Certain things stop the movement of the passions and do not allow them to grow; others subdue them and make them diminish. For instance, where desire is concerned, fasting, labour, and vigils do not allow it to grow, while withdrawal, contemplation, prayer, and intense longing for God subdue it and make it disappear. The same is true with regard to anger. Forbearance, freedom from rancour, gentleness, for example, all arrest it and prevent it from growing, while love, acts of charity, kindness and compassion make it diminish. (Maximos the Confessor)

What Maximos perceives as stopping the passions, I perceive as giving direction to the passions.

What is the source of our most intense desire? It is usually some sense of separation or need. But when we claim what we desire, it often does not satisfy and, indeed, seems to spur more intense desire.

Quite often we have projected our need for God as a need for something else. We have mistaken our separation from God as separation from some other.

God is so multi-faceted and expansive that we can engage God through a variety of sacraments. But for sacramental potential to be realized we must bring to it an awareness of the sacred.

While ultimately self-satisfying, the sacred almost always begins with self-sacrifice.