The Destruction of the Ego Begins with Repentance
Modern psychology has told us we must feel good about ourselves, and instructed us to reject the idea of guilt and sin. Sin is seen as religion’s instrument for keeping people in line, making them dependent on an institution that should be relegated to the Dark Ages. In an age where man is elevated to being his own god, religion is seen as a sort of enslavement. Up with self! Down with guilt!
Self as the new god is worshiped at the expense of community, and enthroned to a position of the utmost importance. Worship of self has contributed to the downfall of families and societal stability, with careers, social and financial gain and self-fulfillment reigning supreme.
Divine love does not tolerate this elevated status of self, for the ego is the enemy of our communion with God. In an age of financial collapse, mortgage foreclosures, and “pandemic” lockdown, worship of self dooms us to a life of total loss.
We were created for communion with God and the worship of the ego has led us into a state of spiritual bankruptcy. The total meltdown of societal standards, and the destruction of the environment, is the direct result of the turning away from spiritual values. The foundation of economic and environmental collapse is to be found in our spiritual bankruptcy, and calls us to return to the worship of God, and reject the worship of self.
The denial of guilt and sin is the ultimate example of our having accepted the lie perpetrated by the devil, the great deceiver. True happiness and true wealth come only through the fulfillment of our destiny, and that for which we were created, communion with God.
The destruction of the ego begins with repentance, and the acquisition of a humble and a contrite heart. It begins with a return to God.
Love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon
Friday August 27, 2021 / August 14, 2021
10th Week after Pentecost. Tone eight.
Dormition (Theotokos) Fast. By Monastic Charter: Strict Fast (Bread, Vegetables, Fruits)
Forefeast of the Dormition.
Translation of the relics of Venerable Theodosius of the Kiev Caves (1091).
New Hieromartyr Basil bishop of Chernigov and with him Hieromartyr Mathew and Martyr Alexis (1918).
New Hieromartyr Vladimir priest (1920).
New Hieromartyrs Vladimir and Nicholas priests, Hieromartyr Eleutherius, Virgin-Martyr Eudokia and Martyr Theodore (1937).
New Hieromartyr Schema-archimandrite Eleutherius of Chimkent (Kazakhstan) (1937).
Venerable Alexander confessor (1961).
Venerable Arcadius, monk, of Vyazma and New Torzhok (1077).
Hieromartyr Marcellus, bishop of Apamea (389).
“Converser” (1383) and “Narva” (1558) Icons of the Most Holy Theotokos.
Martyr Ursicius at Nicomedia.
St. Fachanan, abbot of Ross Carbery, Cork, Ireland (ca. 600) (Celtic & British).
Hieromartyr Nazarius, metropolitan of Kutaisi, Georgia, with Priest-martyrs Herman, Hierotheus, and Simon, and Archdeacon Bessarion (1924) (Georgia).
Synaxis of the New Martyrs of Georgia who suffered under the Atheist Yoke (20th c.).
New Martyr Simeon of Trebizond (1653) (Greek).
Martyr Luke the Soldier (Greek).
The Scripture Readings
2 Corinthians 1:12-20
Paul’s Sincerity
12 For our boasting is this: the testimony of our conscience that we conducted ourselves in the world in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom but by the grace of God, and more abundantly toward you. 13 For we are not writing any other things to you than what you read or understand. Now I trust you will understand, even to the end 14 (as also you have understood us in part), that we are your boast as you also are ours, in the day of the Lord Jesus.
Sparing the Church
15 And in this confidence I intended to come to you before, that you might have a second benefit— 16 to pass by way of you to Macedonia, to come again from Macedonia to you, and be helped by you on my way to Judea. 17 Therefore, when I was planning this, did I do it lightly? Or the things I plan, do I plan according to the flesh, that with me there should be Yes, Yes, and No, No? 18 But as God is faithful, our word to you was not Yes and No. 19 For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us—by me, Silvanus, and Timothy—was not Yes and No, but in Him was Yes. 20 For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us.
Matthew 22:23-33
The Sadducees: What About the Resurrection?
23 The same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Him and asked Him, 24 saying: “Teacher, Moses said that if a man dies, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up offspring for his brother. 25 Now there were with us seven brothers. The first died after he had married, and having no offspring, left his wife to his brother. 26 Likewise the second also, and the third, even to the seventh. 27 Last of all the woman died also. 28 Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife of the seven will she be? For they all had her.”
29 Jesus answered and said to them, “You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God. 30 For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven. 31 But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” 33 And when the multitudes heard this, they were astonished at His teaching.
How well Vitz traced the Western history of this plague in his Psychology as Religion.
Here is the strange thing: the more I actually enter into repentance the less “guilt” looks like I thought it should. Indeed the whole process is both more intense and less psychologically difficult.
Thank you for pointing out the deception of some psychologists. I had a therapist many years ago who told me that if I left the Church I’d no longer be depressed. I left her, instead, and found a better therapist; one who supports the Church.
Thank you, Father Tryphon.
You are such an eloquent writer. You turn deep ideas, into bite size todbits so we can digest them fully.
May God bless you with many more years, so you can continue to help us guide us through the distractions, temptations and folly that we must overcome.
There are some righteous psychologists as I recently found out in this story related to me by one of the sisters at the nearby monastery. She was having conversation with a young woman, a 30ish psychologist (very Orthodox) and she asked the woman, “how do you deal with the awful things that you hear from your patients?
She replied, “I go home in the evening and spend much time in prayer for each of these ‘children of God’ and then I repent for them.”
A good lesson for all of us, don’t judge, pray for others and repent for them asking the Lord to have mercy on them; it takes humility and love for others to do so. Glory to God
I am very much aware that there are good psychologist and good psychiatrists out there.They are true Christians who entered their fields in order to help others. God bless them all.
Amen to that, dear Father.