I would like to offer this quotation from Saint Gregory of Sinai that I came across. Being that this forum section has been expanded to include now Patristic Writings, I would like see some patristic quotations offered and comments given by the forum community.

In IC XC,
Father Anthony+

Thanks Father Anthony for that quote.

I'm sorry but I don't have a good quote right now.

Father,

Should we move St. Symeon's Hymn No. 30 from Faith and Worship over to here? And then if I add more I'll put them here and they'll all be under one roof?

Eli

Eli,

I'll move it here in a moment. As you can see the forum reorganization has begun.

In IC XC,
Father Anthony+

Indeed!! And I LOVE it!

Eli

Everyone baptized into Christ should pass progressively through all the stages of Christ's own life, for in baptism he receives the power so to progress, and through the commandments he can discover and learn how to accomplish such progression.

Reminds me of something Sr. Nancy Keller said, it was about building a fire in a pot bellied stove. You had to have three things to make the fire start and grow. The kinneling, the paper, and the coal.

The paper was the smoke, but without the paper it was much harder to get the wood to burn. Once the wood was burning it burned out fast - didn't last. But, once it was aflame you had to add the chunks of coal, that made the fire hot and burn for a long time.

It is a progression in our life with Christ, from Baptism to Death. When we were Baptised the paper is lit, when we are Chrismated the kinneling is added to help us burn (grow), but then we have to add the coal by the power of the Holy Spirit to take all that Christ gave us at Baptism and Chrismation and set our lives on fire.

So yep, I say we progress. I know I am not the same person that came into the church 25 years ago that is for sure - I have prayed, received our Eucharistic Lord, studied, fellowshiped with God's people, communed with his saints - yep I have progressed this once shy Southen Baptist girl has definately progressed to a full blown Eastern Catholic child of God.

Thank you Jesus!
Pani Rose

Progression is cooperation with GRACE!

My two cents:

Progession in the life of Christ is acceptance of the life of Christ in our lives, especially His cross.

-- John

It seems to me that our progression begins with the Mysteries of Initiation which, like leaven, slowly begin our conformity to Christ. He feeds us at His Table and this nourishment allows the leaven of Faith received in the Mysteries of Initiation to grow. Since we can do nothing except in Him--"I am the Vine and you are the branches"--this constant nourishment is absolutely necessary for us to grow.

We move to participation in His Life also by becoming aware at some point that we, too, are called to "be about my Father's business," as the 12-year-old Jesus told His parents when they found Him in the Temple after they thought He was lost. Being "about my Father's business" means conforming oneself ever more closely to the teachings of the Church found in Holy Tradition and the Scriptures. It means that one progressively becomes less like those around us: those who have the world's values and who are indistinguishable from others who have no faith and no hope.

For this, we can expect to walk through the steps of the Passion. We can expect a scourging: the thousands of little slights and asides that come our way to make us conform to the behavior of the world; the cutting words, the shunning by our supposed friends and even family, remembering that "he who loves father or mother or brother os sister is not worthy of Me." It is all because the one who progresses in the live of Christ makes others uncomfortable and cause thier consciences to remind them of their own commitment not lived up to. And, I might add, if we do not make others uncomfortable by who we are and the way we live, by the values we espouse and live, then we have failed to make the first step in being followers of Christ.

There is no Resurrection without the Cross. If we are to rise with Him, we should expect the stripping, the scourging, the Crown of Thorns. The thorns, by the way, are linked with the Parable of the Sower. The thorns are the cares of this world that threaten always to choke out the life of Christ in us which we are to carefully nurture with the Mysteries, with Scripture, with Prayer, with the ascetic effort, and with all the other tools that our Fathers have prescribed as being necessary for obtaining what St. Seraphim of Sarov calls "the acquisition of the Holy Spirit of God."

The stripping which Our Lord endured, too, is something that we should take a look at. He was stripped of His garments while we are progressively stripped in this life of our attachments to it. We lose so many things, people, and accomplishments that we attain or have as we make our pilgrim way. Things wear out; they become obsolete; they break; and they do not deliver the happiness that we think they will give us. People die; families are changed by death; and the external circumstances of our lives change irrevocably. Accomplishments are rewarded and the next day we are left with a sense of let-down. All of this is to remind us of the truth of a verse sung at a funeral of one of my relatives: "our true home is in Heaven." We have no permanence here and we are pilgrims on a journey, regardless of the fact that many of us are able to delude ourselves with routines that block this truth. Our task is to lay up treasures in our true home where neither moth nor rust nor thief can destroy.

We need to remind ourselves always that, like the Lord, the world that lauds us today can turn on us tomorrow--remember how short the time from Palm Sunday to Good Friday. We need to remember always that His summons comes at His good time and that we need to be, like Him in every thought, word and deed, found "busy (about doing the father's Will) on His return." We need to be ready to make a good report of our stewardship of His talents, His grace freely given, and the time He gives to combine the two for His glory.

In Christ,

BOB

Dear Bob,

I know of no one that would have made a better moderator than you. You are a gift to us, and as I have said before, the Holy Spirit speaks through you...and so eloquently! So is it any wonder that our 'adversary' gave you such a difficult time trying to get on the computor? :rolleyes:

I better stop, or you might get a swollen head... and you know how quickly that gets knocked down.

Zenovia

And St. Gregory of Sinai composed some of my all-time favorite prayers - the glorfications at the conclusion of the Canons to the Holy Trinity for Sunday Midnight Office.
FDD

Zenovia:

As I have said before--if something that I offer gives faith support or edification, then thank the Good Lord and the Holy Spirit for it because it does not come from me. But if something is simply silly, vain, or shockingly stupid, then admonish me with kindness because that alone I can claim as my own.

I have studied and read for the past many years because I have been given a "hungry" faith gift. I want to know more about the One that I love and how I may love Him more by knowing more about Him. He is an elusive Lover Who gives us a little and then withdraws so that we, small as we are, will not be overwhelmed by His greatness.

BTW, this did not come through some sort of effort on my part. For so long it seemed that I was reading in so many different areas that I could not connect. But I continued to pray as well as and and study, so that I could understand where the Holy Spirit was leading. By being open and allowing Him to lead it can sometimes seem like one is wandering in so many disconnected areas that one sometimes wonders what the purpose is or what good can come from it. And that, I believe, is the key: it is said that the one who does theology without praying it merely does the theology of the demons. It is so important to lay what one is reading and studying before the Lord and to ask that the Holy Spirit make what one is studying clear. It is in the asking for and the disciplining oneself in humility that causes the Holy Spirit to "connect the dots" because the Lord is an eternity away from the proud.

It also helps to have a single focus: how can what I am learning be given away for others. Since God Himself is Other-Directed and we are to become like Him, what we read, what we study, what we discipline ourselves for must ultimately be for others, not for ourselves. We must, by example, draw others to Christ and that, beyond building the relationship with Him ourselves--lest in saving others we find ourselves lost--is the only reason we are here.

In Christ, your brother who asks humbly for your continued prayers,

BOB

Dear Father and Friends,

I've been mulling for a few days, trying to decide how to say what came to mind when first I read this passage.

I want to add to the those thoughts already here, not detract from them, but what I have to add is something of a deviation from the obvious realization that Jesus came as the New Adam so that he could teach us how to defeat the internal oppression of evil, and grow in natural virtue so as to prepare the field for the seeds of infused holiness.

Not only is Jesus Christ our Rabbi but he also models right actions and makes straight the path.

In Hebrews 2:18 it is said that "It is because He Himself has been tried by suffering that He has the power to help us in the trials we undergo."

Again in Hebrews 4:15 "It is not as if our High Priest was incapable of feelings for us in our humiliations, for He has been through every trial, as He is fashioned as we are, only sinless."

You see it is in this perfect sinlessness that our Lord and Master, Master Teacher, Master Craftsman deviates from all others of created humankind.

So when we speak of Living Christ's Life Progressively, it is important that we do not fall into the trap of believing or expecting that our lives are to be lived in a way that is lock-step and rigidly sequential. It is not. That is not the meaning of progression here.

Our human path to holiness is not at all sequential; it is not predictable or clear in any way. We are free to choose and in so being and so doing we stumble and stagger, begin and start over, end and start over, get lost, are found, and on and on, in straight lines and in circles, climbing in slow grinding agony one moment and descending rapidly, dizzyingly the next.

Our Lord may have taken one sequential, providential step after the other in a direct line to the Garden, Golgotha and the Empty Tomb, but we do not walk that Path of Perfect Holiness in quite the same way as the one who forged that path in the first place; walk it as the New Adam, accompanied and assisted by the New Eve. The path is surely there for us but we often miss it and then pause to wonder, how. How does one miss a path so clearly trod and paved with Love and Light and Life?

No. We walk that path with a fully human step that is creaturely, flawed or disintegrated in nature, and only incarnate by adoption, only deified by participation in the divine, only healed by the freely given grace of the Father.

This following example may help to illustrate what I mean even more clearly.

We know from Scripture that Jesus was severly tried, severly tempted.

These temptations that are described in such lurid detail in Scripture are to teach us that without great temptation, we will never be able to experience great holiness.

We are taught that it is not Christ-like to avoid pain, and difficulty and distress, but rather we are taught to embrace it, welcome it, and turn it to the greater honor and glory of the Father, neither yielding to temptation, nor hiding from it, running from it.

But there is a difference in the temptations suffered by one whose Person is divine, whose natures are unblemished and integral, without flaw, perfect, and the temptations of those whose person is human with a flawed and disintegrated and sick human nature as a consequence of the ancestral sin.

That difference is this: Our temptations can come from outside of us, of course for there is the world, the flesh and the devil, but most often our greatest temptations generate internally through temptations toward the sins of the flesh, lust and gluttony; the sins of the mind or intellect, pride and envy; and the sins of the soul which is deny the Creator, the Trinity, as the only and greatest due good and the purpose of all created life. The most insidious temptation of all is the eventual acceptance and embrace of the things of the material world, the things of creation, and our own use of that creation, as the greatest good and most worthy of our full attention or greater attention, which are the sins of idolatry and vain glory. And that temptation generates within each human bosom, within each human mind and heart.

In contrast, a perfect Jesus, an Incarnate Perfection in the form of true man and true God cannot possibly be possessed of the internal temptations of a fallen nature, a broken and sickened and disintegrated nature.

In fact we see clearly in Scripture that the temptations suffered by the Christ were all external, coming to him from outside of His own perfect Person and natures.

This is a difficult teaching and one that has captured the mind of the Church from the very beginning, and given rise to all of the classic heresies, and one that comes to life here in this teaching of St. Gregory of Sinai.

To God be all glory!

Eli

Eli:

Christ is in our midst!! He is and always will be!!!

Well put!! In fact what I have offered and what you have offered overlap. While we are on a steady progression from birth to death in our pilgrim journey, it is also true that we take one step forward and two steps back; two forward and one back; stand in place; fall down; start over; go in circles; get off on tangents that need correction by our spiritual father. We get lost and are found.

But one important thing we must always remember. That is, that the Lord is always faithful and He will not allow His faithful ones to undergo corruption or get lost UNLESS WE WILL TO BE CORRUPTED AND/OR LOST. He has committed to us in Baptism and He will never go back on His commitment no matter what we may do. He is always ready to take us back, heal our wounds, and renew us like the prodigals we are.

Thanks for the lucid reminder.

In Christ,

BOB

UNLESS WE WILL TO BE CORRUPTED...

Just as a way of continuing these thoughts, I am mindful of the prayer before communion where we supplicate "Therefore I pray Thee: have mercy upon me and forgive me my transgressions both voluntary and involuntary, of word and of deed, committed in knowledge and in ignorance."

St Gregory Palamas notes this voluntary and involuntary corruption of the body, mind and soul when he remarks that "We can free ourselves more easily from passions that are a matter of our own volition than from those rooted in nature."

In fact the entire body of ascetic and apophatic spirituality is dedicated to rooting out those habits of body, mind and soul or heart which are habitual, besetting, and very often not consciously cultivated, or raised to awareness at the level of the will, at all.

How does that then fit with "UNLESS WE WILL TO BE CORRUPTED...."?

Eli

Eli:

It seems to me that "UNLESS WE WILL TO BE CORRUPTED..." comes at the point where I throw in the towel and give up the fight. I give up on
Christ and "go along to get along."

Just as the Desert Fathers tell us that of all the works of the spirit that prayer remains a great struggle to our last breath, THE CHRISTIAN LIFE IS A CONSTANT STRUGGLE TO OUR LAST BREATH. But remembering what the Lord has said about those who persevere to the end we continue.

I can't speak for anyone else, but for me the struggle has intensified with each passing day and each passing year. I am tempted to compromise, challenged to defend (gently) the truths of the Faith that I have learned, nurtured, and made part to who I am. I seem to have more and more people tell me I'm crazy for believing what the Church teaches, that I am wasting my time with prayer and ascetic effort (because we "don't have to do it"). Like the old man in the Old Testament who said that he would not even pretend to violate God's law by eating pork and thus to be a scandal to the young, I've been challenged time and again to admit that the Church's teaching is outdated and not "with the times." Remembering St. Paul's admonition to "save yourself from this wicked generation" I struggle.

My father once told me that a man is successful in this life if he can look his Creator in the eye at his personal judgment and say, "I have not compromised Your Teaching." You know, the older I get, the more profound my father's words seem to me.

In Christ,

BOB

Eli:

It seems to me from my own study and prayer in trying to understand this area that we first have to look at sin itself.

I use the word "sin" as an acronym: "separation or selfishness or self-centeredness is normal or necessary or nice." Choose your own combination, the result is the same: God is other-directed in Trinity; we are called to be the same. The selfish one is the one who thinks of himself first and this stems from his inner motivation.

I hestiate to step into the involuntary area, but will do so in hopes that some of our clergy will jump in and give us the correction needed if I stray.

It seems to me that involuntary sin can come from doing a good thing with a bad motivation, sometimes something we may not even be aware of since we all have a tendency to hide things even from ourselves. When we look deep inside ourselves we can find some nasty stuff that we are very often not even aware of. And it seems to me that this nasty stuff can pollute our best intentions often without us even knowing it. So my less-than-educated guess is that the Eastern Fathers, being masters of the spiritual life, having delved deeply into the human condition, and most importantly being guided by the Holy Spirit have come upon this area of involuntary sin because it covers areas of which we may not be aware that still offend Our Lord deeply. I also believe that involuntary sin can be that which comes from the area of prelest: when we think we've got it all together and even allow that thought to be entertained. As one western writer put it--can't put my fingers on the quote right now but something to the effect--when we think we have made progress in the spiritual life it is precisely at that point we may be sure we have not even begun. Another example might be when I make a contribution to the poor and congratulate myself on what a good guy I am--forgetting that St. Basil tells us that our surplus is the voluntary storehouse of the poor. My motivation is not as crystal clear as I might think: I may be deluded that the goods with which I have been entrusted as steward are mine when in reality they belong to the Lord when I am incorporated into Him by Baptism. And my own thought of generosity may offend Him Who blessed the widow's mite rather than the tithes of the wealthy.

Father Anthony?

In Christ,

BOB

Eli:

Please accept my deepest apology for ruining your past post. I thought I hit the button for a pm and ended up deleting your post.

Would you be kind enough to repost?

That's what I get for trying to write when I'm tired. :rolleyes:

BOB

Don't give it a second thought. It just seemed to me that it might prove fruitful to explore the theology of involuntary sin for a bit.

Be of good cheer.

Eli

Just a quick thought before I sign off for the evening, Bob.

Intentionality inherently results in a voluntary act.

So I was just wondering here what you mean by "motivation"?

Eli

Eli:

Would a change of word to "intention" be better?

I'd have to think about an example, but I think it would involve some deeper examination of conscience than we are sometimes able to do. The Lord, however, in the words of an Orthodox prayer "searches the reins and the heart and clearly discerns the most hidden things of men."

BOB

PS: You now understand that you're dealing with a man who is "technoligically challenged." :rolleyes: My computer learning curve is so flat that it skims the ground.

Eli:

Spent some time thinking and praying about voluntary and involuntary sin. Is it an overlap with committing sin "knowingly or unknowingly"? Something like conscious or unconscious related to what I think my intention is and what the deep down intention is that I may or may not be aware of?

BOB

Those four, shall we say, modes of sinning are related but not equivalent pairs. Intent is yet something else again.

I don't have my eyes with me here at the computer and I've spent up all my time for now reading liturgy discussions. So if you'll bear with me I'll pick up on this tomorrow some time. It's a nice topic to mull around in any discussion of "progress" on the path toward holiness. You're right on top of it of course but I'll add an idea or two of my own when I have more time and can see more clearly!!

I also hope to heaven that you've giving up on flogging yourself for ruthlessly dumping my brilliant words yesterday !!

I do not mind in the least. Errors like that happen to the worst of us all the time, ask me, so why not also to the best?

Eli

Eli:

No, am not beating myself up. It's the humbling experience of being both tired at that time and looking through the wrong lens of my trifocals.

It's no sin to get old; just inconvenient as it can be!

You know the definition of "old," don't you? "What doesn't hurt, doesn't work!!

BOB

Eli:

Back to "involuntary" . . .

Am I on the right track if I pose the following example?

Do I sin in an "involuntary" fashion when I do something that is against my conscience but I don't have the "guts" to stand up for what I believe, rather caving to social, cultural, family or some other external pressure?

BOB

No. Not really. That would be a quite voluntary choice. I am writing something at the moment to post either tomorrow or the next day.

It is a complex concept in some ways so that trying to condense a brief teaching is more difficult that writing a long treatise. But spiritually the wisdom from it is quite succinct, so I will try to capture both to the best of my ability in a short time. At least enough to demonstrate the various elements of its theology and to offer some examples and where it fits along the way of perfection.

The concept of involuntary sin is called, in Hebrew, Sheggagah. The old testament is full of examples of it and it appears again in Paul's letters and is strongly tied with Paul's seemingly contradictory teachings on justification, on our duty to the law and our freedom from the law. The theology of involuntary sin touches deeply into our understanding of divine providence, covenant, propitiation and justification.

It is not an easy concept to grasp fully all at once, and no one example will cover it all.

So I'll do the best I can in the next day or so to write a brief something suitable to this format, and something that might be useful to the spiritual life which is what we were talking about when I raised the question.

I don't know if I will post it here or following my posting of the paragraph from Diadochos of Photiki. Might be better to put it over under its own heading.

Eli

Eli:

Thanks for the return psot. This will be a good place to expand my learning about something I hve mentioned in several prayers over the years but had little understanding of. But, then, there are still many things I don't fully understand.

In Christ,

BOB

Are you aware that what you have just decribed fits exactly with changes to our subconcious mind? (to use more modern terms). This is Paul's 'Law of the members'.

-ray

Of course I do I am a Carmelite by formation. And a born lunatic by nature.

I suffered the slings and arrows of secular therapy and the thorns and dry grit of walking the Way of Perfection, and it was by the way of perfection that I was heald. More or less- :p

Eli

Ahh.. so you are like the one in the gospels who has suffer much at the hands of many doctors.

>and it was by the way of perfection that I was heald.
The Freud in me noticed that you almost wrote ‘healed’ but not quite. And the same “more of less”. Near by not there.

So what did you want to know about involuntary sin? Anything specific?

-ray

What say we start with my spelling and typos?

Eli

I meant nothing serious. If I have offended you I am sorry. I just noticed that your typo almost spelled 'healed' but not quite … and you followed that with 'more or less' which also generally has the meaning of - almost but not quite.

I am the king of typos myself. Friends remark that they can always tell if a message (supposedly from me) is really from me - because if it is clean of typos ... it is not from Ray my spell checker has a mind of its own and often changes my mispelled word into some other word I did not intend. And .. too late ... I am on to the next thing. Now when they invent a spell checker which checks my spelling before I write - I would be OK.

I was wandering if you wanted to know something specific about involuntary sin. Otherwise it seems too wide for me to attempt to handle. I doubt your spelling and typos has anything to do with involuntary sin (if that is what you meant). Otherwise I do not know what you meant by 'start with my spelling and typos'.

Peace be to you and your church.

-ray

Eli...

Upon waking this morning a nice concise way to talk about understanding involuntary sin came to me. If you will accept it - I will use modern metaphors - as “it is like this” is what I am doing. I am not giving theology - I am giving a little something that by it we might understand theology better.

So… it is LIKE this…

Christianity has been around for over 2000 years… our understanding of it has developed. And what was revealed (that which human reasoning can not attain by itself) is really not much in the way of amount - but was all that was needed and was complete (what the father had to say to us was said fully within Jesus Christ).

Now let us use the metaphor of modern day computers.

Our human make up is comprised of two created natures. Mind (spirit or psychic) and body (soma). Each of these natures are fully functional on their own design for their specific purposes.

So let us talk about the ‘Law of the members’… since the way Paul uses the term means how a thing operates (by what rules and principles it operates).

Now the human mind (created spirit) is about 10% conscious and 90% automatic (subconscious). This is good. It allows us (as a combined nature) to operate really well. Once we learn to drive a car - most of the driving is done by our subconscious mind.

While the conscious mind is very well at focus and individual items … the subconscious mind is a little dumber, more rudimentary and concerned with the soma and its purposes and survival. It is the mind of our animal nature.

Nothing about the body and its senses can have an experience of God or know about God. The mind of the body (subconscious mind) does not know nor understand … God. Because God (uncreated spirit) is not an object approximate to its capabilities.

As I said, the subconscious mind, while not being as intelligent as the mind of our spiritual faculties… the subconscious mind processes a massive amount of data. It is constantly adjusting all aspects of our body to adjust to conditions. Heart rate, breathing, blood flow, physical reactions, etc having to do with all sensory perceptions. It does this through (shall we say) programming.

When the conscious mind does something often… the subconscious mind says “Here.. Let me make that automatic for you” and sets in place a program (habit) based upon a new arrangement of other existing and past programs (automatic habits). It - re-uses - data - in this way. To form a new habitual response.

OK.. So far this is pretty simple and thanks to Jesus and then Paul and many others - we understand all this a lot better. This type of stuff has become almost commonplace understanding in Christian civilization.

Now the way we (humans) adjust our subconscious programming is to attempt to - re-program troublesome areas of it. We adjust or set in place - new programs - over the troublesome programs. Psycho-therapy (spirit-therapy).

Ascetics (which is not to Christianity alone) are methods by which we ‘break’ certain subconscious habitual programming. We interrupt - the running programs. And by this we gain some personal knowledge of their automatic operation. We also might use some aspects of ascetics to do some re-programming. Whether we do this in a religious setting or a social setting (psychotherapy). In either case (the setting) the reprogramming is done along the lines of, and for the purpose of better social compatibility. In other words to function in society better.

Now let us bring another set of concepts into this and later - - - join the two.
Reality (the experience of reality) is the first expression of God to us humans. Now I am not talking about what we know about reality in the way of the analytical mind… I am talking about our experience - of reality. The over-ridding importance of reality (for us humans) is not the science of it (knowledge about it) but the meaning of it. Our experience of reality imparts - meaning - to us.

If we take un-adulterated reality into ourselves - we are at a union with created nature (and its meaning) and we are necessarily also at union with God who created that reality - moment by moment. However (and we are speaking about involuntary sin) if certain programming of our subconscious has been placed there and tints our reception of reality - we rather live and function in un-reality. Now I will leave out all the details of that.

We know (through revelation) that reality is a person. It is the person of the Risen and Resurrected Jesus Christ - as the Logos - the Word. This is made clear by John in the prolog of his gospel. “All that is made to exist - is made to exist by the Word - an no-thing exists comes to exist without Him” (paraphrased).

This means that Reality (if we take that concept and add the idea of person to it) is what we call - Providence. Providence itself is then … a living person (of Jesus Christ).

Now ascetics alone … can not bring us back to (or forward to) an unadulterated experience of Reality and re-union with God and natural world which God creates. In other words no human set of programming has the capability to re-program (re-create) our original design and its well balanced functions. Unless God re-build the house (do the re-programming) the house (holiness) does not get built.

Providence itself (God/Jesus) must do the reprogramming. Another way to say this is that we must be re-programmed by Reality - itself. It is the daily events which reality forms and brings to us - that is God’s part in this re-programming effort. Our part is our cooperation. This is our daily bread. This is our baptism.

That daily Providence is that which sanctifies us - has always been the doctrine of the churches (East or West). It is not ascetics or even the sacraments (these are all aids to the primary action of Providence and our cooperation). Note that for any of the sacraments to be effective we must be in good conscience (proper cooperation with the will of God as it comes to us daily via Providence).

Anyways… this has all been something of modern metaphor by which we can understand something of involuntary sin as habitual and subconscious tendencies that automatically substitute un-realities (in-direct and tinted experience of Reality) … for a real and direct experience/cooperation/union with the person of Reality itself.

The original sin (at operation still in all of us) is our own free choice of self-providence in place of God’s all-providence. And the residue of our past self-providence is within our subconscious nature.

Sanctification takes place in the memories (in the subconscious) as Paul says our fight is in spiritual places (the mind - not the body). Self-knowledge helps (so that we recognize certain things) but self-reprogramming does nothing but imitate what we think is sanctification (but really is not). Only Reality itself - can reprogram us - back to our original design. Now if Reality were NOT a person - this would be impossible as it would be chaos. But Reality IS a person. And so reality each day is tailored exactly for each of us. Hence - contemplation has always been the effective form of any ascetic practices as it makes us more receptive to Reality and let dependent upon our habitual ways.

This view might (or might not) be of use to you.

Peace to you and your church.

-ray

This is where tone and expression could come in handy. There is absolutely nothing to be sorry for. In fact I thank you for the opportunity to have a good laugh.

I was poking fun at myself. I don't spell well at all and I also get in a rush here and I tend to work without my reading glasses because they make me a bit woozy looking at the monitor, and I don't touch type, and tend to be a by dizzylexic with letters, but not numbers which I find strange since I don't work well, otherwise, with the very symbols that I don't confuse.

So some of my lapses are systemic, some of them are my fault for not addressing them with anything bur avoidance, and others are my fault directly.

Kind of a play on involuntary sin,now that I think about it, don't you think? But a bit obscure for the venue, I realize.

I didn't mention it but the discussion on involuntary sin has shifted a bit over to the section here in Scripture and Patristics where I posted a passage from Diadochos of Photiki. Perhaps we should keep it over there since it is explicity set up for that.

Eli

It is indeed interesting. I think Father Maximus might be interested in it as well.

I was wondering if Father Anthony might move it or if we could just copy and paste it over under the heading of Diadochos of Photiki.

There are things in it that are quite familiar to me and things that I am not sure I follow precisely so I need to pick around in it to see what to ask you but I don't want to do all that here and then move it. So do you mind if we wait a bit and see what Father Anthony says to do?

Eli

That's what I get for not paying attention. Father Anthony is not moderating here.

Sorry for the mix-up.

Eli