The Devil Knows: Your mountain of sin is not the end of your story 

Im praying for you, friend. Your immense strength to endure alongside Christ gives me strength, my friend. I wish I had anything beneficial to say to you, but all i can give you is a passage from St. Sophrony which is far more encouraging than anything I can hope to say: "Prayer is infinite creation, far superior to any form of art or science. Through prayer we enter into communion with Him that was before all worlds. Or, to put it in another way, the life of the Self-existing God flows into us through the channel of prayer. Prayer is an act of supreme wisdom, of all-surpassing beauty and virtue. Prayer is delight for the spirit. But the circumstances accompanying this creative work are complex. Time after time we experience an eager upsurge towards God, followed repeatedly by a falling away from His Light. Time and again we are conscious of the mind’s inability to rise to Him. There are moments when we feel ourselves on the verge of madness. Pain forces the cry, “Thou didst give me Thy precept of love, which I accept with all my being, but there is no strength in me for this love. Thou Who art love, come and abide in me, and perform in me all that Thou hast enjoined, for Thy commandment exceeds my powers. My mind is too frail to comprehend Thee. My spirit cannot see into the mysteries of Thy life. I desire to do Thy will in all things but my days go by in perpetual conflict. I am tortured by the feat of losing Thee because of the evil thoughts in my heart; and this feat crucifies me. I sink. Lord, save me, as Thou didst save Peter who dared to walk on the water, to go to Thee.” At times, prayer seems over-slow in bringing results, and life is so short. Instinctively we cry, “Make haste unto me.” But He does not always respond at once. Like fruit on a tree, our soul is left to scorch in the sun, to endure the cold wind, the scorching wind, to die of thirst or be drowned in the rain. But if we do not let go of the hem of His garment, all will end well. It is vital to continue in prayer for as long as we can, so that His invisible strength may penetrate and enable us to resist every destructive influence. And with the increase of this strength in us comes the joy of hope in final victory. Prayer assuredly revives in us the divine breath which God breathed into Adam’s nostrils and by virtue of which Adam “became a living soul.”2 Our spirit, regenerated by prayer, begins to marvel at the sublime mystery of being. The mind is filled with wonder. “Being, how is this possible?” And we echo the Psalmist’s praise of the wondrous works of the Lord. We apprehend the meaning of Christ’s words, “I am come that [men] might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” “More abundantly”-this is indeed so. But again and again I find myself reflecting that life is full of paradox, like all the Gospel teaching. “I am come to send fire upon the earth; and how I wish that it were already kindled!” All we sons of Adam must go through this heavenly flame that consumes our deathly passions. Otherwise we shall not see the fire transformed into the light of new life, for its is not light that comes first, and then fire: in our fallen state burning must precede enlightenment. Let us, therefore, bless the Lord for the consuming action of His love. We do not know altogether but we do at least know “in part” that there is no other way for us mortals to become “children of the resurrection,” children of God, to reign together with Christ, the only-begotten son of God. However painful this re-creating may be, however it may distress and lacerate-the process, agonizing as it is, in the end will be a blessed one. True prayer uniting us with the Most-High is nothing other than light and strength coming down to us from heaven. In its essence it transcends our plane of existence. . . . True prayer to the true God is contact with the Divine Spirit which prays in us. The Spirit gives us to know God. The Spirit draws our spirit to contemplation of eternity. Like grace coming down from on High the act of prayer is too much for our earthly nature and so our mortal body, incapable of rising into the spiritual realm, resists. The intellect resists because it is incapable of containing infinity, is shaken by doubts and rejects everything that exceeds its understanding. The social environment in which I live is antagonistic to prayer -it has organized life with other aims diametrically opposed to prayer. Hostile spirits cannot endure prayer. But prayer alone can restore the created world from its fall, overcoming its stagnation and inertia, by means of a mighty effort of our spirit to follow Christ’s commandments. The struggle for prayer is not an easy one. The spirit fluctuates-sometimes prayer flows in us like a mighty river, sometimes the heart dries up. But every reduction in our prayer-strength must be as brief as possible. Not infrequently, to pray means telling God of our disastrous state: of our weakness and despondency, our doubts and fears, the melancholy, the despair-in brief, everything connected with our condition. To pour it all out, not seeking to express it elegantly or even in logical sequence. Often this method of approach to God turns out to be the beginning of prayer as communion."

I know how damaging that can be to one's live and one's self, dear brother. Take courage from the fact that God has seen you through it - there is a new purpose for your life, a new beginning. Pray that you may embrace this new life and learn to look forward. It takes humility and acceptance that the past is no longer available to us; but the present and the future are still within your grasp. Be blessed, be strong and have faith in Christ's Love for you. If He got you out of that dark moment, He has a purpose for you.

@mullmonastery thank you my dear brother. I pray for you and your work. It is so crucial. God's blessings and mercy and grace be upon you always. I love you, brother. Thank you.

Stick it out. Been where you are. Keep praying. Hang on even if it's with your small finger being bumped along and dragging in the mud. At some point God will stand you up. All the promises in the Psalms. He lifts us up out of the miry clay. Truelly I've learned that our beautiful Father is still at work. His love is far greater than our misery . There is no depths that we can be in that God is not deeper still. We are overcomes because He overcame.

We will be praying for you brother. Our God is a great and awesome God and has seen me through many trials. Pray, fast and trust he will see you through this and bring you to much holiness.🙏☦️

If God blesses that, it will be my joy and my blessing, dear one.

Amen! The message in this video brought me to tears

I am also a Catechumen and in the exact same boat as you. I'm sure Father Seraphim has better advise than I but running back to Jesus Christ in prayer and thought is the only thing that seems to help me. That is why I believe prayer can also become difficult in these times, the demons gain confidence when we don't immediately seek to close that gap as Father mentioned. I become forgetful and fall into this cycle quite often, may God deliver us all from the evil one, take care brother.

I have no right to speak, but first thing to do is *praying.* And I don't mean merely "speaking to God", but also keeping your mind in God and living before His presence. Just like it's impossible to commit adultery and think about your spouse at the same time, similarly it's hard to sin and keep God in your mind at the same time. You cannot worship both God and mammon, and so you cannot both focus on God and sinning. Second thing is *vigilance.* It's very crucial to uproot temptations and passions immediately after noticing them. Some of the desert fathers has said that it's easier to uproot a sapling than a grown-up cedar (or something like that), and it's same thing with temptations. But vigilance also requires *prudence* and wisdom. You are not determined to lust, so there are reasons to it. By understanding the reasons, you can not just learn how to avoid being tempted, but even unhear tempting voices. Third tip could be *confession.* Sin desires to be hidden, and so Adam and Eve tried to hide themselves from God and to cover their nakedness. But confessing our sins exposes it and it looses its power, and confessing sins gives to God a permission to give us medical treatment for our wounds and we are strengthened to continue our fight. Fourth tip is to participate in *Holy Eucharist* as often as possible. Because partaking of these pure mysteries without condemnation is "for the remission of sins, and unto life everlasting" and "to the healing of soul and body". In Holy Eucharist, we partake in the very body and blood of our Lord; we are in Him and He in us. If we steadfastly strive to abide in Him and receive in humility and fear of God these holy gifts, there will always be some progress over time, no matter how small those steps may seem in the beginning of journey.

Some of the Desert Fathers has said that it's better to struggle with same sins, falling and getting back up again and again, than giving up. Because if you keep struggling, you are protected from falling even deeper. Let's say that you are watching porn and masturbating. If you didn't continue struggling but let it go, your lust would grow greater and greater and your mind would become more and more perverted (in all senses of that word), which would lead you to visit prostitutes, have "one-night-stands" and other things. The danger is that even this wouldn't be enough to you, but you would end up to commit both murder and rape. Even more, when your love towards sin grows, you would perhaps come to hate God. But by holding your position on this spiritual battlefield, all of this is prevented - glory to God. It's also possible that God allows these temptations to attack you, because it teaches you patience and humility. It teaches you to rely on Christ's mercy and to long Him over all things and be ready to endure everything in order to be in unity with Him. (How could you be ready to endure the storms of the world if you cannot endure even yourself?) Lust reminds you who you are without God and how much there is still room for growing in the likeness of God. As it is written, *_"God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God"_* (Romans 8:28), but only if we are willing to carry this burden (with the help of God).

In a sense, there are some nudges of truth in that thinking, even if it is very twisted (according to the Orthodox perspective, very least) and ignores the other half of the topic. Of course we are not able to bridge the gap between us and God - that's why God came in flesh, died, rose from the dead and ascended in flesh. But on the other hand, we are called to receive the whole fulness of Lord's mercy but we will receive just as much as we ask and are capable to receive. That's why need to grow and struggle; we shall decrease, so that there's more room for God and His mercy within us. It's very great to avoid death and we must give thanks to God for that, but what He, the Healer of the souls, would think if we don't strengthen at all but stay at this state - not dead, but too weak to wake up from the sickbed. Followingly, I have heard that the starting point of true repentance is "theophany", and that way God is also the cause of our willing, as St Paul the Apostle writes. But God reveals Himself to people according to how they are "oriented", when they are most willing to open the door. Some people might come to repentance through the fear of darkness, but it is maintained by loving the Light. I guess this has some similarities with adultery: in the act itself, people might not feel nothing special, but when they face their spouses afterwards they feel very guilty and ashamed and they think they don't deserve to be in that relationship anymore. So it is with God. When we live in our sins, we are so stone-hearted and numb that we don't even react. But when we come into contact with the goodness of God, it reveals our own condition and humiliates us. But it's up to a person how she chooses to answer. Others choose to be bitter and scared and run away from God, others run to God like a child runs to her Father after she has done badly.

I was just thinking about how this teaching is basically the opposite of reformed theology. Calvinism is learned helplessness. We must fight the passions.

Lord have mercy

Find Orthodoxy, the original church that Christ founded 2000 years ago

No apostle in the book of Acts ever ordained women as priests.

There is no Eucharist apart from a male priesthood. I say this in love for your soul. Please seek a true church with true sacraments.