The Greek Fathers describe the “process of temptation” in the Philokalia in stages. 1. Provocation, the initial incitement to evil, followed by stages of assent – 2. a Momentary disturbance of the intellect; 3. Communion, in which the mind pleasurably communes with the idea, without yet acting on it; and, finally, 4. Assent, in which the person resolves to act. The resolution to act is judged as sin. Repeated acts of sin lead to Prepossession, the involuntary presence of former sins in the memory, that predispose one to yield to particular temptations. Here the force of habit makes it more and more difficult for the person to resist. If the person doesn’t strenuously fight against prepossession, it will develop into an evil Passion. In modern parlance we call this an Addiction.
The Struggle for Holiness …
Fr. Anthony Pinizzotto is the real-life Fr. Brown, a Clinical Forensic Psychologist, with advanced degrees in theology, psychology, and psychopharmacology. The interested reader is directed to search for the HPR article (Sep 2022) titled, “Father, forgive me, for I have sinned – again and again and again”. A position with which I have decades of personal experience. The repeated visits to the confessional seeking absolution, solutions and salve for my very own Pauline thorn in the flesh.
It is a strangely ambiguous state to be in – to simultaneously feel deep dejectedness over the inability to overcome the habitual Prepossession or Addiction, and at the same time, to have hope restored in the confessional that the Lord will remove that thorn someday. Over the years, I had come to accept my revolving door of sin-confess-sin as the best-case scenario. That the struggle was the best I could hope for. Many a confessor had tried to comfort me with the Salesian saying that holiness is to be found precisely in this struggle. This, while true, was immensely unsatisfying!
The Best Part …
I had heard of this notion of rewiring the brain in the context of dealing with unforgiveness. But I had always been puzzled by how this rewiring could be affected through the physiological/neurological processes in the conscious brain. Fr. Pinizzotto’s talk helped put the pieces in place. For more on the subject, the interested reader should refer to that HPR article. But that is not the best part!
Physical needs for man’s survival include food, clothing, and shelter. Spiritual survival needs the Pauline triple – Faith, Hope and Love. St. Paul says that “the greatest of these is Love” (1 Cor 13). But, to this addicted sinner, the greatest tool in the survival belt is Hope. I believe that just as the ultimate of the transcendentals of truth, goodness and beauty are in God, the ultimate of hopes is the resurrection. If we cure cancer, plumb the oceans, conquer the universe, and colonize the stars, we do so from a position of hope “for what we can see”.
But it is when “we hope for what we do not see”, that “we (can) wait with endurance” (Romans 8:25). The greatest sign that the impossible is possible is the Resurrection. If we can believe that in faith and appreciate the Lord’s love for us in going through His passion, death and resurrection, then the hope for freedom isn’t folly.
Ironically, I needed to struggle with habitual sin to appreciate the path out of it. Dante appreciates the magnificence of the mountain only when he surveys it from the deepest circles of Hell. I believe I had to learn to hope in the “impossible”. That was the way out of that revolving door of sin-confess-sin. I never expected to find a pathway out of that deeply unsatisfying ambiguous state of being. But it is possible to rewire the brain, to change our patterns of action and reaction, and see the first signs of the impossible become possible. Not just to transcend habitual sin, but to also hope to fulfill God’s will for one’s life. Happy Easter and Amen!
