At war with thoughts

     Someone will always praise good works.  It is more difficult to justify 

meditation and prayer.  You will face a difficult dilemma.  You will need 

to defend yourself against criticism from those who are more active on 

the social scene.  You will also have to fight with your own ideas.

     Perhaps you think, "I do not commit adultery or covet my neighbors 

property.  Therefore I must be OK."  You are forgetting that there are 

more than two or three categories of sin.  The possibilities for sin are 

vast.  Are you arrogant?  Angry?  Insincere?  What is the origin of these

 things?  You are required to be at war with the thoughts of your mind.  

It's like the frightening discovery of a robber in your home.  You resist 

him, fight with him.  In the same way your soul needs to return one blow 

for another in the combat with your own thoughts.

     How can you engage in this kind of contest between will and soul if 

you think you are already good enough?  Maybe you have two or three 

kinds of sin under control, but dozens more are still chewing on you 

and you have not even identified them.

     If you think the struggle is hopeless, you do God an injustice.  An 

older child can usually win a fight with a younger one.  It is an unfair 

contest.  But the soul, if it truly looks for God's help, is equal to the 

struggle.

     You are no match for yourself.  Only God can help you.  Yes, you can 

struggle.  You can put up a terrific fight against your own nature.  You 

can, as it were, trample down the weeds.  Uprooting them is something 

only God can do.  This is why we turn to Jesus.  

    Pseudo-Macarius, The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter

Who is Pseudo-Macarius? Pseudo-Macarius, also known as Macarius 

Symeon, lived 949 to 1022 A.D. He was born in Galatia, Phaphlagonia. 

He was educated to be and served as a courtier to emperors in 

Constantinople. At the age of 27 he retreated to a monastery. He

eventually became the abbot of St. Mammas Monastery in Constanti-

nople. The Eastern Orthodox later deemed Macarius Symeon a saint. 

He was a poet deeply steeped in a meditative practice of retiring 

inward, by ceasing to register the sense in order to gain experiential 

knowledge of God.

To visit the Lenten Meditations site, click here.

To visit The Practical Disciple, click here.