Continued on the Struggle Against the Passions

Suppose you are keeping watch over your heart. Will you actually be able to watch it effectively?

First, I will say that you do have the ability to keep effective watch. When it is dark, even a large object goes unnoticed; but when it is light, even a small one catches the eye on its own. The soul is in darkness as long as it does not turn to God but lives in self-indulgence; but when it turns to God, light enters it, and the thought of God, like a small sun, illumines everything within it. To a person who lives in self-indulgence, it is pointless even to say: watch lest some passion creep in—for self-indulgence is the den of all the passions; it both receives them and shelters them, justifies them and does what pleases them without resistance. But whoever has turned to God and, denying himself, has resolved to please God—by that very fact already sees what is displeasing to God and notices it at once. And what is displeasing to God is everything that belongs to the passions, for the passions are all contrary to God’s commandments, which alone are pleasing to God as the expression of His will. So you too have resolved, without sparing yourself, to please God, and by this you have dispersed the darkness of the soul and received illumination in the spirit. If you are carrying out what was written to you about the remembrance of God, then the spiritual sun is already shining in you. So it is quite possible for you to notice if anything of the passions approaches you.

Second, I will say that you have also been preparing yourself for this. When before your confession you were examining yourself and clarifying for yourself the proper manner of conduct for the future, in that act you also marked out what must be avoided. What must be avoided—that is precisely the domain of the passions, which always resist what ought to be done. One must be humble, but the passion teaches pride and vainglory; one must be gentle, but the passion causes one to get angry and wrathful; one must rejoice at others’ good fortune, but the passion stirs up envy; one must forgive an offense, but the passion kindles the desire for vengeance. So every passion has its corresponding passionate feeling and impulse that resists what ought to be done. All of this you have made clear for yourself and sealed it with resolution and a vow to do only what is proper and to reject everything improper—that is, everything passionate. I say, therefore, that by this very fact you are ready not merely to watch over yourself but to actually detect every passion that tries to creep in on you.

Your watch over yourself will fail, perhaps, for only one reason: that a passion does not always approach in its crude form, but often presents itself in such a respectable guise that one does not even suspect it is a passion, and thinks instead that it is something good. Anger, for instance, when it flares up, is visible to everyone for what it is—a passion. But it does not always appear in its crude form; it often comes in the guise of noble indignation. So every passion has a habit of clothing itself in respectability and presenting itself as something noble. You are a person of refinement and can very easily be caught on this hook. Watch, then! One must reject everything passionate in its very smallest manifestations and in its most subtle features. Reject—and therefore notice it and not allow it in.

But what is one to do? Surely it will creep in under cover of such a respectable appearance! First: if you have wholeheartedly turned to God and surrendered yourself entirely to Him, He will never leave you without guidance. His Angel, your guardian, will always plant a forewarning thought in you. Attend to yourself and listen to the voice that rebukes what is improper. Second: once you begin the struggle with the passions—and indeed you have already begun it—a spiritual discernment will begin to form in you (or perhaps already has begun): the ability to distinguish at once what is right from what is wrong. Simply resolve never to let pass anything recognized as passionate, in however small and sympathetic a form it may appear. If you act thus without leniency, your discernment will grow quickly. Saint Paul mentions in one place the senses that are trained ”to distinguish good from evil” (Heb. 5:14). That is precisely what will develop in you. Just as taste distinguishes foods, so the heart, trained by its own feeling, will tell you what is good and what is not.

You may say: by the time one has been trained, the passionate things will have been slipping through all the while. True, that is how it happens, and it will happen with you. But surely you will not allow any passion in its crude form. Stand firm on that. And if something passionate creeps in stealthily, God will not hold that against you. He holds you accountable only for what is consciously allowed through from among the passions; He does not hold you accountable for what slips through unnoticed. Whatever slips through unnoticed but is then recognized as something that should not have been—purify that by repentance before the Lord, and at the same time consider how it crept in and take measures for the future. And through this you will learn how to manage the passions and everything passionate.

There is one practice, however, that if held to with full attention will rarely allow anything passionate to pass undetected—namely: to examine your thoughts and feelings, noticing what they are tending toward: whether toward pleasing God or toward self-indulgence. This is not at all difficult to determine. Only attend to yourself. Know that whenever you do something contrary to self-indulgence, there is no mistake in that. An elder once said to his disciple: “See to it that you do not keep a traitor in your house.” “What traitor?” asked the disciple. “Self-indulgence,” replied the elder. And truly so. It is the cause of all evils. If you examine it, you will see that everything bad that was allowed came from it. Consequently, if you go against it with firm and unyielding resolution, you will surely not allow anything improper. And I most earnestly wish for you: do not keep this evil traitor in your house.

From all that has been said, I conclude that you will easily be able to keep effective watch over yourself—provided you do not grow lazy, do not let your attention wander, and do not weaken the zeal you have taken up (do you remember your phrase?) to keep yourself at the level of human dignity. God grant it!