Be attentive to your heart and watch your enemies, for they are cunning in malice. In your heart be persuaded of this: it is impossible for a man to achieve good through evil means. That is why our Savior told us to be watchful, saying: "Strait is the gate, and narrow to way that leads to life, and few there are that find it' (Matthew 7:14).
St. Isaiah the Solitary, "On Guarding the Intellect; Twenty-Seven Texts," Philokalia, p.23.
Looking around, we see wars everywhere; from all corners of the globe there "wars and rumors of war" (see Matthew 24:6ff). Even when physical violence doesn't erupt, the image of God is defaced by the gossip and lies told by politicians and ordinary citizens about those with whom they disagree.
Swept up in malicious speech and images of war, I become careless.
Yes, at first, I might close my eyes and ears. But the memories linger like the shine of gasoline on a puddle of dirty water.
It's this memory that distracts me from "whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy" (Philippians 4:8, NKJV).
Making the temptation all the stronger is that not infrequently, I need to attend to the wickedness around me. I do so not out of idle curiosity but to fulfill the obligations of my state of life.
Fathers and mothers must attend to what is happening in their children's school, in the media they consume, and the many moral challenges that emerge from the culture.
Especially in a democracy--but not only there!--citizens can only fulfill the heavy burden of self-government and protecting the common good by attending not just to events but the character of elected officials.
As for spiritual fathers, we can't but give some attention to all these things as well as the struggles our spiritual children bring to us in confession.
In all these moments, the enemy of souls seeks to distract us from Christ. He is never more vicious, never more dangerous—and never more successful—than when for noble reasons he gets me to respond wickedly to wickedness.
The demons win but I lose when they persuade me to respond to lies with more convincing lies of my own.
The demons win but I lose when they persuade me to respond to violence with more violence of my own.
The demons win but I lose when they persuade not me or you, but us to vainly "achieve good through evil means." This last temptation is so deadly not simply because it appeals to sinful pride but to that life of communion to which we are all called.
Whether as partners or opponents, when we join together to pursue good by evil means we create for ourselves a parody of the Church, of the life of Christ, of the narrow way. I am never more willing to act wickedly, never more cruel, never more indifferent or hostile to my neighbor than when I pursue good by evil means.
What are we to do? This brings us to St. Isaiah's advice.
First, I must attend to my own heart. Not simply what do I desire in the moment but what memories do I find desirable? Not simply what persons, events, and things move me but how do I allow myself to be moved by them?
Harder, and so more important, what desires and memories repulse me? To whom and to what am I indifferent or hostile?
In all this, I must learn to attend to my own heart as if it were the text of Holy Scripture. And how could it be otherwise? After all, St. Paul tells us,
But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach): that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved (Romans 10:8-9, NKJV).
Before one word was inscribed on parchment or vellum, the Word of God was written on the human heart. The same Holy Spirit by Whom the Word comes to be incarnate in the Virgin's womb, Who inspired the Scripture, Who strengthened the martyrs, made sinners saints, the fathers as wise as the apostles, and Who captures the whole world as in a net, dwells in our hearts. What He said and did in the past, He says and does now in each of us who are in Christ.
Second, I must know my enemy.
This is more than understanding that "we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 6:12), NKJV). Yes, this but still more than this.
To know my true enemy, I must know not simply what he does or how he distracts me from Christ. All this yes but also I must know what he lacks. I must look beneath demonic glamour and pretend riches and see the devil's poverty.
And what does the enemy of souls lack? Love. That is to say, he has no true friends, and knows no true fellowship or communion. Because of this he also has no true knowledge of himself. He is a creature striving to fulfill an emptiness by his own efforts that God has already fulfilled by His grace and with Himself.
My enemy is wounded by an emptiness of his own imagination. His wickedness is not that he robs my heart of God's presence but that he tricks me into turning away from the divine fullness that is within. He tells me to do to myself what he has done to himself.
"Empty yourself not from disordered desires or the memory of sins forgiven by God before they were committed," he says to me before going on to say, "but ignore the Light that shines in your heart so you can create a 'communion' of your own liking."
Attention to the movements of my own heart, to return to the saint, is the ascetical discipline that heals me of the loneliness and false communion in which I'm trapped and of which I am an unwitting apostle and evangelist.
Well said, Fr. Gregory! Thanks for that.
In Christ,
Jeff Brinkley