Encyclopedia of Spiritual Theology

Steps on the Road to God – Brokenness of Heart

Steps on the Road to God

I would like to begin with you today a series of articles about our steps on the road to God. Let the first step be our discussion about repentance and the breaking of the heart.

Brokenness of Heart

When a person begins to know God and to walk in His way, his first step toward Him is repentance.
He leaves his old path that is far from God and says to the Lord: “Make me know Your ways, O Lord; teach me Your paths. Lead me in Your truth and teach me” (Ps 25:4–5). When he senses the badness of his condition, he regrets his entire former life and condemns it. And he cannot condemn himself and have a broken heart except through humility…
Repentance is not a step that one takes and then leaves behind; rather, it continues with him throughout his whole life. For the more he walks in the way of the Lord, weaknesses and faults in his life are revealed to him that were not apparent at the beginning of his spiritual life. Thus, day by day, he feels the measure of the sin that was in him, and he increases in regret, brokenness, and humility…

But how can a person repent?
He cannot repent unless he feels the badness of his condition and that he is walking in a wrong path, as was made clear to the prodigal son…
As for the person who is righteous in his own eyes, who does not feel that he has sinned, but continually justifies himself and excuses himself in everything he does, such a person never draws near to repentance. For “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick” (Lk 5:31). Therefore, you must feel that you are sick so that the Great Physician may heal you; otherwise, you will remain in your sickness…

Those who repent are of two kinds: one kind is regretful with a broken heart, and another whose repentance makes him rejoice, so he boasts and his heart is lifted up, and he falls.
There is a person who is troubled by major sins, such as drunkenness, fornication, dancing, smoking, and staying away from the Church. If he is freed from these, he thinks that he has arrived. In doing so, he forgets other errors within him that he did not notice because of his focus on the shameful things he was committing…
This poor person thinks that he has been saved, or that he has repented, and he continues to speak about this “salvation” and repeats the phrase “I was… and I became…”. In his false boasting, he forgets what is inside him of pride, stubbornness, self-opinion, self-centeredness, deceit, or hardness of heart. These sins remain within his soul, grow and increase, and destroy him…
What is astonishing is that some teachers or guides, in order to encourage those beginners in repentance, may praise them, encourage them, or flatter them with words that place a veil over their remaining sins so that they do not see them.
The great calamity is that this repentant person is quickly turned to service. They say to him: “Go and tell how much the Lord has done for you.” So he fills the world with talk in every place: I was a sinner, I used to do this and that, and now I thank God that I no longer do any of this. My life has changed, been renewed, purified, sanctified, and I have become another nature…
In the midst of this talk about himself, he loses the sense of brokenness. Because repentance has not yet been completed, and has not taken its beneficial share of brokenness, regret, and the feeling of the gravity of sin, and because the soul has not been satisfied with tears and supplication before God, this person quickly forgets his sin and hastens to teach others and explain his experiences without his spiritual maturity being completed…
How quickly, while he is a servant, his weaknesses return to him, and he becomes a stumbling block. These weaknesses may remain in him without his feeling them or condemning himself for them, but rather ignoring them amid the busyness of service…

As for the broken person who places his sin before him at all times, weeps over it, and blames himself for it, no matter how far he has progressed in virtue, such a person preserves humility at all times and preserves grace, and thus does not fall. How true is the saying of Saint Abba Antony: “If we remember our sins, God forgets them for us; and if we forget our sins, God remembers them for us.”

Models of Broken Personalities

David the prophet sinned, and God forgave him. Nathan the priest said to him: “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die” (2 Sam 12:13). Yet after hearing the word of forgiveness, David never ceased from tears, until his tears became his drink day and night, until he drenched his bed with tears, and he said to the Lord: “Give ear to my tears.”
His tears were a sign of brokenness and repentance, and they were a sign of love and deep emotion.
The servant who fears punishment weeps out of fear, but the son weeps out of love and deep feeling: how have I angered my father?

Like David in the brokenness of his heart was the Apostle Paul. He persecuted the Church when he was Saul of Tarsus, but he was shown mercy because he did it ignorantly. God forgave him his sin and even chose him for service as an apostle to the nations, changed his name to Paul, and Paul advanced in virtue until he was caught up to the third heaven and saw things that cannot be spoken. He advanced in service until he labored more than all the apostles, preached from Asia westward to Spain, received many revelations, and spoke in tongues more than all.
Yet with all this service and depth of virtue, Paul remained broken, remembering his former sin with shame and sorrow, despite its forgiveness.
He says: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief… that in me first Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering” (1 Tim 1:15–16). And he also says: “Last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time. For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God” (1 Cor 15:8–9).
We say: that persecution has passed and ended, and now you are the great apostle, the glory of the service to the nations, the man of revelations. Yet he says: I will not forget my sin, because I persecuted the Church of God! What a wondrously broken soul!

The Apostle Peter also sinned, and the Lord forgave him his sin, restored him to his apostleship, and said to him: “Feed My sheep; feed My lambs” (Jn 21:17). He labored greatly in preaching and service, thousands believed through his hands, he was courageous in witnessing to the Lord, and he performed many miracles. Yet at the time of his martyrdom, he insisted on being crucified head downward, because he still remembered his sin that he had left long ago and which the Lord had forgiven him. Truly, it is the broken soul.

The one who knows brokenness and experiences the feeling of unworthiness undoubtedly acquires many virtues that purify his heart:

1. He is freed from hardness of heart and becomes compassionate toward everyone, tender even toward the worst sinners. He does not condemn the sinner but weeps over him with a burning heart, interceding for his salvation.

2. He also acquires humility, like the tax collector who could not enter inside the house of the Lord but stood afar off, not daring to lift his eyes upward, beating his chest with head bowed, saying: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner” (Lk 18:13).

Where is this compared to the repentant person who lost his brokenness and began to say: “When I was in sin I used to do… but now I…”, “In the days of my sin I used to be and do…”?
Speaking of sin as a deed of the past does not agree with brokenness, for the broken heart says at all times: I am a sinner.
We pray continually in the Church and say to the Lord: “Sin is of my nature, and Your nature is forgiveness.”
The phrase “I was a sinner” carries a shade of pride and is a sign of not knowing oneself and not being precise in self-examination.
The difference between me and the early days is that before I was a sinner and did not know that I was a sinner. Now I am a sinner and I know very well that I am a sinner.
I do not divide my life into a life before repentance and a life after repentance; rather, I say that my entire life is a striving toward repentance. I need repentance today just as I needed it at the beginning of my spiritual life. I know well the measure of my weakness and my susceptibility to fall, and I know that if grace were to abandon me for a single moment, I would resemble those who have fallen into the pit…
I am not stronger than those who have fallen, for I fall every day. Rather, I listen with great care to the Scripture’s saying about sin, that it “has cast down many wounded, and all who were slain by her were strong” (Prov 7:26).
I do not boast falsely and speak of my repentance as some say: “I have been renewed, sanctified, saved, and purified.” Rather, I ask for this holiness every day, I ask for salvation every day, and I cry out to God in every prayer: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Ps 51:10). I know my sins, weaknesses, and impurities, and I say: “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow” (Ps 51:7).
The one who does not feel his sin commits thereby the greatest sin.

How much we need to contemplate the prayers of the saints, their weeping over their sins, their humility before God and before people, even before demons, and their continual confession of their sins in lowliness.
The one whose soul is not broken will one day reach arrogance.
The one who forgets his sins and remembers only his spiritual experiences is exposed to the warfare of demons who bring down his exalted head. Grace may even withdraw from him for a time so that he may know his weakness and remember only that he is “a brand plucked from the fire” (Zech 3:2).
The one who thinks that he has risen above the stage of repentance and begun to ascend the degrees of holiness is certainly deceived by demons.
Wretched is the one who thinks that he has left repentance and begun in theories and in the boundaries beyond prayer, boasting that he has tasted spiritual gifts, deserved to speak in tongues, and tasted a life of fullness that others among the weak have not experienced, and even grants these gifts to others!

Saint Arsenius the Great, after long years of spiritual struggle and deep virtue, confesses that he has done nothing and prays, saying: “Grant me, O Lord, that I may begin.” And the great Apostle Paul says: “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold” (Phil 3:12).
This is humility and self-denial, by which the saints became worthy of the work of grace. The more they placed themselves low and hid themselves, the more God raised them and made them manifest.

How beautiful is the saying of Mar Isaac concerning the deeds of the humble and broken, and the value of humility that surpasses the working of miracles. He says:
“The one who knows his sins is better than the one who benefits creation by his sight.”
“The one who sighs over himself every day is better than the one who raises the dead by his prayer.”
“The one who has been granted to see his sins is better than the one who sees angels.”