Character (and Integrity and Hypocrisy)
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
“There is a character (the Greek word means the impression in soft wax left by a seal) that is being impressed upon us that does not destroy the experience of a lifetime, but transforms it. Even sin itself (which wounds us so deeply) is transformed…We want to be “a better version of myself.” My own experience (particularly as a confessor) has been that, by and large, our struggles are persistent through the years. Quite often, their origins are unidentified, and, apart from regularly confessing the same sins repeatedly, remain unhealed. Character runs deep. I also suspect that we do not know what we’re supposed to “look like” when “theosis” is complete. For one, I do not think it is some version of ourselves without the wounds (which, experience tells me, is one of our fondest fantasies).” (Father Stephen Freeman)
“To shine eternally with the light of Christ requires that we undertake the daily struggle to purify and reorient the desires of our hearts toward fulfillment in God and away from slavery to our passions. The Colossians to whom Paul wrote were mostly Gentile converts who needed to be reminded that they had repudiated corrupt pagan practices and put on Christ in baptism. That is why Paul told them to “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” It is contradictory to unite oneself to Christ and then to refuse to conform our character to His. In order to have spiritual integrity, we must continue to repudiate all that keeps us from becoming living epiphanies of our Lord’s salvation. As Paul notes, “anger, wrath, malice, slander…foul talk” and lying should have no place in our lives, for in baptism we have “put off the old nature with its practices and have put on the new nature, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator…There is simply no way around the truth that how we relate to other people reveals whether we are participating in the life of our Lord as we conform our character to His.” (Fr. Philip LeMasters)
“We have to remember a very significant spiritual law, perhaps even the primary law of man’s spiritual life: Spirit (that is, a spiritual state) creates forms for itself. So, my spiritual state determines the entire direction of my life’s activity—both worldview (philosophies, analyses, doubts, assertions), and all practical life. A person’s spiritual state determines the whole character of his life—this is a very important law, which, unfortunately, remains outside many people’s field of vision, including even that of us Christians. Therefore we need to be concerned about our correct spiritual state. The more correct it will be, the less there will be the doubts and the more easily, incidentally, these doubts, which naturally arise in our souls, will be resolved.” (Professor Alexei Osipov)
“Weakness of character is a great affliction and manifests itself in various ways, but hypocrisy is its principal expression. Let us note that in the New Testament we cannot find a single example of Christ exposing a sinner, regardless of the sin in question, whereas in several places He directly exposes the hypocrisy and duplicity of the Jewish leaders—besides them, he very sharply rebukes only the merchants in the Temple (cf. Matt. 21: 12–13; 23:13–29).” (Rev. Dr. Oliver Subotic)
“Hypocrisy is the pretense of friendship, or hatred hidden in the form of friendship, or enmity operating under the guise of affection, or envy simulating the character of love, or a style of life adorned with the fiction but not the reality of virtue, or the pretense of righteousness maintained only in external appearance, or deceit with the outer form of truth. Hypocrisy is the trade of those who emulate the serpent in their twistings and twinings.” (St. Maximos the Confessor)
Comments