hearts, enlightens some and allows them to see their progress in virtue, while to others he does not grant such enlightenment and knowledge. For he sees that while for the former this knowledge will serve toward humility, the latter will not refrain from becoming proud—and as a loving Father, he removes from these latter the danger of falling into the sin he especially hates, while giving the former an occasion to strengthen the virtue of humility that is especially dear to him. Furthermore, even one who is not given knowledge of his own progress—if only he does not grow negligent and cease to exercise himself in virtue—may come to know of it in due time, when God is pleased to reveal it to him for his benefit.