What is possible outside the Church

[Marty Zyph]

Is it possible that the intellect can feel inclined to yield to the teaching of the church, while the rest of the person is not willing?

For the person who is outside of orthodoxy and outside the Church. What is possible in terms of understanding? What can be experienced by the way of Grace? Is there any benefit for an inquirer who is not willing to be obedient and cannot fathom taking steps in that direction, though he is persuaded that the Church possesses the fullness of Truth?

Is this simply a battle with self-love?

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

There are many deep questions here.
What is crucial however for us to keep in mind is that our life in the Church on all levels- heart & mind- is a spiritual struggle against the old man in order that we may be reborn again as the new man in Christ. And this struggle begins the moment we consider approaching Christ's Church.
This means that our struggle is not a sign that something has gone wrong but rather a sure sign that Christ has accepted us into His Church. But how many fall away when this struggle begins and either interpret what is happening to them in the exact reverse way- as if something has gone wrong or Christ has abandoned them- or else reject the struggle that Christ has set before them. So learning to submit ourselves to this struggle- in fact converting to this way of life- is essential to conversion and to our daily life in the Church.
One thing is sure- without the cross there can be no resurrection. And without taking up our cross there is no real struggle against the selfish sinfulness that is killing us.
In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Marty Zyph]

Thank you Fr Raphael,

…for your insights and for suffering my questions. I make a lot of noise and am curious to know of things which I do not deserve or am not prepared to understand. I feel as though besides reading books, I should attend the Liturgy and try to pray at home, but I am so in love with my independence. Each week passes and I make another excuse. I set a time to meet with Father Joseph…to have some food and to talk. I did not go. I didn’t even call to let him know.

It sits heavy with me. Forgive me.

[Marty Zyph]

Ease and idleness are the destruction of the soul and they can injure her more than the demons. St. Isaac of Syria

Let us awake from sleep, while we are still in the body, let us sign over ourselves and mourn over ourselves from our whole heart day and night, to be delivered from the terrible torment, groaning, weeping and anguish which will have no end. Let us beware of the wide gate and the broad way leading to destruction, although a great many go in thereat; but let us go in at the strait gate and the narrow way which lead unto life, and few there are which go through it. Those who follow the latter way are real doers, who receive the reward of their labors with joy and inherit the kingdom. As to those who are not yet quite ready to approach it, I implore them not to be negligent while there is time, lest in the hour of need they find themselves without oil and with no one who would agree to sell it. For this happened to the five foolish virgins who found no one from whom to buy it. Then they cried, weeping, "Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not" (Matthew 25: 11-12). And this happened to them for no other reason than laziness. Later they woke up and began to busy themselves, but it was of no avail, for the Master of the house got up and closed the door, as it is written. Anthony the Great, "Early Fathers From the Philokalia," by E. Kadloubovsky and G.E.H. Palmer, (London: Faber and Faber, 1954), pp. 52-54

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

It is absolutely essential for each of us to have a rule every day that includes the standard Morning & Evening Prayers and also spiritual reading and some Jesus Prayer. It is this which gradually develops in us a spiritual life.
In Christ- Fr Raphael