PHILOKALIA MINISTRIES

How the Passions Work Within Us and How the Fathers Teach Us to Be Healed “Give blood, and receive Spirit.” Abba Longinus , Sayings of the Desert Fathers The Desert Fathers never treated the passions as moral failures to be crushed by willpower. They understood them as distorted energies of the soul. Each passion begins as something natural and necessary. Hunger, desire, self-preservation, sorrow, zeal, rest, honor, and self-awareness were given by God for life and communion.