Holies for those who want to be holy (part 3 of many)


Holies for those who want to be holy (part 3 of many)
Sexual temptations are curable, even if you think they are not. The consistent spiritual advice in our church through the ages is to focus on God's grace more than focusing on the sin. This shift in thinking is the key answer to how you can overcome these temptations. See if you talk about the sin more than talking about how God is accepting and uplifting you and helping you to add to the edification of the church.

There is a famous story narrated by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware[i] concerning this monk who was asked what does he do in the monastery? He answered, "I am falling and rising up."
 
Our life is a wave of falling and rising up by the God of resurrection. The great saint of the Russian Church St. Seraphim of Sarov[ii] used to greet people regularly by saying "Christ is Risen." How powerful is that?

Flee from the situation that motivates you to sin; scatter your thoughts as St. Antony the Great and Tamav Ereny advise, which means just turn your thoughts quickly to something else, like making a cup of tea, calling a friend, going out for a run, and so on.

Read stories of saints so the mind can be re-formatted from the bad visions to the icons of Christ in these saints. Pray "arrow" prayers, like the "Jesus prayer" or just mentioning the name of Jesus or a first verse from any Psalm you know. St. Antony the Great usually prayed this verse of Psalm 69: “O God, be mindful to my help; make haste, O Lord, to help me.” And so you can learn the first few verses of any Psalms and try to repeat them.  The key point is to re-format our minds from the evil stream to the holy one, my dear who want to be holy.

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