\tPeople concern themselves with Christian upbringing but leave it incomplete. They neglect the most essential and most difficult side of the Christian life, and dwell on what is easiest, the visible and external.<\/p>\n
\tThis imperfect or misdirected upbringing produces people who observe with the utmost correctness all the formal and outward rules for devout conduct, but who pay little or no attention to the inward movements of the heart and to true improvement of the inner spiritual life. They are strangers to mortal sins, but they do not heed the play of thoughts in the heart. Accordingly they sometimes pass judgments, give way to boastfulness or pride, sometimes get angry (as if this feeling were justified by the rightness of their cause), are sometimes distracted by beauty and pleasure, sometimes offend others in fits of irritation, are sometimes too lazy to pray, or lose themselves in useless thoughts while at prayer. They are not upset about doing these things, but regard them as without significance. They have been to church, or prayed at home according to the established rule, and carried out their usual business, and so they are quite content and at peace. But they have little concern for what is happening in the heart. In the meantime it may be forging evil, thereby taking away the whole value of their correct and pious life.<\/p>\n
The Art of Prayer \u2013 An Orthodox Anthology, pp.164-165.<\/em> People concern themselves with Christian upbringing but leave it incomplete. They neglect the most essential and most difficult side of the Christian life, and dwell on what is easiest, the visible and external. This imperfect or misdirected upbringing produces people who observe with the utmost correctness all the formal and outward rules for devout conduct, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1691,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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