BATTLE AND PASSIONS



APOSTLE PAUL
“But you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice...” (Col. 3:8) (...)
Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of sal-vation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” (Eph. 6:14-17)



CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

PART I
ANGER
1. “Whoever Is Angry...”
2. “Be Angry, and Do Not Sin”
3. The Sinful Anger
4. Anger: the Mirror of the Soul
5. Anger: Temporary Madness
6. When the Other Person Is Angry
7. When You Are Angry Too
8. “Do Not Let the Sun Go down”
9. How Is Anger Controlled?

PART II
HATRED
1. Hatred Against Evil
2. “The Devious Person”
3. “Murderer”
4. Who Is the Loser?
5. The ‘Eye’ of a Hater
6. “You Take No Notice?”
7. The Way to Hell
8. Hatred and Holy Communion
9. How Is Hatred Beaten?
10. The Innocent Makes the First Move
11. “If Your Enemy Is Hungry”
12. What Is Your Gain?
13. The Devil and Reconciliation
14. Hatred in the Old Testament
15. Hate Among Christians

PART III
ENVY
1. Hatred and Envy
2. Envy, Vanity
3. The Sickness of Affinity
4. Torture
5. Envy and Murder
6. Demonic Power
7. When They Envy Us
8. Against Envy

EPILOGUE
1. Passions and Illnesses
2. Before the Sick
3. “Security”
4. The Seedless Tree
5. Our “Character”
6. Passions and Holy Grace


EPILOGUE
6. Passions and Holy Grace

(....) When a drop of ink is spilled on a black gown it is not visible; when it is spilled on some white surface it is visible. When the black ink of sin drops onto our black soul, our soul cannot realize the blackness because they both have identical colours. But, when our soul gets cleansed and becomes bright white, it is easy to sense blackness and do everything to avoid it. (...)

When you have a child and you lose it you realize what the loss of a child means. Mourn, crying. And when you have obtained the holy grace and you lose it you realize what the loss of the holy grace means.

For this reason, whoever obtained the holy grace worries about how to protect it from the barbarous invasion of passions. And they constantly keep supervising the movements of these barbarians. (...) All we do is nourish our “enemies” and as a consequence we distance ourselves from the Lord! “If we do not beat our passions we came to this world in vain! We probably came for some evil reason; for our self-destruction…!” (John Chrysostom, Homily 84, 3 on the Gospel of John P.G. 59, 458)

As long as we are alive there is a chance of salvation (we should pity those who died and went to Hell!). Trying is enough. And through the Lord’s grace everything is possible. AMEN.

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