Turning from and Turning towards

Lenten Theme: From Light to Dark

From Light to Dark

Stage 1: Struggles against the passions

Week 1: Where is your treasure - Goal for Lent is the restoration of God’s Image in us, which begins with the turning from Passions

Week 2: Temptations - When turning from we must turn towards

Stage 2: Knowledge of God through the mirror of the soul

Week 3: Prodigal son

Week 4: Samaritan Woman

Stage 3: Knowledge of God in darkness

Week 5: Paralyzed man

Week 6: Man born blind

Turning from passions

Turning form passions begins the process of removal of the layers of sin caked over God’s image in us.

The Gospel highlights 3 passions in the narrative of today.

Three Temptations

Satisfaction of the flesh - Gluttony

"Command these stones to become loaves of bread”

Our possessions - Love of Money / Greed / Avarice

“All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”

What others think of us - Vain Glory or Vain ambition

“throw yourself down; for it is written He will command his angels concerning you”

There are many other passions to consider that we struggle with.

fornication / lust

Anger

despondency

pride

Turning towards virtue

Important to identify what we are turning from...

In turning away from sin, we must focus on something to turn towards.

REMEMBER: our goal is the intimate knowledge of Christ.

The image of God is inside of me

I must begin to hold on to something that is representative of the image of God.

In turning from sinful passions we must turn to their opposing virtues

VIRTUE: A behavior that shows a high moral standard

patience

kindness

humility

longsuffering

generosity

Virtues are the beginning of knowledge of a person.

In meeting someone for the first time you might describe them as kind, patient, humble.

your describing their virtues

Does this mean you know the person well or know their inner workings? NO

we know them through their virtues, which is an outward manifestation of what is inside.

It is their ‘operation’....how they operate in this world that we begin to know someone else.

likewise, we begin to know God through his ‘operations’ in this world....included in His ‘operations’ are His virtues...

We know God to be patient, longsuffering, merciful, compassionate, just,

Our knowledge of the infinite God is through His Virtues.

Pursuit of Virtue

When we turn from passion and word towards practicing virtue we are in essence turning towards God.

St. Gregory of Nyssa

“For you do have within your grasp the degree of knowledge of God which you can attain. For, when God made you, He at once endowed your nature with this perfection: upon the structure of your nature He imprinted an imitation of the perfections of His own nature, just as one would impress upon wax the outline of an emblem.”

St. Gregory of Nyssa

“You must then wash away, by a life of virtue, the dirt that has come to cling to your heart like plaster, and then your divine beauty will once again shine forth.”

Matthew 5:8 NKJV

8 Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God.