For the Beginning of Great LentFREEDOM FROM SIN* - Overcoming the Earthly GravityIn Memory of Elder Pavlos of Sinai († March 1, 2020)

For the Beginning of Great Lent

FREEDOM FROM SIN* - Overcoming the Earthly Gravity

In Memory of Elder Pavlos of Sinai († March 1, 2020)

by Sister Joanna 

- As St. Catherine’s elected Dikaios, Geronta Pavlos was responsible for the spiritual life of the monastery for four decades. He represented the Archbishop during his frequent unavoidable absences, and oversaw the daily worship services and large monastery garden. The hesychast geronta, devoted to ceaseless “prayer of the heart,” also responded to the spiritual needs of countless Orthodox pilgrims, both within the monastery and throughout Greece and Cyprus. His insightful spiritual guidance is in constant demand. - - - - - - - - - -

A single oil lamp lights the Byzantine icon of the Panagia of the Life-Giving Spring, the only flicker of light in the most ancient chapel of St. Catherine’s Monastery. The quiet glow on the icon invites one to become a privileged guest in the secret world of the saints, there, to exchange illness for health, confusion for light, burdens for freedom.

One other guest waits to share in the mystery, the monastic confessor, sitting unobtrusively off to the side, listening for an inner perception that will provide the few words of life that are all one needs. The icon encourages heartfelt confidence, but what truths lead beyond the surface of everyday existence to the place where solutions are transfiguring not temporary, therapeutic not palliative?

- Geronta, our Lord says, “The truth shall set you free.”

“The truth of the Gospel,” the confessor, St. Catherine’s Father Pavlos, responds. “Freedom is a basic element of the Orthodox faith and a major one, such as love. God gave this freedom. And God Himself doesn’t impinge on it. Therefore, if you or I don’t want to approach God, He doesn’t take us by force. He leaves us to do as we want. This is a major point. On the other hand, in the opposite case of the evil one, the devil, if you give him power he doesn’t depart from within you. He keeps hold of you. He doesn’t respect your freedom at all.

To us, freedom chiefly means for someone to become freed from the passions, from sin. Because if someone lives in an environment that has full freedom, such as America, where real freedom exists, but he is enslaved by the passions in sin, that person is not really free, he is a slave, of the passions. In our church, there is great emphasis on the need for us to become freed from the passions. It is the greatest servitude, the heaviest servitude, to be a slave of the passions. If we as persons shall become freed from the passions, from sin, then we will live in true freedom, in whatever environment we find our selves.

- What is the difference between a passion and a sin?

It’s the same thing, but the passion is something that has greater hold on you in terms of time. Sin is something we do once, but the passion is a condition that has become permanent within us.

- A sin we do many times?

Yes, it continues ... .

- In America, it is usual to use the word “passion” to praise someone; we say someone has a “passion for music,” for instance. We consider it a good thing to have a passion. We even use this method of speech to identify ourselves “his passion is cooking.”

Yes, in Greece too that’s common. It is something excessive, one loves something to extreme.

- Then how is a good passion distinguished from a bad one?

The sinful passion is something that transgresses the commandment of God. And the other isn’t right. For instance, to have a passion for music – it isn’t a transgression of the law of God, but it isn’t good.

- Why?

The extreme? When one eats to the extreme ... he will get sick! (laughingly)

- Where then should our excessive love be?

Our love is where God wishes it. Does God want a particular thing? That which God wishes, that is where we must go to extremes, with much love.

- Is it possible that we often give our love to other things as a surrogate for spiritual life, to fill the void within us because we don’t love God as we should?

Yes, yes, many times, yes. 

- We have a lot of love in America for pets, for instance.

Yes. Or a mother can love her child excessively, with passion– that is damaging. Not only does it not help the child, it can hurt him when love is pathologic.

- Why don’t we give our love to God as we should? What makes us prefer to give it elsewhere?

Because – what did you say previously? – other things have taken the place that God should occupy. Those things are easier. Also, they please the emotions, or they please physically. Whereas, doing the will of God many times requires toil on our part, and pain, don’t you see?

- Maybe we think we are not able to know God, or are not worthy.

No, that’s not it. The point is that our love for God is expressed with our keeping His commandments. And often those commandments seem heavy to us. Whereas, the other is easy, it’s not heavy.

- Is it really a heavy thing for us to keep the commandments of God?

Many times, isn’t it?

- But doesn’t Christ say, “My yoke is easy and My burden light”?

It becomes light with the Grace of God, when a person has the will and decides to do that which God wills, saying, “Whether it’s easy or difficult I will do it” – then it becomes easy.

The airplane, in order to overcome the earth’s gravity, in the beginning, at take-off, puts out all its power in order to lift off the ground. And then, once it achieves altitude, it goes more easily, you see? It’s the same thing for a person. In order to escape the pull which sin has, to put off the weight which is pressing him down requires strength, much strength, and decision and will. It’s not an easy thing. ...

*From “The Hellenic Voice”, Part I FREEDOM FROM SIN