Forgiveness, by deed- Metropolitan of Strumica Nahum
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In the reading of today’s gospel, I noticed that the God-Man Christ teaches us how to liberate ourselves from the three main types of passions:
– From vainglory – by forgiveness and asking for forgiveness;
– From love of pleasures – by fasting; and,
– From covetousness – by accumulating riches in heaven and not on earth. (see Matthew 6: 14–21).
However, the Church emphasises the struggle of forgiveness by creating both a full of grace and psychological atmosphere for forgiveness on this very day before the beginning of the Great Lent; Why?
The mystery of the Cross of Christ consists in forgiveness. He who, in the hope of participating in the Cross of Christ, wishes to participate in the great Mystery of Christ’s Resurrection – he forgives. And vice versa … If we do not forgive our neighbour or our enemy – it matters not which one, then we are out of the Eucharistic and prayerful communion with God. And if we are outside of communion with God, how can the process of our purification take place at all – the process which we especially expect to intensify in the Great Lent?
If we do not begin to liberate ourselves of the passion of vainglory through forgiveness and asking for forgiveness, it is futile to adopt an ascetic approach against the passions of love of pleasures and covetousness. The devil is not directly covetous, nor does he love pleasures, but he is proud and vainglorious and that was enough for him to fall away from God. And only the captivity of the love of glory (vainglory), of the great idea of oneself, without other passions, is enough to demonize a person.
Let us not elaborate too much, things are very simple: The one who forgives all who have transgressed against him, even his greatest enemies, has the grace of God in him; and the one who will not forgive even one man, even if that one man was his greatest enemy, has a demon in him.
Forgiveness is a testimony of the presence of the grace of God, and conversely the act of not forgiving is a testimony of the captivity by the demon. The same goes about asking for forgiveness.
Those who are at the second stage of spiritual development, enlightenment of the mind, even if they want to not forgive someone, they cannot but forgive. It would mean an immediate closing of the heart for the prayer of the mind in the heart. Those who are at the first stage, the purification of the heart from passions, engage in a fight with(in) themselves ascetically by taking action to forgive and ask for forgiveness …
I talk of real forgiveness, not about fantasy. Real forgiveness occurs when we pray for the one who has hurt or wronged us; (or, as it is often the case, because of a high opinion of ourselves, we think that he has wronged us); when we do not gossip, judge and condemn the one who has hurt us; and when we help him by deed, when we do him good and when in every possible way we are looking for the ways to forgive each other and make peace with the one who has hurt or wronged us.
This is the task of all those who asceticise (endeavour, struggle) in obedience, at the stage of purifying their hearts from passions. Their struggle is still ascetic because with the reason and the faith they realise that they should forgive and force themselves to forgive, even though they do not feel like that at that particular moment. They also ask for forgiveness ascetically.
This is also the task of those who are at the level of enlightenment, as most of the time they do not imagine that someone is attacking and hurting them, but the attack, in reality, happens from outside, through people, and for no reason. Within those who have the gift of the prayer of the mind in the heart, as you know, the demon has no room to attack from within, because their heart is sufficiently purified of the passions, both quantitatively and qualitatively. God allows them to be attacked from the outside so that they can be perfected in two directions:
- In effectual love for their enemies, that is, for their neighbours, by doing good, above all, prayerfully; and,
- In effectual love for the Lord, not allowing the mind, because of troubled (hurt) vanity to break its communion with Him in the heart, a communion that takes place through the prayer of the mind in the heart.
Without effective love for the enemies, there is no transition from the enlightenment of the mind to deification.
And these are the deeds of those who are part of the world, and who call themselves “Christians”, even though they do not struggle in the proper manner in the process of asceticism: they are not in real obedience to a spiritual father, but being unprepared they guide themselves in the spiritual life; they gossip, they justify themselves, accuse, judge and condemn the one who they think has hurt or wronged them; and, if all this is perceived as not enough by them, they invent great lies and spread them publicly only to harm them (the “wrongdoers”), and to justify themselves. They forget, being blinded by vengeance or self-interest, that the bigger the lie, the easier to verify if it is true, and the more they, themselves, instead of being credible, in the eyes of those before whom they lied, appear very suspicious. Such people never ask for forgiveness.
I know that it takes time to realise all this, but man has to work on himself and truly repent by deed, and not get even more entangled in sin. He who still justifies himself and condemns others, cannot truly forgive and ask for forgiveness. For those who are devoted to God, this way of life means a terrible waste of time, great unfruitfulness, and failure.
But how can forgiveness and asking for forgiveness become our conscious struggle, and not just a struggle we do with faith and obedience to the Gospel? It becomes a conscious struggle when we realise that the criterion of our guilt is the God-Man Christ and God’s justice, and not man and human justice.
What does that mean in practice? When someone hurts us, we do not think at that moment about the just or unjust nature of his action, but our attention is to be focused on whether our thoughts, words, and deeds at that moment are in accordance with Christ’s or not !? Does the same thing happen in my mind and heart as in the mind and heart of Christ in such a case? Do I act the same as Christ does towards those who hurt Him? Most certainly not! In all certainty we are infinitely far from that! Well, this is where our guilt comes from, and even the guilt of those who are at the level of deification, and not from the harms caused to us by others, be they justified or unjustified. Now, here is where the inexhaustible source of our repentance lies. Therefore, never, not even in a single case do we have an excuse when we do not ask for forgiveness and when we do not give forgiveness!
Forgiveness does not mean naivety. It is one thing that we should forgive everyone from the bottom of our hearts, no matter how much they have trespassed against us, and, it is another thing as to what our attitude towards that person should be, as part of the sum of all our responsibilities and other affairs. The second one is more a matter of discernment and obedience.
And the words of the Gospel, “If you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father Who is in heaven forgive your trespasses,” should not be understood as we literally read them but these words mean that, if we do not forgive people their trespasses, does not mean that God does not forgive us, (God save us from such blasphemy!), but it means that we distance ourselves from the grace of God and condemn and distance ourselves from God. We do not forgive ourselves.
But let me follow up on that which I said at first: Only the passion of vainglory, without other passions, is enough for a person to become demonized. Not to mention that if we do not pay attention to vainglory, all other struggles can only nourish and increase it. That is why the Lord Christ, in the part about liberation from the other two types of passions, warns us especially of vainglory, while in the part of the liberation from vainglory He does not even mention the love of pleasures and the covetousness.
Especially for the monks, the Lord’s words “where your riches are, there your heart will be” mean that they must not be satisfied with the level of the first stage – purification of the heart from passions, but that they must reach the second level of spiritual development, enlightenment. That is, they must not be satisfied with purifying the energy of the mind, but must sufficiently purify the essence of the mind, which is in the heart, and attain the beatitude of the pure in heart. For the Lord does not say, “Where your riches are, there your mind or your senses will be,” but rather, “there your heart will be.” If the passion of vainglory remains as our riches, and we do not fight against it, then this passion keeps our heart defiled, trapped and closed (to the prayer of the mind in the heart), and becomes our idol before which we worship. Our only wealth (riches) is Christ. Through the prayer of the mind in the heart, we discover more and more that Christ is the only wealth (riches) of our heart and we worship Him. We also discover the infinite catholic spaces and possibilities of our heart in the God-Man Christ.
May God grant that we reach the stage of deification and discover what the words of the holy apostle Paul mean: “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20) – Christ Who Speaks on the Cross those words which are still incomprehensible to us, but certainly eschatological and certainly salvific, even for those who, at the last moment, will repent and ask for forgiveness: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing …” (Luke 23:34 ).
And as for our personal sinfulness and repentance and how great they are, look at the world around you and everything will become clear to you.
I ask for your forgiveness …, in the Lord Jesus Christ and for His sake!
Metropolitan of Strumica Nahum
(05.03.2022 16:54)
