An Orthodox Christian conscience is created by the
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ acting within us. It is difficult to form this
conscience. But once a Christian acquires it, an alarm is sounded in his heart
and mind whenever he comes close to improper actions, lack of charity toward
others, false ideas, and deviations from the holy traditions of Orthodoxy.
Here are the ways
in which we can cooperate with God’s grace and form this conscience within
ourselves:
1. We are to have
much love for our Saviour, with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. We
are not to divide our love between God and the world. For a beginner this means
that when we pray we should struggle mightily to concentrate and avoid
distractions: we are to be wholly in God. Furthermore, as St. John of Kronstadt
teaches:
“Love for God
begins to manifest itself, and to act in us, when we begin to love our neighbor
as ourselves, and not to spare ourselves or anything belonging to us for him,
as he is the image of God: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath
seen, how can he love God Whom he hath not seen? (1 John 4:20).”
St. John says that
this is the only love which is real, and lasting:
“The purer the
heart becomes, the larger it becomes; consequently it is able to find room for
more and more loved ones; the more sinful it is, the more it contracts;
consequently it is able to find room for fewer and fewer loved ones–it is
limited by a false love; self-love.”
2. We must pray
often, both at church and at home. St. Gregory of Sinai says that the great
gift which God gives us in Holy Baptism is buried by us, just as a treasure is
buried in the ground – “and common sense and gratitude demand that we should take
good care to unearth this treasure and bring it to light.” One of the most
important ways to do this is by acquiring the habit of prayer. Blessed Theophan
the Recluse explains further:
“Those who only
hear about spiritual meditation and prayer and have no direct knowledge
[experience] of it are like men blind from birth, who hear about the sunshine
without ever knowing what it really is. Through this ignorance they lose many
spiritual blessings, and are slow in arriving at the virtues which make for the
fulfillment of God’s good pleasure.”
3. We must
carefully read and study Holy Scripture. Although many saints had the habit of
reading through the entire Psalter and New Testament every week, we should at
least read the Gospel and Epistle appointed in the Church Calendar for each
day. According to St. Seraphim of Sarov, “It is very profitable ‘to occupy
oneself: with the reading of the word of God in solitude, and to read the whole
Bible intelligently…in order that the whole mind of the reader might be
plunged into the truths of Holy Scripture, and that from this he might receive
warmth.”
4. Attendance at
Divine Services and frequent reception of Holy Communion is vital to the
development of an Orthodox conscience. Of this, St. John of Kronstadt writes:
“The Divine Liturgy
is truly a heavenly service on earth, in which God Himself, in a particular,
immediate, and most close manner is present and dwells with men…. There is on
earth nothing higher, greater, more holy, than the Liturgy; nothing more
solemn, nothing more life-giving.”
St. Tikhon of
Zadonsk observed: “The Christians of old frequently received communion as the
cause and food of immortality, wherefore even up to our own time the Holy
Church daily exhorts us to ‘draw near with fear of God and with faith’. At the
present day people have neither, as the facts abundantly prove; only once a
year, and even then almost under compulsion, do they approach the Table of
Immortality …. Men hasten joyfully to banquets, but to this spiritual and most
Sacred Table to which Christ invites them they come under compulsion.”
5. We should read
the writings of the Holy Fathers of the Church and the Lives of the Saints.
Blessed Theophan the Recluse explained this to one of his spiritual children in
the following way:
“The spiritual life
is a special world into which the wisdom of men cannot penetrate… This is a
subject which embraces much and is lofty and sweet to the heart…. If you
seriously desire to enter onto this path, then you won’t have time to turn to
the study of other subjects… for human philosophizing cannot even be compared
with spiritual wisdom.”
Therefore, if we
wish to learn ways that are pleasing to God, it stands to reason that we will
set aside time in order to study the writings and lives of those who have drawn
close to Him while still in this life, for according to St. John of Kronstadt
there are rich and poor in the spiritual world just as there are in worldly
society:
“As the poor ask
charity of the rich, and cannot live without help·from them, so also in the
spiritual order the poor must have recourse to-the rich. We are the spiritually
poor, whilst the saints, and those who shine even in this present life by their
faith and piety, are the spiritually rich. It is to them that we needy ones
must have recourse.”
6. We are to
practice the presence of God in our daily life. St. John of Kronstadt explains
it in this way:
“Believe that God
sees you as undoubtedly as you believe that anyone standing face to face with
you sees you, only with this difference, that the Heavenly Father sees
everything that is in you, everything that you are …. God is nearer to us than
any man at any time. Therefore we must always set God before us, at our right
hand, and there behold Him; we must be strong, and in order not to sin we must so
place ourselves that nothing can thrust God from our thoughts and hearts, that
nothing can hide Him from us, that nothing may deprive us of our beloved Lord,
but that we may every hour, every minute, belong to Him, and be perpetually
with Him, as He Himself is perpetually with us, as He constantly cares for us
and guards us”.
7. We should often,
if not daily, examine our souls and repent of the sins we find there. St. Mark
the Ascetic writes: “The conscience is nature’s book. He who applies what he
reads there experiences God’s help.” Thus, Elder Macarius of Optina wrote in a
letter of spiritual direction:
“The Lord calls to
Him all sinners; He opens His arms wide, even to the worst among them. Gladly
He takes them in His arms, if only they will come. But they have got to make
the effort of coming. They must seek Him, go to Him. In other words, they must
repent. It is not He that rejects those who do not repent. He still longs for
them, and calls them. But they refuse to hear His call. They choose to wander
away, in some other direction.” Therefore, St. John of Kronstadt explains: “Conscience in men is nothing else but the
voice of the omnipresent God moving in the heart–the Lord knows all …. Watch
your heart throughout your life; examine it, listen to it, and see what
prevents it from uniting itself with the Lord. Let this be your supreme and
constant study …. Examine yourself more often; see where the eyes of your heart
are looking.”
And then, as
Blessed Theophan the Recluse counsels:
“Repent, and turn
to the Lord, admit your sins, weep for them with heartfelt contrition, and
confess them before your spiritual father.” St. Hesychios the Priest tells us
that according to St. Basil the Great, “a great help towards not sinning and
not committing daily the same faults is for us to review in our conscience at
the end of each day what we have done wrong and what we have done right. Job
did this with regard to both himself and to his children [cf. Job 1:5], These
daily reckonings illumine a man’s hour-by-hour behaviour.”
8. Struggle
mightily to avoid judging others. God alone has the right to judge, for as St.
Tikhon of Zadonsk says:
“Do not judge
others, for you cannot know what is inside the other man. Do not condemn, for
he may still rise whilst you may fall. Be-ware of even talking about others,
lest you start judging them. Enquiring into other people’s sin is a curiosity
hateful to God and man…because, by judging, man usurps the powers of the only
judge, Christ …. Above all, when judging another we cannot know whether
perchance he has not already repented and been forgiven by God.”
If we are willing
to arrange our lives in the above manner, resolving not to withdraw from this
holy labor even if it means suffering and also death, then, from the very moment
that we begin, grace starts to flow into us, according to Blessed Theophan the
Recluse:
“The help of God is
always ready and always near, but is only given to those who seek and work.”
By Hieroschemamonk Ambrose Young
Source: http://www.pravmir.com/how-to-form-an-orthodox-conscience/
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