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resisting the seven deadly sins
Can anyone tell me how I can resist the seven deadly sins and the temptation of Satan ?
Pray for me the chief sinner,
George
Pray for me the chief sinner,
George
Comments
Fast and pray
Read the Bible
Memorise passages from the Scriptures, especially the psalms
Attend the services of the Church
Pray the Jesus Prayer or "O God make speed to save me, O Lord make haste to help me"
Speak to your spiritual father
Seek to acquire the Holy Spirit. Do nothing to grieve the Spirit and when you do, repent and confess it immediately to God asking for grace to walk in holiness.
Seek to fall in love with God so that you want nothing more than to always be with God.
Let your weakness teach you humility, but do not despair, God is greater than your sin
Pray for others, write a list of your family and friends and colleagues and pray for them, there are more troubles in the world than just your own.
Create good habits in your life, pray the Agpeya in the morning, at noon, and in the evening.
If you feel yourself tempted, run to the Gospels and read a chapter. Then another until the temptation passes.
Do not go into any situations where you will be likely to sin - This is to tempt God. There are enough difficult situations in our ordinary daily lives without putting ourselves in danger.
Be aware that the worst sins are not the obvious ones, they are the insiduous ones of anger, pride, jealousy, selfishness etc. It can be easy with God's help to stop doing the gross sins, but pride will kill our spiritual growth faster than any fall into human weakness. All of these inner sins say 'I am the most important person in the world'. Remember your sin and use it to teach you a grateful humility - do not despair.
Your desire to be healed and to resist sin is already a mark of God's grace at work in you.
Preserve that spark. Fan it into flame. This is the purpose of our Christian lives, and of all the means of growth which the Church gives.
God bless you
Father Peter
Can anyone tell me how I can resist the seven deadly sins and the temptation of Satan ?
Pray for me the chief sinner,
George
From what I understand, the Seven Cardinal Sins are a Catholic idea and we believe all sins are deadly because they all mean you missed the mark, not just those seven.
Please correct me if I am wrong.
Pray for me.
[quote author=geomike15 link=topic=7720.msg100900#msg100900 date=1236736427]
Can anyone tell me how I can resist the seven deadly sins and the temptation of Satan ?
Pray for me the chief sinner,
George
From what I understand, the Seven Cardinal Sins are a Catholic idea and we believe all sins are deadly because they all mean you missed the mark, not just those seven.
Please correct me if I am wrong.
Pray for me.
You got it, Seven deadly sins refers to a catholic belief, but all sins to us are deadly and all sin leads to death.
In the Conferences of St John Cassian, for instance, he writes chapters about the Eight Principal Faults, and then describes from the teachings of the Fathers whom he had met how they might be overcome. Now of course this is not the same as categorising sins as deadly and not deadly. But it does seem that the Fathers wish us to understand that some sins cause greater harm than others.
Those principal faults which St John describes are:
Gluttony
Lust
Covetousness
Anger
Dejection
Accidie
Vainglory
Pride
The text can be read here ...
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf211.pdf
What is interesting is that most of these major sins are internal rather than external. And yet we tend to find it easier to be judgemental about others based on those external faults which we see.
St John Cassian addressed his book to the Pope of Rome of his time, and of course he established a monastery on the Egyptian model in Southern France, so I would suggest that the teaching of deadly sins, though it became distorted in later Roman Catholic teaching, actually derives from the healthy spiritual aproach of our own fathers. I would highly recommend the reading of the writings of St John Cassian. They are remarkable testimonies of the teaching of many great monastic fathers of the Desert, and it is interesting and exciting to read his description of the lives of the monks and see how similar it is to our own times.
Here he describes the monastic hood, which is still worn after 1800 years.
"There are some things besides in the dress of the Egyptians which concern not the care of the body so much as the regulation of the character, that the observance of simplicity and innocence may be preserved by the very character of the clothing. For they constantly use both by day and by night very small hoods coming down to the end of the neck and shoulders, which only cover the head, in order that they may constantly be moved to preserve the simplicity and innocence of little children by imitating their actual dress. And these men have returned to childhood in Christ and sing at all hours with heart and soul: “Lord, my heart is not exalted nor are mine eyes lofty. Neither have I walked in great matters nor in wonderful things above me. If I was not humbly minded, but exalted my soul: as a child that is weaned is towards his mother.”
I do encourage all of us to read St John's writings about the Eight Principal Faults, they are words of wisdom coming straight from the Desert.
In Christ
Father Peter