The Passions as an Obstacle to the Spirit’s Being Kindled With Love for God. They Must Be Expelled

When your heart kindles with the warmth of God, from that time your inner transformation will truly begin. That small flame will burn and melt everything in you—or, in other words, will begin to spiritualize everything, until it has spiritualized it completely. As long as that flame has not come, there will be no spiritualization, no matter how hard you strive toward what is spiritual. Consequently, right now the whole task is to obtain that flame. And please direct all your labor toward this end.

But know this: the flame will not appear as long as the passions are in force, even if one does not indulge them. The passions are like dampness in firewood. Wet wood does not burn. Dry kindling must be brought from somewhere else and lit. Burning, it begins to dry out the dampness and, as the dampness is dried out, to ignite the wet wood. In this way the fire, little by little driving out the dampness and spreading, gradually envelops all the wood in flame.

Our wood consists of all the powers of our soul and all the functions of the body. As long as a person does not attend to himself, all of these are saturated with dampness—that is, with passions—and as long as the passions are not driven out, they stubbornly resist the spiritual fire. You will recall that when I was describing to you what is within us, I wrote that there is in us a certain disordered, turbulent region, in which thoughts, desires, and feelings are churned about in disorder, like dust stirred up by the passions. I place this region between the soul and the body, indicating thereby that the passions do not belong to our nature but have come in from outside. Yet they do not remain merely in the spaces between soul and body; they penetrate both the soul and the body, take captive even the spirit itself—consciousness and freedom—and thus hold sway over the whole person. Since they are in league with the demons, it is through them that the demons also hold dominion over the person, who nevertheless imagines himself to be his own master.

From these bonds, the spirit is the first to break free. God’s grace tears it loose. The spirit, filled under the action of grace with the fear of God, severs every bond with the passions and, having repented of the past, lays down a firm intention to please henceforth God alone and to live for Him alone, walking in His commandments. Standing in this resolution, the spirit then, with the help of God’s grace, drives the passions out of the soul and body and spiritualizes everything within itself. So it is with you: the spirit has been torn loose from the bonds that held it. In consciousness and in will you stand on God’s side. You want to belong to God and to please Him alone. This is the fulcrum of your activity in the spirit. But while your spirit has been restored to its rights, the soul and body still remain under the influence of the passions and suffer violence from them. What remains for you is to arm yourself against the passions and to defeat them—to drive them out of the soul and body. The struggle with the passions is unavoidable. They will not of themselves yield up their dominion, unlawful though it be.

Before this I was explaining to you at length the remembrance of God, abiding with God, and walking before Him. And you were surprised: why do I keep explaining the same one thing? The remembrance of God is the life of the spirit. It both enkindles the zeal for pleasing God and makes your resolution to be God’s unshakeable. Behold—I will repeat it again—the fulcrum for life in the spirit; and I will add: the base for your strategic operations against the passions.

You may ask: how can that be? When I have turned my attention and desire to God, what room is there for the passions? But why ask? Look—are they not still in you? Not long ago you wrote that you became very angry. Is that not a passion? But anger does not come alone; with it there is also pride, self-will, and contempt. And before that you mentioned that you refused something to someone who was asking. What is that? Is it not stinginess? Again: you mentioned that you cannot bear a certain person. Is that not a passion? And that you love to sleep—is that not the passion of self-indulgence of the body? And all of this came to light only in passing; if you dig into yourself more thoroughly, who knows what you will not find.

So there is no point in asking. You know for certain that the passions are in you and that they must be driven out, because their presence is unlawful and harmful, since they hinder further progress in the spiritual life. So arm yourself against them. Do not be afraid. It is a very simple matter: two or three measures—and that is all there is to it. But on this—until another time.