23rd Sunday After Pentecost-- Defilement, Purification and the Purpose of Prayer

THREE DEFILEMENTS

Brothers and sisters in Christ—

Today’s Gospel reading, the Lucan version of the cure of the Gadarene demoniacs, gives us an opportunity to meditate on the concepts of defilement and purification.  In the symbolical system of ancient Israel, swine are the symbol of uncleanness and defilement, but we see the defilement destroyed by baptism in water. 

     The teaching of the Lord Jesus is that all true defilement has its source within us, just as the Kingdom of God is also within us.  We are defiled by what comes out of our hearts, not by what enters our bodies from the outside.  According to the tradition of the Church, defilement comes to us through the passions.  The demons introduce temptations into our thoughts, which stir up passions in our souls.  The passions that come out of our hearts defile us, as they influence our words and deeds.  We can think of defilements as being of three different types.  First, there is the defilement that arises from willful ignorance.  We know that must pray, read and meditate on the Gospel, but we do not.  We know that spiritual strength comes through the practice of our faith, but we do not do so, because we are lazy or busy and preoccupied with worldly things.  We should remember the purpose of our prayers.  We usually remember that we pray in order to worship God and to petition Him for the things that we need, but we should remember that we pray in order to form our hearts.  More often than not the answer to our prayers is the change that occurs within our hearts.  Every word that we say in prayer with attention changes our hearts, forms our hearts.  It is through the daily practice of prayer that our hearts become conformed to Christ; Christ is born in our hearts, and we grow towards our goal of becoming God by grace.  For this reason, many of the Fathers assert that most of our religion is the recollection of Christ through prayer.  When we remember Christ, our hearts are conformed to Christ.  When we remember Christ constantly, our hearts are conformed to Him perfectly, and we share the Life of God perfectly. 

     The second kind of defilement comes from anger.  There is a family of passion, which are called “the irascible passions” because they are related to anger.  They defile us, because they destroy our peace in the present moment, and nullify our submission to the Will of God.  They create resentment in us by inducing us to think about the events of the past, and lead us to despair through a ceaseless contemplation of an uncertain future. 

     The third kind of defilement comes from grasping.  There is also the family of the “concupiscible passions,” those passions that are related to our desire to acquire things.  Through the temptations of these passions, we grasp after all sorts of things: money, pleasure, reputation and status.  They too inspire the spirit of dissatisfaction in us, as we continuously examine and appraise a past, in which we have not achieved everything that we would like to have achieved.  On the other hand, these passions defile us with anxiety, as we ceaselessly attempt to plan for a future we cannot know. 

     All of these defilements need to be washed away.  The washing that we received in Baptism gives us the ability to continually wash away the soul’s defilements with the water of Divine Grace through watchfulness and prayer.  Watchfulness is the forgotten virtue of the Christian Life.  Christ does not tell His disciples simply, “Pray!” No, He says to them, “Watch and pray!” Watchfulness means simple attention on the duties and circumstances of the present moment, while prayer can be understood as recollection of the Lord Jesus, calling upon Him constantly.