What is sin
Sin is a human vice that can lead to subsequent unseemly actions. For example, lusting after your neighbor’s wife and admiring her beauty from afar is not a sin. But when thoughts about her become obsessive and a layman tries to fulfill his desire, this is already a mortal sin.
The church expression “mortal sin” does not mean the physical murder of a person, but an action as a result of which he is deprived of the kingdom of Heaven, the chance for his soul to settle in Paradise after death on earth. The recluse Saint Theophan defined mortal sin as an act, an action that takes away a person’s moral and Christian life.
What is the danger of greed?
Many crimes are caused by human greed: burglary, robbery, fraud and murder for personal gain are all the fruits of uncontrolled greed. Submitting to this passion, people commit arranged marriages, abandon their children and parents, and spoil relationships with their best friends. No wonder they say: “If you start a joint business with your best friend, you will lose both the first and the second.” We see what the thirst for enrichment can lead to from the dramatic episode of the New Testament, in which Judas Iscariot sold his teacher Jesus Christ for pieces of silver promised. When Judas, repenting, returned the 30 pieces of silver to the high priests and elders, he went and hanged himself. By the way, the price of Judas’ betrayal at the current exchange rate is approximately 75,000 rubles. This is how much the life of Jesus Christ was valued.
How to deal with sins
The devil was cast out to earth and did not calm down. His actions directed against man are the cause of the fall of people. Through temptation, flattery, and slander, evil spirits try to lead Christians astray from the right path, a righteous life.
It all starts with a small deviation from the commandments. Well, I ate a piece of meat during Lent, there’s nothing particularly terrible about it. Then he drank wine, they give him communion in church, only the doses are different. Gradually, the desire to eat and drink deliciously becomes a constant desire and need.
The same is true with other sins. Little by little, the servants of the Devil draw a person into their net; with temptations, flattery, and slander, they distract attention from God and faith in Him, plunging the body into carnal sin and killing the soul.
A Christian should go to confession regularly. Priests recommend taking with you a special list of sins. A believer is not able to remember everything; a list of all, even the smallest, sins will help him with this.
Only the Lord knows whether a person could resist temptation, control himself and be responsible for his actions. But during confession, a Christian must sincerely repent and make every effort not to sin again. But this applies to individual cases. For example, the actions of a mentally ill person.
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Gluttony is a sin that forces us to eat and drink only for pleasure. This passion leads to the fact that a person, as it were, ceases to be a rational being and becomes like cattle, not possessing the gift of speech and understanding. The teachers of the Church tell us that gluttony is a great sin. It forced Adam to taste the forbidden fruit, it also became one of the causes of the Flood, each time it distracted the Israelites from worshiping the true God and inclined them to serve idols, and so on.
Thus, by “giving free rein” to the belly, we harm not only our health, but also all our virtues, especially chastity. Gluttony ignites lust, since excess food contributes to this. Lust leads to a fall, which is why it is so necessary that a person be well armed against this passion. You cannot give the womb as much as it asks for, but only what is necessary to maintain strength.
Venerable John Cassian the Roman
Extremes, as the holy fathers say, are equally harmful on both sides - both excess of fasting and satiety of the belly. We know some who, not being overcome by gluttony, were overthrown by immeasurable fasting and fell into the same passion of gluttony due to weakness resulting from excessive fasting. Moreover, immoderate abstinence is more harmful than satiety, because from the latter, due to repentance, you can move on to correct action, but from the former you cannot. The general rule of moderation in abstinence is that everyone, in accordance with his strength, body condition and age, should eat as much food as is necessary to maintain the health of the body, and not as much as the desire for satiety requires.
The stomach should be given only what it needs to accept, and no more. After all, the Lord did not create man for food, but created food for man so that he would have the strength to live and work. Food is like medicine: if you drink as much as the doctor prescribed, there will only be benefit, but if you drink more, it will cause harm. Gluttony is the beginning of many sins, and the one who constantly fights with this sin and defeats it can dominate other sins. Therefore, all the saints who labored in the desert first of all forced themselves to overcome gluttony, knowing that by defeating this passion they would get rid of all others.
According to Grigory Dvoeslov, there are five types and ways in which gluttony tempts us. These are design, method, quality, quantity and situation (time). Time forces us to anticipate the next meal without benefit or necessity. Thus we eat much earlier than the proper hour. The amount of food forces us to eat and drink more than we should. Quality - look for dishes that taste delicious. The way we eat food tempts us to eat with passion, insatiably, greedily and predatorily. The idea is to cook food with imagination, so that it delights our palate.
Various passions are born through gluttony, which is why it is considered one of the seven deadly sins. Gluttony coarsens the mind, as stench rises from the stomach, clouding the mind, making a person lethargic and incapable of contemplation. By putting the rational part of the spirit to sleep, gluttony inflates passions, making a person a deceitful, talkative dreamer who speaks inappropriate and absurd speeches.
At the same time, the mind becomes darkened as if from wine, and in this situation it is no longer possible to restrain either feelings or language. But the worst thing is that the consequence of gluttony is uncleanness: the one who considers the stomach to be God sins a mortal sin, since his main goal in life is to eat and drink. Those driven by gluttony do not think about the Lord’s commandments, and there are those who, consciously getting drunk on wine, commit outrages and violence. In particular, such people force others to drink and feast with them, even on days of fasting. The tendency to gluttony in itself is not a mortal sin, unless you do it at risk to your health, to your detriment, or as a temptation to others.
However, high food costs affect the financial condition of the family. And it’s a sin if you see that your loved ones need the most necessary things, and at the same time you continue to enjoy food, reproaching your relatives and not having compassion for them. But even if gluttony were not considered a mortal sin and it did not interfere with our lives, it should still be avoided, since it is harmful to our body. Therefore we should hate this sin. After all, only foolish animals eat in order to accumulate fat and then be slaughtered. And people are created in the image and likeness of God to enjoy eternity and taste God in paradise.
If you keep a tight rein on the flesh, then this benefits the soul, since you acquire virtues.
Saint John of Kronstadt
Run such a way of life that you live only by animal impulses and desires, to sleep, eat, dress, walk, then drink, eat and walk again. This way of life finally kills the completely spiritual life of a person, making him an earthly and earthly creature; while a Christian should be heavenly even on Earth
And if you want to remain human, restrain your belly and guard yourself with all care so that you do not accidentally be overcome by even one type of gluttony.
If you were once tempted by the thought of taking food before the allotted time, you need to resist it in every possible way, following the example of the monk described in “Lavsaik”. When the demon encouraged the monk to eat in the morning, he said to himself: “Have patience, and eat at the third hour.” When the third hour arrived, he would say to himself: “Let’s do some handicrafts” or “Let’s read the psalms.” Then he slowly soaked the cracker in water and thus waited until the ninth hour. The monk found himself free from the sin of gluttony.
The second type of gluttony is the quality of food, that is, a person consciously seeks out attractive and tasty dishes. Here you also need to be very careful and eat food that does not give you pleasure: it does not pamper the body, but only maintains life in it. If simple food seems tasteless to you, then you need to eat only stale bread for some time, after which even simple, but fresh bread will seem like a delicacy to you. But first of all, you need to wait until the ninth hour (in modern times - three o'clock in the afternoon), when you are hungry enough. Only then will you be able to understand how delicious the simplest food can be.
The third type of gluttony is the amount of food. This happens when you eat more than your body needs. This type of gluttony should be guarded no less than other types of this sin, since it is very dangerous. The abundance of food and wine darkens the rational part of the soul, and you can easily lose yourself. You are merry at heart, rejoicing and singing, clapping your hands and jumping up and down, desecrating yourself with dirty talk. If you ate and drank enough, you wouldn't behave like this. Be careful, otherwise your heart will be burdened with hops, and in your intoxication you will not be able to avoid anger and possible disaster.
Venerable Abba Feona
Gluttony must be overcome not only for ourselves, so that it does not harm us with burdensome gluttony, and not only so that it does not inflame us with the fire of carnal lust, but so that it does not make us slaves of anger or rage, sadness and all other passions.
The fourth type of this sin is in the manner of eating. If you eat greedily and quickly swallow everything, then this is called nothing less than swinish outrage. Cattle eat this way, but not people. And when you eat, you should take care of yourself and carefully listen to the reading that is usual at meals. If there is no reading, you need to raise your thoughts to God and, thinking about His saving Passion, pray. In this case, the soul will be nourished along with the body.
The fifth and final type of gluttony is excessive concern about the quality of food, that is, the habit of choosing only good and varied things. You must hate this habit with all your soul as harmful to the soul and not be like those who, according to the expression of the Apostle Paul, have a god in their belly. These people serve the belly with the care that is only fitting in the service of the true God. The teachings of the Holy Fathers of the Church can help you free yourself from this passion.
But first of all, think how much hardship drunkenness and gluttony cause your stomach, how they depress your body. And what's so special about gluttony? What new can eating splendid dishes give us? After all, their pleasant taste lasts only when they are in your mouth. And after you swallow them, not only the sweetness will remain, but also the memory of tasting them. If you don’t believe it, then try asking yourself: what pleasantness and what taste do you feel from the foods and wines that you have eaten and drunk in your life? You probably won’t be able to remember, and it will feel as if you’ve never tried anything.
Pleasure passes quickly, so when a thought tempts you, think that everything has already passed. Do not fulfill the will of the flesh, because whether you ate choice dishes in the evening or limited yourself to bread and water, the next day there will be no difference. But in the first case you will have the sin of gluttony, but in the second you will not.
As for the harm and excesses resulting from the passion of gluttony, these are, first of all, unnecessary expenses associated with the “maintenance” of the womb, various diseases arising from drunkenness and overeating, as well as clouding of the mind. In such a state, a person is not capable of doing anything, neither spiritual nor physical, because he does not want anything. It is also worth thinking about the eternal hunger and thirst you will experience after death, which is clearly mentioned in the Gospel of Luke.
Think about what gluttony and pleasing the flesh brings you. After all, after death she will be good prey for worms. Think also about the Heavenly Meal, to which everyone is invited. But if you want to partake of this Meal, then be abstaining from food in your present temporary life. After all, even here in this world, if you are invited to dinner, you will not eat or drink beforehand, otherwise you will not want to eat where you were invited.
Venerable John Cassian the Roman
Gluttony is divided into three types: one type encourages eating before a certain hour; another loves only to be satiated with any kind of food; the third wants tasty food. Against this, a Christian must have threefold caution: wait for a certain time for eating; don't get fed up; be content with all the most modest food.
And lastly: remember the abstinence of the Savior, Who fasted for 40 days in the desert. Never forget the Passion of Jesus, but always remember them with great sorrow and oppression of the heart. Avoid dinner parties and feasts where a lot of food is served and it is difficult to maintain abstinence. There you will be overwhelmed by one of the festive dishes. Our forefathers also suffered this temptation: when they saw the beautiful fruit and were unable to restrain themselves, they committed a sin. And we, their descendants, are now paying in full along with them.
In order to learn abstinence, you need to remember three rules: first, when living with others, you need to eat with them and at the same time; second, you should not anticipate meal times unless absolutely necessary; third, you should not be late to the table, so as not to tempt others.
The same can be applied to the quality of food: if they prepare one dish for everyone, and one wants another, then this is not entirely good. The exception is a sick person to whom a doctor has prescribed a particular diet. But if you refuse a common dish of your own free will, then this is a sin. In addition, when abstaining, one cannot grumble or condemn others, because the virtue of abstinence must be accomplished in peace and joy of heart. There is no reward for anyone who fasts in order to exalt himself in the eyes of others, since the goal of any abstinence is to gain the glory of God. And those who strive for vanity and worldly glory will not be worthy of it. He rather inherits torment along with the secret eater.
Everyone should abstain according to his ability, especially from drinking wine. It is no secret that intoxication oppresses the rational part of the soul, and therefore becomes the cause of harm: damage to the body and soul. Those who thirst for salvation must beware of wine and never even drink it. And these are, first of all, women, young men, priests, judges and monks. Young people are easily led into temptation because their lust for the flesh is very strong. Wine provokes an impulse towards unbridled aspirations and disorder, as the Apostle Paul says in his Epistle to Titus.
Women should also avoid wine, as they do not have enough strength to resist the carnal desires fueled by wine. So, according to Valery Maxim, in Ancient Rome women never drank wine. Judges who care about the welfare of the people should also not drink wine and commit outrages. In the Proverbs of Solomon, kings are forbidden to drink wine so that they can make well-informed decisions. Clerics should not drink alcohol either, in order to read with reverence and perform services according to order, with the fear of God and tenderness, which those who are satiated will never be able to do.
According to the Holy Fathers, our flesh is a disorderly and daring enemy: the more we please it, the more cruelly it fights with us. Its commanders are feelings and lusts, its weapons are wines and various dishes, and the wounds that the soul receives are sins. The harm to the body is from diseases of the stomach, head and kidneys, and if you want to avoid them, fight them by abstinence. Temperance is the virtue that takes away strength and weapons from the flesh and can subordinate it itself to the rule of reason.
Saint Basil the Great
Learn to keep a tight rein on your womb: it alone does not give thanks for the benefits shown to it.
Just as drunkenness can develop into fornication, so abstinence is the guardian of chastity. Abstinence curbs the flesh, making a person the master of passions and the conqueror of the enemy that confuses us. Therefore, we must hate gluttony as the root cause of all sins. We should especially beware of secret eating, a vice with a serpentine nature that causes great harm to our soul. This sin is so disgusting to the Savior that He condemns a person only for it, about which much has been written in spiritual literature. For this one sin, a person will be tormented, and no other benefits will benefit him. Therefore, drunkenness and gluttony, and especially secret eating, must be hated with all your soul, so as not to inherit eternal torment with sinners.
Gluttony, which even Christians of high spiritual life indulge in, is often compared to an eagle. Although this bird soars in the sky, hiding from the faces of people, at the first demand of its belly it descends to the ground and feeds on carrion. Therefore, gluttony cannot be suppressed by any force, like other vices: it can only be limited by the power of the spirit. However, if conquered gluttony begins to flatter you with its humility, as if begging you to make it easier, to reduce the measure of abstinence and jealousy of severity, do not give up: its humility is only visible. Knowing that you have become calmer from bestial incitement of passions, do not think that the danger has passed, and do not return to your former intemperance, because conquered gluttony seems to say to itself: “I will return to my house from where I came” (Matthew 12:44 ).
Saint John Chrysostom
Just as a ship, loaded with more than it can contain, goes to the bottom under the weight of the cargo, so the soul and the nature of our body: taking food in quantities exceeding its strength... becomes overfilled and, unable to withstand the weight of the cargo, plunges into the sea death and destroys the swimmers, the helmsman, the navigator, the swimmers, and the cargo itself. As it happens with ships in such a state, so it is with those who are fed up: just as neither the calm of the sea, nor the skill of the helmsman, nor the multitude of shipmen, nor the proper equipment, nor the favorable season, nor anything else brings benefit to the ship thus overwhelmed, so and here: neither teaching, nor admonition, [nor the reproach of those present], nor instruction and advice, nor fear of the future, nor shame, nor anything else can save a soul thus overwhelmed.
And then the spirits (vices) that come from him, numbering seven, will be even more evil for you than the passion from which you got rid of, and very soon they will draw you into sins. Therefore, having conquered the passion of gluttony with the help of fasting and abstinence, do not leave your soul empty: virtues must settle in it. Carefully fill all the secret corners of your heart so that the spirit of gluttony, when it returns, does not find a place for itself. Otherwise, he will re-enter your soul, taking with him all seven sins, so that “the last will become worse than the first.” For there is nothing more vile and filthy than that soul which, boasting that it has already renounced this world, gives shelter to all mortal sins. As a result, she is subjected to such severe punishment as she was not subjected to before she acquired Christian dignity.
The fact is that the mentioned seven spirits are considered more evil than the spirit that came out, because the desire for the womb would not be so harmful if it did not entail stronger passions - such as fornication, anger, love of money, despondency, sadness, pride, vanity, which, without a doubt, are much more harmful and disastrous for the soul. And therefore, one who wants to achieve perfect purity through abstinence alone cannot achieve perfection. After all, abstinence is a bodily fast, after which, having pacified the flesh, one should enter into battle with other passions.
First of all, you need to suppress the sin of gluttony, but your mind must be sharpened not only by fasting, but also by reading, vigilance and heartfelt contrition about what you consider yourself defeated or deceived. Then, lamenting his vices and gaining the desire to become perfect, a person finally realizes that eating food is not allowed for our pleasure: it is only an inevitable need of the body. A person occupied with such thoughts is able to suppress the voluptuousness that intensifies from eating food and wine, and the furnace of his body, kindled by the devil, can be extinguished by heartfelt crying about sins. Subsequently, upon achieving true perfection, this flame will gradually be extinguished by the dew of God's grace abiding in our hearts.
Dejection and endless worry
Under the seventh number is a grave sin, despondency is an endless worry that can crush the strength of the soul. It brings the soul to exhaustion. It gives rise to inconstancy of body and mind, drowsiness, laziness, idleness, wandering, talkativeness and curiosity. Dejection is the helper of all evil. You shouldn’t make room in your heart for this bad feeling.
Only demons can bring despondency to the soul. They suggest that patience wears out in the long wait for God's mercy. However, love, abstinence and patience can resist demons. Only despondency for a Christian is a striking passion. Of all the seven passions, despondency cannot be abolished by any of the Christian virtues.
Anger
This mortal sin is a manifestation of the “irritable” part of the soul. God gave rational anger to man as a weapon; it is the power of the soul with which man resists evil. As a result of the Fall, this rational power is perverted and becomes the most terrible vice for the individual. Anger has many varieties. It has the appearance of a serpent that produces young that are more dangerous and poisonous than itself. These children are: envy, jealousy, rancor, rage or hatred and rancor. All these traits make a person and his loved ones unhappy. We combine this sin - anger - with other passions, in which case a wide variety of vices appear.
Anger with stinginess creates a negative attitude towards the poor and poor. The sinner looks at such a person as if he were an aggressor who is encroaching on his property. He will call them deceivers and idlers.
Anger combined with sadness gives rise to frustration and irritability, dissatisfaction with everything and everyone around.
Anger and despondency give rise to ardent hatred, contempt for life itself, often even aggressive atheism. This condition can often be a reason for committing suicide.
Anger combined with vanity can give rise to vindictiveness and envy. For such a sinner, the enemy will be the person who has surpassed or been ahead of him in some way. A person in sin is ready to use the most disgusting and base means to harm his “enemy”: slander, denunciation, caustic ridicule.
Pride combined with anger creates hatred towards humanity.
The poison of the human heart is envy
Envy means resistance to the creator, enmity against everything that God has given. There is no more destructive passion in the soul than envy. Damage to life and desecration of nature itself greatly eats away at the soul in much the same way as rust eats away at iron. Envy is one of the most insurmountable types of enmity. As a rule, an envious person is greatly annoyed by a good deed done to him.
The devil is the first destroyer of life , who gives envy as a weapon from the beginning of the world. From this arises the death of the soul. Such a person is characterized by alienation from God and deprivation of all the blessings of life, to the delight of the evil one , although he himself is struck by the same passion. It is necessary to beware of the envious person with special zeal. Envy that has taken possession of the soul can leave a person only after it has driven him to complete recklessness. Despite the fact that a spiritually ill person can lead a sober life, give alms and fast regularly, this will not protect him from crime; despite all his actions, he will still be envious.
An envious person will consider everyone around him to be his enemies, even those who have never offended him in any way. Envy originates from pride. A proud person always wants to rise above everyone else. It is very difficult for him to be around people who are equal to him, especially those who are better than him.
Lust or fornication
According to the dictionary, lust means sexual desire, rough and voluptuous. In Christianity, lust is “an unlawful passion, corruption of hearts, leading to evil and sin.” Lust and sin are closely related to each other, as stated in the letters of the apostles, which form part of the New Testament. Lust or, as this sin is also called, fornication is not equivalent to the word love. The latter implies a bright feeling directed at the object of one’s interest. The fundamental components of these feelings were and remain respect and the desire to selflessly do something nice for your partner. Love is not combined with selfishness, due to the fact that it is initially aimed at sacrifice.
A person who is subject to this sin cannot be concentrated on anything else. The sinner is in the grip of passion. He looks at women as if a lady is an object of passion and satisfaction of animal desires, and nothing more. Dirty thoughts, filling his consciousness and darkening his soul, clouds them.
A lustful person constantly remembers his animal desire and passions; these feelings do not leave him. Because of this, the sinner constantly wants those who do not care about him and who, in essence, do not need him, and if they do need him, then the sinners will chase him, looking for new pleasures, trampling and humiliating the feelings of another. This is due to the fact that lust and fornication are based only on sexual desire, which is not combined with respect and holiness of feelings.
Insatiable desire to have everything
Greed is one of the most common sins in the modern world. The Lord helped people acquire knowledge that through charity they can overcome the love of money. Otherwise, a person tries to show throughout his life that earthly wealth is valued much more highly. He is ready to exchange eternal life for momentary gain. To prevent evil, it is worth taking care of systematic donations. God saw that greed takes true piety out of the heart.
An immeasurable love of money tends to cool and harden hearts and discourages generosity. It also makes a person blind and deaf to the needs of those who suffer. Greed has a paralyzing effect on the soul of people. Their thoughts are increasingly filled with the desire to get rich. Ambition is often ingrained in a person's character. He becomes indifferent to the interests and needs of other people, since the passion for accumulating funds pacifies all noble motives in him. Over time, he becomes insensitive.
Pride, or “the sin of Lucifer”
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Pride is considered one of the most serious sins, as it originated from Satan himself. The history of this sin goes back to the creation of the angelic world. One of the highest angels and the most powerful, Dennitsa, did not want to be in obedience and love for the Lord. This Angel became extremely proud of his strength and power and wanted to become equal to God. Dennitsa carried away many Angels with her, which is why a war was unleashed in heaven. Archangel Michael, together with his Angels, fighting Satan, won victory over the evil army. Satan-Lucifer, like lightning, fell from the kingdom of Heaven into the underworld. Since then, hell, the underworld, has been the habitat of dark spirits, a place devoid of God's grace and light.
A person who is sinful of pride is the successor of Lucifer’s work on earth. Pride entails all other sins, even those that are not included in the list of the seven mortals.
Pride is excessive faith in oneself and one’s capabilities, which conflicts with the greatness of the Lord. A person in such sin boasts of his qualities, forgetting about the one who gave them to him. Simply put, pride is extremely inflated self-esteem, exaltation of one’s real qualities and imaginary good traits. This is inflated self-esteem. In such cases, a person believes that he is better than he really is, and better than all other people. This leads to arrogance and arrogance. This is a biased assessment, selfishness, which leads to making terrible mistakes in life. This is self-praise, blind self-worship. A component of pride is also hostility towards others.
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One of the effective ways to overcome pride is to serve society, the Lord and family. By giving oneself to others, a person can change.
Pride is the source of negative thoughts and emotions. These things have a detrimental effect on a person’s psychological state and behavior. Too much self-importance gives rise to aggression towards the world around us.
