FEBRUARY AND MARCH

2008 Lenten Study at the Rectory

Let Our Passions be for Christ:
The passions of the soul adorned by grace.

 D.G. Phillips

INTRODUCTION

Also available as a Word Document.

1. What are the passions?

When we speak today of a person who is passionate, we normally think of that as a virtue in their character.  It suggests that they have a lot of desire motivating, moving them.  But we quickly realize that it could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on what the person is passionate about.  If the person is passionate about gambling, or stealing things or collecting automatic weapons, we think maybe there is a problem with his soul!  But it is not the strong desire we object to, but where he has chosen to direct his desire.  As Christians, we are not opposed to desire, to being passionate, but we seek the conversion of our desire.  Think of St. Paul before and after his conversion – it was the same zeal directed before to the destruction of the Church that was afterwards directed to the building up of the Church in Christ.

From the best of human longings – such as friendship or the desire for knowledge – to the most mundane – the desire for a bag of chips – behind every desire is, ultimately, a desire for God.[1] 

As the hart desireth the water-brooks, so longeth my soul after thee, O God.

We reach out, because we are not at peace as we are.  We seek to be satisfied, trusting that in obtaining the object of our desire we will find peace, contentment, and be more than we are now.  And we do find some peace in the satisfaction of desire in earthly ways, yet if we stop there, our desire will have failed to reach its ultimate end – God.

What does desire have to do with “the passions”?

Desire is expressed in the soul causing us to think and act.  When we keep expressing our desire in the same direction, we form a habit in the soul.  This is what a passion is.  It could be good or bad, healthy or destructive.  The monastic tradition in the Church began with an intense scrutiny of the passions of the soul to understand them and to categorize them.  You’ve no doubt heard of the seven deadly sins - pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony, lust.  This a list of all the habits or passions of the soul that can destroy us.   Every destructive passion can be described or gathered up under one of these headings – it is a kind of complete landscape of disordered desire.  We’ll be following a slightly different categorization in our talks, but I’ll explain that later. 

Every time we allow our desire to express itself in one of these destructive passions, our will is weakened, making us less able not to express our desire in these ways in future.  You could say that we form ruts that provide an easy route for our desire to follow next time.  We become bound up, chained by that habit, enslaved.  Our desire can no longer reach out towards its true end and we are never satisfied.

2. What is it to experience the passions?

The word “passion” comes from the word “to suffer”.  A passion may suddenly come upon us and we can feel overwhelmed as if by forces beyond ourselves.  Some have attributed the passions to various heavenly powers.  But how desire expresses itself in our soul is really our own choice, it is desire taking once again a well worn path. 

Jesus assures us that the problem with humanity is not some external infection, but the misdirection of the desire of our hearts, it is an internal problem: 

That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man.  For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man. [Mark 7:20-23]  (You can see most of the 7 passions in this list.)

It is the experience of an unreflective humanity, or of immature Christians to be blind as to which passion is driving them at any time.  The passions become, in a sense, hidden unknown powers in their souls, and they follow them as if asleep.  Remember St. Paul says, wake up! [see for e.g. Rom 13:11f; 1 Cor 15:34; Eph 5:14; 1 Thess 5:4].  Or by grace we may come to recognize the disordered passions but seem as helpless bystanders within ourselves watching with horror at what is going on but unable not to be led by them.  St. Paul describes this situation:  the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do…Oh wretched man that I am, who will save me from this body of death? [Rom 7]

We experience only one passion at any time.  Yet our desire can move towards another passion.  It has long been recognized that the passions are linked to one another, and this is why I have ordered the various passions in the coming talks as I have, according to an ancient pattern.  As an example – remember how Cain envied his brother Abel, then his desire turned to wrath and he slew Abel in the field.  The ordering of the passions in this way takes into account the insights of the Greek philosophers about the soul and how the passions relate to the rational, irascible and appetitive aspects of the soul. 

I think we are intended to read the psalms as describing inner states of the soul.  When we read of the imagery of flood and waves and storms, we can think of the state of confusion caused by the passions:

Save me, O God; for the waters are come in, even unto my soul.

I stick fast in the deep mire, where no ground is:

I am come into deep waters, so that the floods run over me.  [69:1-2]

We all know the experience of the passions as soon as we try to go in a room by ourselves and try to be quiet.  When we close our eyes we discover a commotion inside – what will I cook for supper? or we’re quickly distracted by thinking how we can fulfill some earthly ambition, or ruminate about some injustice against us etc.  It is hard to sit still, the passions distract us from prayer, that is, from directing our desire to God.

To be mired in the passions is to be a part of the fallen human race.  As Christians, we have all by grace been shown something of this disorderliness of our souls inwardly, and seen how it becomes expressed outwardly.  It has led us to fall on our knees and pray.  To St. Paul’s expression of horror at knowing sin is at work in him but not being able to stop it – who will save me from this body of death? –  he answers, I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

3. Our Salvation – Transcending and Transforming the Passions

Our spiritual growth or ascent to God involves being lifted up out of this experience of being out of control, being in bondage to the passions, so that we might come to a place of freedom, a place of peace and calm.

Think of the miracle of Christ stilling the stormy waters of the sea, or of when he lifted Peter who was sinking under the waves, so that he might walk on the water.  Surely these were signs pointing to how Christ can lift our souls above the turmoil, above the roar of the passions.  From another psalm…

The floods have lift up, O Lord, the floods have lift up their voice: the floods lift up their waves.  Mightier than the roar of many waters, mightier than the breakers of the sea, the Lord, who dwelleth on high, is mighty. [93:4-5]

God has power to deliver us not only from the guilt of sins committed but from the disposition of our souls towards sin, that is, we can be delivered by grace from destructive passions.  We are delivered from disordered passions by transcending them and by their transformation.

First, lets look at our transcendence of the passions.

Scripture speaks of our salvation sometimes as entering into God’s rest, and sometimes as the marriage union of our souls with God.

The first of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion states, “There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions.”  The God to whom we are to be joined is without passions.

God is perfect, so he would not change to become more perfect.  He is the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. [James 1:17]  Though we, God’s creatures, have a body, parts, and passions, yet, there is also another state of being that is possible for us in Christ.  We can participate in the divine life, which is a state of passionlessness, or apatheia.  Today when we think of a person who is “apathetic”, we normally think of someone who doesn’t care – but that is not what the tradition is getting at when it speaks of the state of passionlessness or apatheia.[2]  Apatheia, is a state of being fully alert, fully in love, yet at rest, unmoved – like God.  It is the Sabbath rest promised to us by God, that we can participate in momentarily in this life, but will know fully in the life to come.  It is contemplation; it is the life of heaven; it is the loving beholding of God and of God’s creation in love – our desire finding its mark.  It is probably a state we know best in this life (all too briefly) in Holy Communion and in moments following devout prayer when we have entered into silence.

It is not the vocation of all to be contemplatives, but all of us should labour to enter into God’s rest [Heb 4:11].  We need to know what it means to go in so that we may, as Jesus tells us, go in and out and find pasture [John 10:9; Matt 23:13].  The contemplative life becomes possible for us (the going in) and the active life is transformed (the going out).

What about the transformation of the passions when we return to the active life?

Jesus experienced human passions.  He sometimes felt angry, he hungered and thirsted, he loved particular individuals, in the garden he felt “sorrowful, even unto death”, he felt forsaken on the Cross, but he was without sin.  And by experiencing these passions Jesus reveals to us he is fully human – it is his human nature that experienced passions, not his divine nature, which is “without body, parts or passions.”  So it is not the destruction of the passions, but their right ordering that we must seek, an ordering that is possible in Christ.

This transformation of our passions comes about by grace through self reflection, through prayer (which is the directing of our desire to God) and in forming new habits – Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. 

So as human beings, united to God through Christ, we have opportunity to participate in the life of God in contemplation in a state of passionlessness (St. Paul says, labour to enter into that rest), and in our active life it is possible to live with the passions but transformed by grace (St. Paul says elsewhere, be angry but do not sin).  In the weeks to come, we will consider the virtue of each of these passions, or what these passions look like transformed by grace.

4. Our task in these Lenten talks.

Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is within us.  The spiritual journey requires an inward turn to seek God – who is within us and above us.  The first thing we are confronted with when we turn inward is our passions. 

If we don’t understand our destructive passions, we might be afraid to face them, to admit that it is they that are motivating us.  We might avoid the inward turn altogether.  But it is disordered passions that are the obstacle to growth in the Spirit. 

These disordered passions were described in the Middle Ages as beasts, perhaps in part derived from images in Scripture – think of the covetous priest described as a ravenous wolf who eats the sheep.  Dante uses this imagery of beasts in the Divine Comedy – at the beginning he finds himself lost in a wood, and then is confronted by three beasts – a leopard, a lion, and a wolf – and he is terrified, paralyzed from continuing his inward journey until the gracious intercession of Beatrice who gives him courage.  It takes courage to look inwardly.  Jesus is giving us courage by his presence in Holy Communion, and now in our hearts, assuring us that his property is always to have mercy; he says to us who fear condemnation, Fear not. [Luke 5]

This Lent let’s look inwardly to see more clearly these beasts within us.  Let’s name them and by grace subdue them so that our desire that is now bound up and wasted or is destroying us might instead direct us to our true end – the Sabbath rest, the life of heaven, union with God.  And then we can participate in the active life in a way that gives glory to God and manifests our love more perfectly towards our neighbours.   

[Close with the children’s story.]

Where the Wild Things Are 

By Maurice Sendak

[with comments showing how it relates to our Lenten study]

The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind

and another                             

[this is our state when we are carried away by our passions]

his mother called him “WILD THING!”

and Max said “I’LL EAT YOU UP!”

so he was sent to bed without eating anything.   

[the Church, our Mother, tells us to fast in Lent, and take time to be quiet]

That very night in Max’s room a forest grew

and grew—

and grew until his ceiling hung with vines

and the walls became the world all around       [when we take that inward turn we see a jungle]

and an ocean tumbled by with a private boat for Max

and he sailed off through night and day

and in and out of weeks

and almost over a year

to where the wild things are.

And when he came to the place where the wild things are           

they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth

and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws      

[we are confronted by or confront our passions]

till Max said “BE STILL!”

and tamed them with the magic trick

of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once   [this is what we will do in these talks]

and they were frightened and called him the most wild thing of all

and made him king of all wild things.                                 [the “flesh” subdued to the Spirit]

“And now,” cried Max, “let the wild rumpus start!”

[many pictures]

“Now stop!” Max said and sent the wild things off to bed without their supper.  And Max the king of all wild things was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all.

                                    [even the active life guided by the Spirit is not enough, we desire God]

Then all around from far away across the world he smelled good things to eat

So he gave up being king of where the wild things are.

But the wild things cried, “Oh please don’t go—

we’ll eat you up—we love you so!”

And Max said, “No!”                                           [the passions don’t give in without a fight!]

The wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible  claws

and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws

but Max stepped into his private boat and waved good-bye

and sailed back over a year

and in and out of weeks

amd through a day

and into the night of his very own room

where he found his supper waiting for him        [the end of our Lenten fast is the Easter feast]

    [we are to be recollected and then can receive and give love]

and it was still hot.

X