Short Answers
Short Answers…1
We published in the previous issue answers to six questions, and here we continue the remaining answers.
7- Resisting Evil Thoughts
Q- How do I resist evil thoughts if they persist?
A- The first means is to replace one thought with another. Try to change the course of your thoughts. Think of something else, or pray, or read a book. Or occupy yourself with manual work, or chant. If the thought remains, speak with anyone. Or know that the new thought with which you tried to expel the evil thought was not deep enough to expel it. You should expel the thought with another deeper than it.
Bring into your mind another thought—let it be a difficult problem requiring mental effort. And if you read, let it not be superficial reading, but rather interesting reading or that which requires following its points.
You also must avoid the things that cause evil thoughts. Avoid all stumbling blocks and stimulants, whether sights, or hearings, or readings, or meetings… etc.
And from the positive side, fill your mind with material for good spiritual thoughts.
For it is possible that your inner storehouse of thoughts—in the depths of your heart, or your subconscious mind, or your memory—contains nothing but the thoughts that trouble you. Therefore, also store up good thoughts and spiritual feelings so that your mind may be purified.
And beware of surrendering to the evil thought, or negotiating with it, or taking pleasure in it. Rather, flee from it as much as you can.
8- Fighting the Thought of Vainglory
Q- If a thought of greatness or boasting comes to me, how do I respond to it?
A- There are two main means: the first is to remember your sins and rebuke yourself with them, and the thought of greatness will depart from you. The second is to remember the high degrees to which the saints reached in the virtue with which the thought fights you or in others, so you diminish yourself in your own eyes, and feel that you are nothing, and then the thoughts of greatness lighten from you.
Alongside that, you must remember that anything you boast of, God may deprive you of so that you may be humbled. Therefore, you must fear the thought of greatness because it removes grace from you.
Also try to attribute everything to the help of God and His work in you.
For attributing the thing to yourself and to your human effort is what brings boasting.
9- Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit
Q- What is the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? And why has it no forgiveness in this world nor in the age to come?
A- Know that every sin a person repents of is forgiven him. For God does not will the death of the sinner but rather that he return and live. And He Himself said, “Whoever comes to Me I will by no means cast out” (Jn 6:37). Even the heretics who blasphemed and deviated from the faith, their repentance was accepted when they returned, and likewise the Church accepted the repentance of those who apostatized from Christianity and offered incense to idols.
The only sin that is not forgiven is the one without repentance. What then is the relationship between lack of repentance and blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? Know that we cannot repent without the work of the Holy Spirit in us: He is the One who convicts us of sin, He is the One who calls us to repentance, He is the One who endears the spiritual life to us and guides us in it.
If we refuse the work of the Holy Spirit in us, we cannot have repentance without Him, and consequently we cannot have forgiveness. And if our refusal of the Holy Spirit’s work continues throughout life, then we will die in our sins, and we will have no forgiveness in this age nor in the age to come.
Thus, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is the complete and continual rejection of all the Holy Spirit’s work in the heart, throughout life, so that repentance becomes impossible for the person until he dies…
10- Concerning “The Primacy of Peter”!
Q- Why do we deny the primacy of Peter, when the Lord Christ said to him after the Resurrection, “Feed My sheep… feed My lambs”?
A- The Lord Christ did not say this to appoint him as shepherd of the universal Church, but rather to restore him again to the rank of apostleship which he nearly lost by his denial.
It is as though the Lord, with this phrase, placed him equal to the rest of the apostles, while he was exposed to the execution of the verse that says, “Whoever denies Me before men, him I also will deny before the angels of My Father who is in heaven” (Lk 12:9).
And it is obvious that the Lord Christ said to him, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me more than these?” (Jn 21:15–17). In this He wished to remind him of his threefold denial, as His question carried a hidden rebuke reminding Peter of his words, “Even if all deny You, I will not deny You.”
We also notice that the Lord called him by his old name before he was called Peter.
The clearest evidence that all this was said in a context of rebuke is that Peter, after the Lord said to him “Feed My sheep” three times, was grieved because he understood the intent. And if the phrase had been in the context of honoring or granting primacy, it would have been a cause of joy and gladness, not sorrow, for Peter.
Shepherding is a function which the Lord entrusted to many, as is clear from numerous Scriptures. All the apostles are shepherds, and all bishops are shepherds. And the Lord Christ is the Shepherd of shepherds.
11- The Sacred Mysteries and the Sinful Priest
Q- Can the sacred mysteries be performed through a sinful priest?
A- Yes: the mysteries are performed, and the sinful priest receives judgment upon himself.
The mysteries are not performed through the righteousness or holiness of the priest, but through the authority given to him by the Holy Spirit. And the priest is not the giver of the graces which we receive in the sacred mysteries, but rather merely their transmitter. He is simply a vessel that carries God’s graces to us.
You may drink water from a cup of gold, or another of silver, or brass, or glass. The water is the same water whose nature has not changed because of the vessel. You may feel more delight drinking from a gold cup instead of a tin cup, but the water is the same water whose substance has not changed.
We say this to you. But to the priest we say he ought to be filled with the Holy Spirit, blameless, so that the ministry may not stumble in anything.
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An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – Al-Kiraza Magazine – Second Year – Issue Seven – 9-1966
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