Saint Stephen's Summer Camp

The Diakonia Retreat Center

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The Lord gave us his life-giving commandments as purifying remedies of the soul's passionate* condition. For what medicines are to a diseased body, that the commandments are to the passionate soul. It is clear that the commandments were given to oppose the passions and for the healing of the sinful soul, even as the Lord said plainly to His disciples, "He that has My commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves Me; and he that loves Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him, and We will come to him and make Our abode in him."...It is evident that a man can acquire love only after he has received health of soul, and that the soul is not in good health unless she keeps the commandments. The keeping of the commandments is, however, still inferior to spiritual love. And because there are many who keep the commandments out of fear or on account of future reward but not for love's sake, the Lord often admonishes us to observe out of love the commandments which give light to the soul...It is not when we practice righteousness that we taste the sweetness concealed within it, but rather when longing for righteousness consumes our heart. And it is not when we commit sin that we are sinners, but when we do not hate sin and we do not repent of it. —Saint Isaac the Syrian, Epistle to Abba Symeon

*The words "passionate" and "passion" here refer to natural desires, capacities, or faculties that have been distorted by sin; for example, hunger for food is distorted by sin into the passion of gluttony.

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