Catechetical Teaching 7: ON BODILY SENSES
Dear brothers and sisters,
Last time, we spoke about prayer being connected to our bodily senses, and to truly see God, we need to purify them. “Let us cleanse our senses and behold… Christ,” we chanted during Pascha. Since we are discussing the Temple of God, the “house of prayer” (Luke 19:46), and the rules of conduct within it, it is evident that these rules are linked to the purification of our senses.
St. Gregory the Theologian, in his famous Paschal Sermon, explains the senses as the causes “from which my fall arises, and in which lies the temptation, for they contain the sting of sin” (Saint Gregory the Theologian. Oration 45 on the Holy Pascha). Can you hear where our fall occurs and where our spiritual battles are primarily fought? In the realm of the senses.
We are talking about the bodily senses, of which there are five: sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste. When we come to the church for communal prayer, the Church offers us purifying remedies for each of them. And since it is through them that our fall and temptation occur, those who break the rules of conduct in the church also commit their robbery through the senses.
The senses are the doors of the soul that should be closed during prayer. When Christ teaches us to enter our room and, “shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret” (Matthew 6:6), He speaks not only of the room in our home but also of the inner room of our soul. And the doors that must be shut in this inner room are the senses.
Who, then, robs prayer and becomes a robber, first for oneself and then for others who are praying? It is the one who opens these doors (and often forcibly breaks into the doors of others) not for what the Church offers (not for healing and purification means) but as a thief who “comes only to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10).
Therefore, my dear ones, we must be extremely attentive to how we conduct ourselves in the house of God, preserving ourselves in the fear of God and treating everything and everyone with utmost reverence so that the enemy cannot find a place in us for his robbery and not despoil the Church’s prayer through our carelessness.
Next time, we will delve into each of the five senses in more detail.
May God protect you all!