aaa (repentant)

“What and how many are the steps of sin? The steps of sin are twelve in number, according to Saint Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain, namely: The first step is when someone does a good deed with an evil purpose: for money, for praise, for honour - that is, mixing good with evil. The second step is the incomplete fulfilment of a good deed, doing it only halfway. The third step is temptation, the bait - that is, the temptation that comes from the devil, from the world, and from the flesh, and which tempts a person through the five senses, called by the Holy Fathers “the windows of the soul.” The fourth step is union - that is, the mixing of the mind with the temptation. The fifth step of sin is the battle of the mind (or of the soul) with the temptation. Up to this point, sin has not yet been conceived. From here, however, sin begins to be conceived, bringing condemnation upon the person. The sixth step of sin is the consent of the mind to sin - that is, the mind taking delight in the temptation, in the desire. From this moment, sin is conceived in the mind and heart of the person and makes him worthy of condemnation, as the Holy Apostle James says: “Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death” (James 1:15). The seventh step of sin is the sin committed with the mind through imagination. For after a person consents to commit the sin, he strives, at the prompting of the devil, to imprint that sin in his mind as if he had already done it in deed. Through imagination the sin grows and takes root in the person’s heart. The eighth step of sin is the decision of the will to commit the sin and the actual carrying out of it in deed. The ninth step is the habit of sin - that is, committing it many times. The tenth step of sin is passion, the fixed habit - that is, committing it constantly, both willingly and unwillingly. The eleventh step of sin is despair, when a person loses the hope of forgiveness through repentance, by the grace and mercy of God. The twelfth step of sin is suicide - that is, the killing of the person who has fallen into despair because of his sins, by his own free will. This is the heaviest step of sin, from which may God protect us all. The one who commits suicide no longer has forgiveness for all eternity, and the Church is no longer permitted to pray for him (according to the Instruction to the Confessor, in A Book Very Beneficial for the Soul, Bucharest, 1928, p. 15). The Holy Fathers teach us to fight against sin while it is still small, at the moment of its conception, and not when it has grown large and taken root through passion in our heart. We must kill it while it is an ant, and not a lion, otherwise the “ant-lion” will kill us. In the same way the psalmist David, inspired by the Holy Spirit, says: “Blessed is he who takes and dashes your little ones against the rock” (Psalm 136:9 / 137:9), meaning blessed is that Christian who will crush his sins against the Rock which is Christ while they are still small like infants; for if they grow large, they will enslave us in the Babylon of the passions and will themselves kill us.” Saint Cleopa Ilie