To many people the Saints seem far removed from us. But the Saints are far only from people who have distanced themselves – they are very close to them that keep Christ’s commandments and possess the grace of the Holy Spirit. In heaven all things live and move in the Holy Spirit. But this same Holy Spirit is on earth too. The Holy Spirit dwells in our Church; in the sacraments; in the Holy Scriptures; in the souls of the faithful. The Holy Spirit unites all men, and so the Saints are close to us; and when we pray to them they hear our prayers in the Holy Spirit, and our souls feel that they are praying for us.
The Saints live in another world, and there through the Holy Spirit they behold the glory of God and the beauty of the Lord’s countenance. But in the same Holy Spirit they see our lives, too, and our deeds. They know our sorrows and hear our ardent prayers. In their lives they learned of the love of God from the Holy Spirit; and he who knows love on earth takes it with him into eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven, where love grows and becomes perfect. And if love makes one unable to forget a brother here, how much more do the Saints remember and pray for us!
The holy Saints have attained the Kingdom of Heaven, and there they look upon the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ; but by the Holy Spirit they see, too, the sufferings of men on earth. The Lord gave them such great grace that they embrace the whole world with their love. They see and know how we languish in affliction, how are hearts have withered within us, how despondency has fettered our souls; and they never cease to intercede for us with God.
The Saints rejoice when we repent, and grieve when men forsake God and become like brute beasts. They grieve to see people living on earth and not realizing that if they were to love one another, the world would know freedom from sin; and where sin is absent there is joy and gladness from the Holy Spirit, in such wise that on all sides everything looks pleasing, and the soul marvels that all is so well with her, and praises God.
Call with faith upon the Mother of God and the Saints, and pray to them. They hear our prayers and know even our inmost thoughts. And marvel not at this. Heaven and all the saints live by the Holy Spirit and in all the world there is naught hidden by the Holy Spirit. Once upon a time I did not understand how it was that the holy inhabitants of heaven could see our lives. But when the Mother of God brought my sins home to me I realized that they see us in the Holy Spirit, and know our entire lives.
The Saints hear our prayers and are possessed from God of the strength to help us. The whole Christian race knows this. Father Roman told me that when he was a boy he had to cross the river Don in the winter, and his horse fell through the ice and was just about to go under, dragging the sledge with it. He was a little boy at the time, and he cried at the top of his voice: ‘St.Nicholas, help me pull the horse out!’ And he tugged at the bridle and pulled the horse and sledge out from under the ice. And when Father Matthew, who came from my village, was a little boy he used to graze his father’s sheep, like the prophet David. He was no bigger than a sheep himself. His elder brother was working on the other side of a large field, and suddenly he saw a pack of wolves rushing at Misha – Father Matthew’s name in the world – and little Misha cried out, ‘St. Nicholas, help!’ and no sooner had the words left his lips than the wolves turned back and did no harm either to him or his flock. And for a long time after that the people of the village would smile and say, ‘Our Misha was terribly frightened by a pack of wolves but St. Nicholas rescued him!’
And we know of many an instance where the Saints come to our help the moment we call upon them. Thus it is evident that all heaven hears our prayers.
(St. Silouan the Athonite by Archimandrite Sophrony Chap. XII On the Saints pp. 395-397)
Rufinus the Presbyter. "Living of Desert Fathers."
(translated from Russian)
We cannot pass over in silence the inhabitants of the desert adjoining the Porfenian sea and bordering the area of the city Diolk. There we saw one wonderful priest, named Piammon, who was notable for the absolute humility and meek indulgence. He was given the grace of revelation. Once bringing the Bloodless Sacrifice to the Lord, he saw an Angel of the Lord near the Altar: he was holding a book in which he wrote down the names of the monks who approached to the Holy Altar. The elder carefully noticed whose names the Angel missed. After the end of the liturgy, he summoned separately each one of the missed by the Angel and asked him whether he had some secretly committed sin in the conscience. At this confession, he revealed that each of them was guilty of a mortal sin ... Then he persuaded them to bring repentance, and casting himself down before the Lord along with them, prayed with tears day and night, as if he was involved in their sins. And he was in repentance and tears until he saw the Angel again, standing before the Altar and writing down the names of those who were taking the Holy Mysteries. Having written down the names of everyone, the Angel even started to call each one by name, inviting to come to the Altar for reconciliation with God. And the elder, seeing this, understood that their repentance was accepted and happily admitted everyone to the Altar.
http://agapienxristou.blogspot.ca/2013/09/angel-did-not-write-down-names-of-those.html
The issue of salvation is the main issue in the history of humankind as well as in the life of each individual. Salvation is true happiness. Everything else is based on our salvation. In this sense, our happiness is in our own hands. It is achieved by defeating sin. The immediate environment for struggle against sin is the family as well as all those living around us. We look at the environment and situation of our life as if it was something accidental, and we don’t view our family as the path given to us by God for our salvation. Life in a family seems to be something that happened by chance, and the most important aspect of family life evades our attention. According to the Apostle, family is a small church. It can especially help an individual in achieving the main goal of life. In family people look for happiness. But what do we mean by happiness? People usually give unclear answers to this question. This means that we don’t take from this God-given state that which is the most essential.
Both sinful and spiritually right life takes place inside a person, and the environment is a means by which the person must look inside. We already mentioned that sin is a separating force. I will explain it with an example from everyday life. Let’s say two people offended and insulted one another; they did not want to make concessions and went their separate ways. That’s an unhappy situation. This tells us that we must fight against sin for the sake of our own happiness, because anger is an unhappy part of our life. A human being is created with a desire for happiness and must and can learn to fight for his happiness against unhappiness, i.e. against sin in the environment that is especially close to him, close to him in the flesh. Powers of sin and holiness are in a person as if it were in a state of equilibrium. Depending on how we touch a person, the power of good or the power of evil begin to act in him and in the world around him. We always need an environment that would cleanse our inner world and would enable us indeed to come to know ourselves.
Environment outside home, being a chance interaction of people, does not server this purpose. When faced with strangers, a person hides his unrighteousness, drives it inside and tries to look good. A person is ashamed of what others might think of him, ashamed of the opinion of society and therefore does not show his true self. It is only in the family environment, to which we are accustomed, that the source of evil lurking in us begins to show up. In this respect a family environment is a necessary tool for self-understanding. No wonder that we are often afraid of this family atmosphere. Running away from it, we are interested in many things and entertain ourselves in various ways, just to escape from the environment that helps us to learn more about ourselves.
Why does the family appear to be the environment most conducive to salvation? Because in the family a person directly opens up his feelings, but when outsiders are present he hides his inner world. In society a person controls himself, he hides his irritation, tries to show himself other than he really is. He shows his outward, not his inner character. But in the family he is not trying to hide his condition, he will show it, won’t be ashamed to display his sinfulness by word or deed. And his hidden sinful world is open before the family, before his relatives and before the person himself. Thus, in a family environment, a person who pays attention to his own salvation can easier understand his sins and what separates him from others. It is important, however, that this realization of one’s inner world should lead one to fight against sin.
Elder, how can I struggle more with abstinence during Lent?
Now during Lent those in the world in some way take greater care to show abstinence, but we monks must always be careful. Above all one must be careful, however, of the passions of the soul and then the body. Because if one prioritizes bodily asceticism and does not struggle to eradicate the passions of the soul, he will do nothing.
A layman once went to a monastery in the beginning of Lent and there a certain monk appeared to him to be abrupt and rough. However the poor man had good thoughts and justified him. He later came to me and said:
"I do not blame him, Father. After all, he just completed the Three Day Fast!"
If he had done the Three Day Fast in a spiritual way he would have had a spiritual sweetness and would have spoken to him with goodness. But he pushed himself egotistically to do the Three Day Fast, and so he placed blame everywhere.
Elder, what should I think about during Lent?
You should think of the Passion, the sacrifice of Christ. We monks must continuously live the Passion of Christ, and we are helped in this daily through the various troparia hymns – all the Services.
We are given the greatest opportunity during Great Lent to struggle and participate more in the saving Passion of Christ, with repentance and prostrations, with the cutting off of the passions and the decreased food, for the love of Christ.
We must utilize, as much as we can, this spiritual arena, with the many opportunities and preconditions it gives us to approach closer to the Crucified Christ, to be helped by Him and rejoice in His Holy Resurrection spiritually changed, since we would have lived Great Lent more spiritually.
I pray you good strength during Great Lent, that you may climb Golgotha to be near Christ, together with the Panagia and your Patron St. John the Theologian, and that you may participate in the fearsome Passion of our Lord. Amen.
http://agapienxristou.blogspot.ca/2013/03/elder-paisios-on-arena-of-great-lent.html
If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me (Mt. 16:24) Man’s free will is inviolable.
The exact magnitude of man’s ethical freedom
becomes clearly evident in the above verse. Our Savior invites man to follow Him; however, He gives man the freedom to decide on his own about
this most-significant matter: whether he will
follow Him or turn away from Him and take his own path.
Christ came to save man, and yet He does not
forcefully impose on man’s free will. Christ invites man to take an active part in his salvation, but He does not at all affect his free will. If man was not a free and independent being, he would never have been treated with such respect and never have been granted the great honor of
collaborating with the Savior for his own salvation.
In such an instance, man would not have been
permitted to make his own decisions; rather, as a passive and inert body, he would be pulled toward salvation and would accept [without a choice] the action of Divine Grace as it carried out his salvation. Truly! How honorable and inviolable
man’s ethical freedom is!
What an autocratic free will he possesses!
If we study the history of redemption, we will see the Son of God becoming man in order to save man. We will see Him voluntarily journeying toward the Passion in order to take away the sin of the world, to bear our bruises, to fulfill the great mystery of dispensation, and to reconcile man with God; nevertheless, never in the least forcing Himself upon man’s free will.
Behold, the closed gate of Paradise was opened, and the fiery sword that guarded its entrance was
removed, and the voice of the Lord calls and invites man (who had been previously shut out)
to enter through this gate into the place of rest; man, however, is left free to decide if he will enter or not. This freedom that permits man to act as he desires, to follow his own principles, and to
remain unaffected by even God Himself testifies to the absolute character of man’s ethical free will (which emanates from his ethical composition), and to man’s extraordinary value and the exalted position that he received within the creation. What a great honor, indeed, has been imparted to man on account of his inviolable ethical free will!
Simultaneously, however, how clearly are we
reminded of our obligations. How clearly are we informed that we are also obliged to value and
zealously covet [this ethical freedom], without at all permitting our ethical free will to be subjugated
to or our ethical freedom to become dependent
on the various shameful passions and sinful desires.
http://www.stnektariosmonastery.org/
