Do you believe that purity of heart and anointing of the Holy Spirit are only given through these Sacraments, or are the Sacraments representative of those states that God has already given you?
They are given in these Mysteries [Sacraments]... There are exceptions which prove the rule - eg the Baptism by blood of martyrs not Baptized by the Church... And God did say: "I will have Mercy on whom I WILL have Mercy." So that God is not limited by the Church...
But surely you can't be saying that we don't sin after conversion?
Anathema!!
I know that I need repentance and forgiveness on a regular basis, though, to quote a t-shirt I have "I'm not the man I ought to be, but thank God I'm not the man I was".
Gimme that shirt!
Fair enough. So the pure heart and purified conscience are separate, but the latter is dependent on the former. For clarification, can you explain what you mean by each of these terms, then?
As you forsake some sin - Say you shoplift candy bars somewhat regularly - And you find yourself walking by the display, and you slip your hand secretly around a snickers [my old favorite], and you stop, and you say to yourself: "What the hell am I doing - This is over, and it is over here and now, and I will never steal another candy-bar again - Good grief! What have I been thinking?" And you put it back, and maybe even decide to forsake even eating candy bars again - A good decision... You have just purified your heart of the sin of stealing candy bars, [and especially snickers!]... And in this, you will have purged your conscience of the guilt of this sin, and especially so as you may then go about and make amends for having done this sin for so many years, or months, of even just this once... You give alms, or serve at the Salvation Army's soup kitchen... And you confess the sin to someone in the Church...
So that a purged conscience is the RESULT of the purging of the heart of a sin... You then walk in the gratitude of having overcome that one sin, and in the fear of doing it again, and in vigilance of soul in the NOT doing of it again... And you WILL be challenged in that repentance - You may wake up desperately wanting a candy bar, and yes a SNICKERS candy bar, at 3:18AM, and find yourself driving to the AM/PM, of eating a spoon of sugar, or making cinnamon toast with too much butter and sugar at 3:19AM, alone, unseen, in the kitchen - And there had BETTER be plenty of really COLD milk! Yes?... And you need to know what to DO when under that kind of attack, and that teaching is a part, although granted a reasonably miniscule part, of the discipleship that is provided by the Church...
This makes sense to me. May God grant us the strength to walk this path without straying.
What one seeks after Baptism is to work on the desires we have to sin, and to utterly forsake the deliberate decision to commit some sin, and IF we fall, as we so often do, in this decision, then God is Just to forgive us if we confess to the Church and repent (again and again as needed) from a sin that we are not yet successful in overcoming... The walk of this quest is fraught with pitfalls - The serpent can wound the heel of the one stepping its path... And there is no substitute for an eye-ball to eye-ball confession, and the receiving of corrective helps from the one with whom you are confessing... We do confession normally with our Priests in Orthodoxy, for they have the Apostolic power to bind and to loose sins... But outside this Faith, having someone you trust with whom you have an ally in this quest against sin for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven is unutterably valuable...
Is this true? I often hear Protestant preachers declaring the need for repentance, and while they stress the importance of grace and spiritual gifts, many would also preach charity, self-denial (although not to the ascetic standards of the Eastern Church), and walking a path of purity...
Establishing the habit of self denial is notmally not prescribed... Most of us eventually have a prayer rule which we pray whether we feel like it or not, and if not, we confess... We fast from dairy and meat, wine and oil, Wed and Fri, or forsake receiving Communion the following Sunday... If not, we confess it... All these fasts forsake marital relations those days... And we have the three 40 day fasts, and the Apostles' Fast, - Such that they are constantly intruding into our lives, and we get used to self-denial regularly, to whatever degree we are willing and able to do as we live our secular lives in the world... We work to establish this habit of self denial, planning our meals for it, and living the life of the Church Calendar as we slowly across our lives raise our children and live our lives... Each home is a mini-Church where morning and evening prayers are prayed together, and the family blesses the food and eats together... and we slowly grow in denial of self and the overcoming of sin and being right with God...
I thank you for your gracious and informative posts. I am learning quite a bit here.
My hope is that you will take the bit, as the equestrians like to say, and pursue what this kind of Life looks like in a local parish community, read more, and speak with a priest or three... The local Church is where the rubber and the road become one...
The goal, you see, is complete immersion in Christ through living a discipled and accountable life...
Arsenios
