Today's man comes to Church not as a sick person, but as a client

Today's man comes to Church not as a patient, but as a client.

I like it, I don't like it, it was too long, he spoke too loudly, I didn't feel anything.

This is how man judges the service, as if it were a product.

He no longer comes to be healed; he comes to be satisfied.

If the sermon hurts him, he leaves.

If he is told to change, he gets upset. If he is asked to be patient, he looks for another place. He has forgotten that the Church is not a theater or a spiritual restaurant. It is a hospital. And you don't go to the hospital to be applauded, but to be cut, cleaned, healed.

Whoever enters the Church without humility leaves without healing.

Grace does not work according to man's taste, but according to his wound. But modern man no longer wants his wound touched, because it hurts. He wants comfort without Truth, forgiveness without repentance, communion without confession. And when he doesn't get what he wants, he says he doesn't feel anything anymore.

It's not the Church that has grown cold—the heart has closed.

The hospital is the same. The doctor is the same. The treatment is the same. But the patient refuses the operation and is surprised that the disease remains.

Saint Paisios the Athonite

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