In the previous section, we said that
the Church is a Hospital, a healing center. It heals man’s sick
personality. If the darkening of the nous is the real illness, then cure
consists of the illumination and livening of the nous. The subject of
Orthodox psychotherapy should be viewed in this perspective. It is not
concerned with psychological balance, but rather with the illumination
of the nous and man’s union with God.
There is a very telling Church hymn in which we ask God to resurrect the mortified nous as He resurrected Lazarus. We chant:
Let us, O faithful, imitate Martha
and Mary and send to Lord godly acts as ambassadors so that He comes to
raise our nous, now lying dead in the tomb, insensitive to negligence,
not feeling fear of the Divine, not having the energy of life, let us
cry “see O Lord, and as you resurrected from horrible captivity your
friend Lazarus once, Merciful One, the same way give life to all,
offering your great mercy.
The Three Types of Christians
The image of a healing center, a
Hospital, helps us see the task of the clerics, which is medical, and
the whole life and objective of the Church.
There are three types of men in the
Church. The first includes the psychologically unhealed, namely, those
who are baptized, who are potentially members of the Church, but do not
activate the gift of Baptism. Indeed, Baptism is not sufficient;
observing Christ’s commandments is also required. The second category
includes those in the process of cure, the Christians who struggle to be
healed. They see the passions in themselves; they realize the darkening
of the nous and make an effort to be cured with the means
offered by the Orthodox Church. The third category includes the cured
ones. Here belong the saints, who received the Grace of the Holy Spirit,
cleansed their hearts from the passions, reached the illumination of
the nous and the vision of God. The saints are called deified
because they partake of deification. The fact that they have been cured
does not mean that they make no mistakes whatsoever on a human level,
but they have a correct orientation; they know what the Grace of God is,
and they know how to repent. Their nous is rightly directed to
God, they have good self-knowledge, they are aware of the dogmas, and
in general they know exactly the purpose of their existence.
Ways to Cure the Soul
It is now necessary to examine the ways
by which the personality of man is cured. Among other things, this
demonstrates the character and the content of Orthodox asceticism.
The first requirement is correct faith.
By faith, we mean the revealed truth. God revealed Himself to the
Prophets, the Apostles, and the saints. This truth is authentic because
it is by Revelation.
Correct faith shows what God is, what
man is, what the purpose of man is, and how he can achieve communion
with God. When faith is adulterated, life is instantly adulterated; man
loses his orientation and is unable to reach his target. What happens is
similar to medical science, the curative treatment of a hospital. If
the underlying theory about a disease is wrong, the cure is also wrong,
implying that such a disease is not cured in this particular hospital.
This is why we Orthodox insist on safeguarding Revelation. If it is
altered, then our salvation is uncertain.
We should view the decisions of the
Ecumenical Councils in this perspective. The teaching that Christ is God
is associated with salvation, since only God can save man. If Christ
does not have two perfect natures, a divine nature and a human nature,
our salvation is impossible. It is the same if God does not have a
divine will and a human will. Therefore, our staying within dogmatic
precision is a prerequisite of cure, of salvation and sanctification.
The second requirement for the therapy of the soul is awareness of the illness. This is necessary, because once we know we are ill we seek a doctor and a cure. Otherwise, we remain in ignorance and illness.
The same holds true of bodily diseases.
Ignorance of the disease leads to death. Knowledge of the disease,
deriving from pain, prompts us to take all necessary measures to obtain a
cure. It is a terrible thing not to know our bodily disease.
One of the greatest sins of our times is
self-love and self-sufficiency. We are contained in ourselves, having
the illusion that we are well, that we need no doctor. The illusion of
health is the worst hypocrisy.Saint Johnthe Evangelist said: “If we say
that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us”
(1 John 1:8).
Obviously, realizing our horrible
condition is not easy. Carnal man cannot know his passions. In fact, he
thinks that life contrary to nature, as experienced after the Fall, is
natural. This is indeed tragic. However, there are certain ways by which
man can come to know himself. Let me report some of them.
One may know his condition through the
energy of holy Grace. What happens with spiritual diseases is identical
to how bodily diseases are detected, by undergoing appropriate
examinations, using X-rays and a tomography. The uncreated Grace of God
enters our soul, and then we see our horrible distorted state and mess.
In the beginning of spiritual life, the vision of the uncreated Light is
experienced negatively, that is, as a fire burning the passions.
Another way of self-knowledge is the
study of Holy Scripture, of patristic works, of the lives of the saints.
By reading these writings, we realize God’s love and philanthropy and
how far man is able to go by the Grace of God and his own personal
struggle. We might also realize our deficiencies and weaknesses.
In this case, study functions as a
spiritual mirror. The asceticism of the saints bothers our conscience,
it throws our inaction away, it invalidates all excuses and leads us to
the observance of Christ’s commandments.
We may say that in realizing our illness
we are helped by our failures in life. When some of our supports are
lifted, when we reach a point of saying, like the Disciples on the road
to Emmaus, “But we trusted that it had been he which should have
redeemed Israel” (Luke 24:21), then we are able to really see Christ and
seek the new life He gives to the world. Personal, family, and social
failures bring us to an impasse. At that point, if we have an inner
disposition, a spiritual inspiration, associated with hope in God, this
may lead us to a realization of our spiritual condition.
Another fine method of comprehending the
illnesses of the soul is by exercising logical prayer. When we repeat
with our lips and our mind the prayer “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God,
have mercy on me,” the Grace of God will break the outside wall of
illusory good self and reveal our wretchedness.
Because God loves us and is interested
in our salvation, He keeps sending us invitations so that we do not lose
our purpose and destination. He calls one person through Godly despair,
someone else by the illumination of the holy Light, a third one through
study, a fourth one through his encounter with a holy person who has
had the experience of the other life existing in the Church, and through
various other means.
The third requirement for our cure is to find a therapist.
We search for the proper physician for our bodily diseases, and we
should do the same for spiritual diseases. For the former we first visit
the provincial doctor, then we go to large specialized hospitals, then
we consult advanced specialists, and finally, we visit medical school
professors and doctors abroad. We should exhibit the same, if not more,
fervor for the spiritual diseases tormenting us.
The holy Fathers state in their works
that clerics of all degrees are called healers. In many of his sermons,
Saint Gregory the Theologian refers to this point and calls the clerics
healers because they heal the psychological diseases of the people. He
himself asserts that he refused to shepherd the people and, instead,
left for the desert after his ordination as a presbyter, because he felt
he was unworthy of healing the illnesses of others, not having cured
himself yet. It is significant that Saint Gregory calls the work of
Christ’s divine providence therapeutic work and Christ a therapist of
men. He calls the priesthood a therapeutic science and a therapeutic
service. He says characteristically: “We are servants and collaborators
for this therapy.”
The priests’ fundamental task is not
selling tickets to Paradise, but healing, so that when man sees God He
becomes Paradise and not Hell for man. If we examine all the sacraments
and sacramental rites available to the priest from Baptism to Holy
Communion, and from repentance to the funeral service, we will find out
that they all presuppose and aim at man’s therapy. The sacraments are
not social events and rituals; the church rites do not aim at
psychological justification and the cultivation of religious feelings,
but at man’s therapy. By viewing the sacraments outside the therapy of
man’s personality, by participating in them without the cleansing of the
heart and the illumination of the nous, we ignore the deeper purpose of church life.
It is common to hear the excuse that a
proper spiritual father for therapy has not been found. My reply is that
most of us actually need a nurse and a provincial physician, not
refined surgery. We have to begin with the spiritual father close to us,
in our parish, in our town. What is indispensable is to open our heart
to God, to freely expose our wounds and request His Grace. If God sees
that we need a better and “more scientific” physician, he will reveal
him to us. Also, if our spiritual father realizes that we need help from
a more experienced spiritual father, because we have advanced in
spiritual life and have more subtle spiritual needs, then he will
recommend the way. By all means, it is basic to start confessing to
someone. We should not waste precious time in searching for an
experienced spiritual father. If needed, he will show up in due time.
What we have said is still not
sufficient. We also need a fourth way for our inner cure, and this is
the finding and implementation of the proper therapeutic treatment.
In bodily diseases, if one becomes aware of his illness and finds the
best doctor, but does not follow the recommended treatment, he fails to
be cured, he does not get well. The same is true of spiritual illnesses.
Correct faith, awareness of the illness, and a proper therapist are all
prerequisites, but if we do not follow the right therapeutic way, if we
do not take proper medicine, we cannot be cured.
There are several such ways. Let me
point to what is suggested in many hymns of the Church: namely, fasting,
vigils, and prayer. I point out this method because in the effort to
apply these commandments many things emerge, and we are helped in our
spiritual life. By doing these things, we develop mourning, repentance,
love for God and our brothers, purity of the heart, and so on. This is
why they are very important means for our spiritual therapy.
Fasting aims at the exercise of both
soul and body so that they move together in the course to deification.
There is both a bodily fast and a spiritual fast. Bodily fast refers to
the quality and quantity of food, as determined by the Church. It is
scientifically proven that some meals are heavier and others are lighter
for the organism. Sometimes it is essential to fast very strictly
because in this way man’s nous is detached from material goods
and turns to God. Furthermore, obedience to fasts determined by the
Church helps man to submerge his will to the universal will and
experience of the Church. Combined with spiritual fasting, bodily
fasting introduces man to the atmosphere of cleansing, that is, the
struggle to cleanse the heart from the passions of self-indulgence,
avarice, boastfulness, and selfishness.
Vigils are an effort to subordinate the
body to the soul, in the sense that it does not exceed its functions and
its mission. The Church does not share the dualistic view of
Hellenistic philosophy, according to which there exist two separate
entities, a soul and a body. Vigils, along with all other physical
exercises, aim precisely at the unity of soul and body. In any case, a
lot of people stay awake for various reasons today. So it is worthy
doing this vigil for God, to stay awake for the glory of God. Of course,
in the world, vigil is not the all-night prayer of the monks in the
Monasteries, but an exercise against excessive sleep and excessive
physical comfort that breed countless evils to man’s organism. Vigil is
also closely related to the balance of the psychosomatic organism of man
and to watchfulness, which is essential in spiritual life.
Prayer is tied to fasting and vigils.
Fasting and vigils without prayer are useless. Indeed, if the Holy
Spirit does not come, all physical exercises are futile. Prayer is
either worshiping, with the entire community, or intelligent, made by
man’s reason, or noetic-of-the-heart, when the nous, in the Holy Spirit, enters man’s heart. Then the nous and the heart unite in the power and energy of the Holy Spirit, and this is called illumination of the nous.
In Church hymns, fasting, vigils, and
prayer are called celestial gifts. They assist man in his journey to
deification and sanctification. They lead the psychosomatic organism to
balance. In Adam there was such a balance before the Fall. The nous
was inspired by the Grace of God; it nurtured the body and then
radiated the Grace to all creation. After the Fall, however, the nous was darkened. The body is fed from the creation rather than from the nous,
and bodily passions show up. The soul is fed from the body, and this
creates psychological passions. With fasting, vigils, and prayer these
contrary-to-nature functions are corrected. This is why cleansing,
illumination, and deification are expressed through these gifts.
* * *
We need therapy. It is not sufficient to
be potential members of the Church, we must become actively so. The
Orthodox Church possesses a perfect therapeutic system, an excellent
therapeutic treatment, so long as we desire to become
persons-hypostases.
The whole series can be viewed here: The Church as a Therapeutic Center
This article was originally published by the Monastery of St. John, www.monasteryofstjohn.org, in The Divine Ascent Vol. 3/4.
This and other publications can be found
on their bookstore website, www.stjohnsbookstore.com.
This article was posted here with permission.
This and other publications can be found
on their bookstore website, www.stjohnsbookstore.com.
This article was posted here with permission.
Source-Pemptousia.com
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