One factor contributing to unclean thoughts is anxiety
coupled with lack of dependence on God; for this reason,
many students complain of domination by unclean thoughts during examination periods — their busiest time of year. In their anxiety, they try to escape from reality by resorting to unclean thoughts. A strong remedy against such thoughts is prayer, so that the Lord may grant you peace, internal joy, and reliance on Him.
From Heart to Heart
Fr. Tadros Y. Malaty
Category: FEAR
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It may be useful to train oneself, initially, to the notion that
sudden death and Judgment are imminent. This is because
the principle of “love” might not be attractive to a frivolous person while, on the other hand, fear mixed with trust might be a viable starting point; experiencing love will follow.
From Heart to Heart
Fr. Tadros Y. Malaty -
For some there is salvation by fear: we contemplate the threat of punishment in hell and so avoid evil. But the person who is hastening to spiritual perfection rejects fear. Such a disposition is servile, and the person with this disposition does not remain with the master out of love. He stays put out of fear of being scourged.
Then, there are those who conduct themselves virtuously out of the hope of a reward for a life piously lived. They do not possess the good out of love but out of the expectation of recompense.
But the person seeking perfection disdains even rewards: he does not prefer the gift to the one who bestows it. He loves, “with his whole heart and soul and strength, ” him who is the source of all good things. This, then, is the attitude which he commands to the souls of all who listen to him, for he summons us to share his own life.
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The perfect person does not only try to avoid evil. Nor does he do good for fear of punishment, still less in order to qualify for the hope of a promised reward.
The perfect person does good through love.
His actions are not motivated by desire for personal benefit, so he does not have personal advantage as his aim. But as soon as he has realized the beauty of doing good, he does it with all his energies and in all that he does.
He is not interested in fame, or a good reputation, or a human or divine reward.
The rule of life for a perfect person is to be in the image and likeness of God.
—St. Clement of Alexandria, A Perfect Person’s Rule of Life -
St. Dorotheus of Gaza says there are two kinds of fear: one is the kind of fear that a beginner has and the other the kind of fear that a Saint has. The first person [the beginner] fears God because he is afraid of hell, he is afraid of punishment, he is afraid that at the end of days, he’ll be cast into darkness.
The other Saint fears God because he seeks to please God because he loves Him. The fear is not of somebody being afraid of some kind of punishment, but because somebody has tasted the sweetness of God, the sweetness of being with God, and because of that, fears losing his relationship with God. St. Dorotheus of Gaza calls this the perfect fear: not a fear of punishment—not a fear of hell, but a fear of upsetting the one he loves.
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They are all in the same category, both those who are afflicted with fickleness, boredom and a ceaseless change of purpose, and who always yearn for what they have left behind, and those who just yawn from apathy. There are those too who toss around like insomniacs, and keep changing their position until they find rest through sheer weariness. They keep altering the condition of their lives, and eventually stick to that one in which they are trapped not by weariness with further change but by old age which is too sluggish for novelty. There are those too who suffer not from moral steadfastness but from inertia, and so lack the fickleness to live as they wish, and just live as they have begun. In fact there are innumerable characteristics of the malady, but one effect–dissatisfaction with oneself. This arises from mental instability and from fearful and unfulfilled desires, when men do not dare or do not achieve all they long for, and all they grasp at is hope: they are always unbalanced and fickle, an inevitable consequence of living in suspense.
—Seneca, On the Shortness of Life: Life Is Long if You Know How to Use It
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From The Screwtape Letters—a fictional work written from a senior demon’s perspective, advising a junior tempter.
It is therefore possible to lose as much as we gain by making your man a coward; he may learn too much about himself! There is, of course, always the chance, not of chloroforming the shame, but of aggravating it and producing Despair. This would be a great triumph. It would show that he had believed in, and accepted, the Enemy’s forgiveness of his other sins only because he himself did not fully feel their sinfulness—that in respect of the one vice which he really understands in its full depth of dishonour he cannot seek, nor credit, the Mercy. But I fear you have already let him get too far in the Enemy’s school, and he knows that Despair is a greater sin than any of the sins which provoke it.
As to the actual technique of temptations to cowardice, not much need be said. The main point is that precautions have a tendency to increase fear. The precautions publicly enjoined on your patient, however, soon become a matter of routine and this effect disappears. What you must do is to keep running in his mind (side by side with the conscious intention of doing his duty) the vague idea of all sorts of things he can do or not do, inside the framework of the duty, which seem to make him a little safer. Get his mind off the simple rule (I’ve got to stay here and do so-and-so’) into a series of imaginary life lines (‘If A happened—though I very much hope it won’t—I could do B—and if the worst came to the worst, I could always do C’). Superstitions, if not recognised as such, can be awakened. The point is to keep him feeling that he has some-thing, other than the Enemy and courage the Enemy supplies, to fall back on, so that what was intended to be a total commitment to duty becomes honeycombed all through with little unconscious reservations. By building up a series of imaginary expedients to prevent ‘the worst coming to the worst’ you may produce, at that level of his will which he is not aware of, a determination that the worst shall not come to the worst. Then, at the moment of real terror, rush it out into his nerves and muscles and you may get the fatal act done before he knows what you’re about. For remember, the act of cowardice is all that matters; the emotion of fear is, in itself, no sin and, though we enjoy it, does us no good,
The Screwtape Letters
C. S. Lewis -
Kyrillos on one occasion casually approached the lions. Both he and the lions gently accepted the presence of the other. “Why be astonished?” the emperor is remembered as commenting to shocked onlookers, “He is a holy man.”
A Silent Patriarch: Kyrillos VI (1902 -1971), Life and Legacy
Fr. Daniel Fanous
SO GOOD QUOTES 