A GRATEFUL READER writes:

The following quote by Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos struck me as apt to many of the discussions at The Thinking Housewife. In order to create a healthy community, we must first heal ourselves. The text is taken from his little book Orthodox Spirituality, which is the Reader’s Digest version of his major tome Orthodox Psychotherapy. Among his other little books is The Illness and Cure of The Soul.

By occupying themselves with the purification of their own hearts and the healing of their own personalities, they offer great comfort to humanity. The regeneration of just one person has immense repercussions for the whole world…

The person who is regenerated by divine grace becomes the most sociable of beings. A good example of this is the parable of the Prodigal Son, as interpreted by St. Gregory Palamas. The wealth or property to which the parable refers is our nous [intellect within the heart]. When our nous relies on God, we are in a good state. When, however, we open the door to our passions, our nousis distracted and wanders constantly in the direction of worldly and carnal things, all kinds of sensual pleasures and impassioned thoughts. On its way it lures us away from true love, love for God and love for our neighbour, and towards the desire for unnecessary food, worthless things and empty praise. This is how love of pleasure, greed for money and ambition develop. Then the person becaomes so ill that, as St. Gregory Palamas expresses it, he becomes unhappy, and neither the sun’s radiance nor breathing fresh air gives him pleasure.

The dissipation of the nous and its estrangement from God has consequences not only for the individual, who becomes ill as a result, but also for the whole society. The person concerned becomes enraged and fights against his fellow men because his unreasonable desires cannot be satisfied, he becomes homicidal and comes to resemble a wild animal.

Therefore, when a person’s nous is estranged from God, he becomes anti-social, whereas when his nous returns to the heart from its dispersion, and then ascends to God, he becomes all the more social. Someone who has been healed is the health of his community.

The modern liberal, feminist, atheist, etc., follows a barren path downhill, knocking at the doors of doctor after doctor (philosophical, scientific, witch) without finding any cure and often receiving much harm (despite the Hippocratic Oath’s dictum, “Do no harm.”) Were he to set out on the uphill path strewn with lush and lovely vegetation, they might find the climbing difficult, but the doors opening into fruitful rooms. Much that ails us physically, mentally, and emotionally can be diagnosed and cured in the spiritual hospital that is The Church.

                                                        — Comments —

Jeff W. writes:

Thanks for posting this very good comment about God’s healing power. As a Protestant, though, I would appreciate it if you would give Martin Luther a chance to talk about how God heals the human spirit:

“God has promised certainly his Grace to the humbled: that is to the self-deploring and despairing. But a man cannot be thoroughly humbled until he comes to know that his salvation is utterly beyond his own powers, counsel, endeavors, will and works, and absolutely depending on the will, counsel, pleasure and work of another, that is, of God only. For if, as long as he has any persuasion that he can do even the least thing himself toward his own salvation, he retains a confidence in himself and does not utterly despair in himself, so long he is not humbled before God; but he proposes for himself some place, some time, or some work whereby he may at length attain unto salvation. But he who hesitates not to depend wholly upon the good will of God, he totally despairs of himself, chooses nothing for himself, but waits for God to work in him; such a one is nearest is the nearest unto Grace that he might be saved.” (From Bondage of the Will.)

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