Glory to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our Savior

Another disease of the heart is the love of pleasure. Instead of focusing its pleasure and delight on the love of God, such a heart will be self-loving, serving only bodily pleasures, which are not pleasing to God. The heart that loves pleasures is a prison for the soul, especially in the last hour. Saint Mark the Ascetic remarked: “The heart that loves pleasures, at the time of its departure, becomes a prison and a chain for the soul.” The passions of the soul can be satisfied as long as the body lives – but when the soul leaves the body, it can no longer fulfill them, because it lacks the material framework; no longer being satisfied, such passions, especially the love of pleasures, will strangle the soul. That is why in the patristic writings we are told about the devils who love pleasures. Let us remember, then, that the pleasure-loving heart is a prison and a chain for the soul at the time of its departure from the body. A sick soul or one overwhelmed by passions transmits its dis...

Let us not be influenced by the things we feel. They are not as scary as we feel. Let us not be frightened, let us not panic, let us not compare ourselves with others, and give rise to even worse states. In the old days, people did not compete as they do today. There was no reason for competition. There was no inferiority complex. Today, man immediately feels inferior: “They were chosen, I was not chosen; they succeeded, I failed!” As far as I remember, this did not exist or, if it did exist, it manifested itself to a very small extent. Today, it does not happen like that, precisely because man sees his problems in relation to others. What will others say? How will others react? How will he resist? How will he compare himself to them? And life becomes martyrdom, precisely because we live in an age in which this spirit influences us all. So why not try to remain uninfluenced? Do you know how peaceful we are, those who are not influenced, those who do not compare ourselves with others an...

Every temptation, every trouble, every attack of the devil, if we are attentive and patient, can bring us great benefit. The devil attacked Job with such fury! But what harm did he do to him in the end? Nothing. On the contrary, it brought him greater holiness and a brighter glory. When we are vigilant, the devil cannot harm us. However, he can, without his will, be of use to us, increase our virtue. Look what happens when someone blows on a fire. At first, it seems to put it out. But in the end, not only does he not put it out, but he inflames it even more. Without problems, without troubles, without illnesses, without sorrows, what would a man do? He would give himself up to debauchery and drunkenness, he would wallow in the mire like a pig, he would completely forget God and His commandments. But in this way, the struggles and fears, the troubles and trials keep him in a certain state of wakefulness; they become schools of philosophy for him, exercises of the soul. Just as the golds...

“Let us not do good deeds to receive blessings. Let us cultivate the noble and precious love that God has, and not the cheap, worldly love, full of human weaknesses. — Father, it is difficult for me to offer my love where it is not appreciated. — You do not have true love, that is why you struggle. Whoever has true love does not think whether his love is appreciated or not. The sacrifice he makes for his neighbor, because he does it out of pure love, he does not even remember. — How can I, Father, forget the good I do? — Throw it to the wind... And so you will forget it. But also forget the evil that others do to you. In this way you will gather spiritual wealth without realizing it.” Saint Paisios Agioritos

One day two young married couples knocked on the door of my cell. They brought me a prayer book and asked me to say a prayer for them. I started talking to them and, as I had established a rule, I asked them if they went to church. And then they answered me: “ We are not old enough to go to church ”. And then I said: “ Lord, multiply the old people !” I do not sit in confession with someone who does not go to church. I have nothing to talk about. What should I say to him? There are some who say that they have not been to church for years, or that they were at Easter last year. To those who say that they were at Easter I say: “Do you know why there are so many people at church at Easter? Because there are also those like you who only go to mass once a year”. After that there are some who say – when I ask them if they go to church – “Yes”. And I realized that some people don't go to church for the service, but they go into the church and light a candle. And now I ask them: "But ...

We, Christians, are the descendants of those who sacrificed themselves. And if we no longer have this opportunity to give our blood, let us make a different sacrifice. Those of you who were at church on Sunday made this sacrifice. That is, you left everything and went to church . Your head was not taken, you were not tortured, but you made a little sacrifice. You went, you stayed in church, you stayed awake in church, you sang, you listened. This is important. Let us understand that through this sacrifice, we also become partakers of the Kingdom of God. The secret would be from now on, to continue this experience in God! Father Nicolae Tănase

Death is life without God. Death is a reality of the soul when the soul is not glued, nourished, infused by God, by the life of God, by the grace, by the uncreated energy of God. He is dead, dying, or sleepwalking. It is true that we believers are baptized, we commune, we confess, we receive grace, and we are not dead, but still, we often behave like dead or dying people, because we do not activate the grace received through the Holy Sacraments. Grace enters us through the Holy Sacraments, but it is activated and becomes active in us through our works. That is, by activating Grace, my word will be with my energy and with the energy of grace, my gestures will be with my energy and with the energy of grace. No movement of the soul and body will be just my gestures, my thoughts. How do we activate grace? How do we metabolize it and manifest it in our lives, in our acts, in our words? By fulfilling the commandments and prayer. Prayer, itself a commandment of the Lord, is what does this wor...

Perhaps some of you have read the confessions of the Russian pilgrim, about his inner feelings, in connection with the prayer “ Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. ” There, they insist on a certain number of prayers, first 3000, then 6000, then 12000, and so on. It is a method, in fact. I do not believe that we should count our prayers. You should know that I am not afraid to go before God and that God will tell me: Okay, okay, but you should know that you could have said “Lord Jesus” a million more times and you did not. I am sure. When I got to Theology, the subject of this prayer came up, and someone said to me: “Brother, wait, you cannot do something like this without a guide, you need a guide, a confessor!” And I have not found a guide either before or since. For example, if I went to a father who was considered to have an improved life, a great name, and a lot of knowledge, he told me all the knowledge from books. I can read those from books myself; he does...

– The mentally ill, when they commit suicide, have extenuating circumstances, because their minds are corrupted. Even if they see clouds, they feel a sensation of pressure, of suffocation. And if they also have some anger, then they have a double “cloudiness”. But for those who commit suicide without being mentally ill – as well as for heretics – the Church does not pray, but leaves them to the judgment and mercy of God. The priest does not mention their names at the Proscomidia, nor does he remove their ashes, because by committing suicide, they despise life, which is a gift from God. It is as if you were throwing everything in God’s face. But we must pray a lot for those who commit suicide, so that the Good Lord will do something for them too, because we do not know what happened to them when they committed suicide, nor what state they were in at the last moment. It is possible that at the moment they gave up their lives, they repented, asked for forgiveness from God, and thus their ...

I was a mother on the verge of losing my child. At 2 years and 3 months, my little girl had a tumor that doctors considered extremely aggressive and deadly. It turned out that the power of God is above medical statistics, and my child is healed without allopathic treatment and by God's will. Of course, from the very beginning, she understood my fear of loss, and later the discussions about death, about God, about what is here and what is beyond appeared. She is now 4 and a half years old. One of the evenings, she asked me how my father died, how my grandparents died, and who else is gone there. We discussed her little brother, who also went to God when he was 2 years old (he is not my son, but her father's son with another mother). After analyzing how many people we are here on Earth and how many have gone to God, he said to me seriously and thoughtfully, “Mom, do you know that our family in Heaven is bigger than our family here?” We talk about death as a natural event of life,...

Let us be ashamed of ourselves, receiving the feeling of shame and humiliation of sin; let us condemn ourselves, letting the voice of conscience—or of the impartial justice of God, which speaks through conscience—resound with all its might; but besides this, let us hasten after the publican to give birth in our soul the same plaintive cry: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” All this depends on you, sinful soul. You yourself, and no one else, must do and feel all this in yourself. The publican beat his breast, but even before this, he beat his soul and wounded his heart with the thoughts of his mind. Therefore, enter into yourself, gather saving thoughts, and take care to break your hardened heart with them, ascend to heaven, descend to the lowest; look at yourself and look around you, and seek everywhere arrows to strike, whips to wound, hammers to soften your hardened heart. Remember the mercy of God towards you, be ashamed. Remember His righteous Judgment and fear. Remember that the...

So, our prayer, in its progress – what does it mean in its progress – in its exit, when the prayer is about to come out from within us, to truly become a movement towards God, we will see that it is a “silence within silence” within silence. That is, an absolute silence. But doesn’t God listen to us in another way [than by shouting]? Or doesn’t God know what we need? How could he not! But God wants this, on the one hand, so that we express our longing for Him and so that it may be something of ours. And secondly, so that we may become aware of our need and our emptiness. And thirdly, so that we may learn to ask. If God gave it to us immediately, before we did all these things that I have said, and before we lived them intensely, as easily as we gained it, we would throw it away, because we would not understand its true value. If your father gave you millions, you would throw them away on the right and left on the roads. But if you shed your sweat, so that in the end you only get fifty ...

Let us repent for this desert in which we find ourselves. There, being in prayer, let us repent before God: Lord, I am like a waterless land, desolate and uncultivated, says the psalmist. Help me! Let Your grace descend upon my heart that thirsts for You! A private, personal prayer can then be made, on the spot, in the secret of your heart. And an examination of conscience: why are we hardened? Because usually our sins harden us. We have done some bad things, we have some people we cannot forgive, our hearts have a thick covering of this, because of hatred against our neighbor. And we pray that God will tear this veil, to open this heart again: He must make it permeable to everything that is happening around us. Through prayer, we tear some veils or darknesses, coverings on our mind and heart. There are several coverings around our hearts that make us insensitive to the words of God. But through prayer, these veils are torn, our mind becomes luminous, so that we must emphasize this clo...

Therefore, listen to my words, the humble and the last of the monks, and do not consider me unlearned and illiterate. Open the eyes of your souls and see what exists beyond this world. The people of the world love the world because they have not yet known its bitterness. They are still blind in soul and do not see what is hidden in this fleeting joy. They have not reached the understanding light; they have not reached the day of their salvation. But you, who have seen and heard so many things, must understand that the fleeting delights pass away like a shadow and the time of our life flees, passes quickly, and knows no return. The time of this life is a time of harvest and gathering. Everyone accumulates their food, as pure as possible, for the other life. The wise do not win, nor the good-born, nor the one who talks incessantly, nor the rich, but the one who is mocked and endures for a long time. He who is wronged and forgives, he who is slandered and keeps silent, he who makes himsel...

In our effort to make room for the Lord in our lives to holiness, we become aware that the opposition does not come only from us, from our nature enslaved by the pleasures of sin. We discover and feel the opposition of the spirits of darkness. Outside of this effort, it will be difficult for a person to recognize that demons are not “metaphors”! This is how we find out, and we need to be vigilant, knowing that they are intelligent persons, and not blind forces of nature or “negative energies” coming from nowhere, and that their power lies in thought, in suggestion. They are the authors of many of the thoughts that we believe to be ours. Here, we need to realize that three types of thoughts pass through our minds and can work. Thoughts from God, which are extremely delicate, creative, thoughts of repentance, of love, of mercy… Thoughts from dark spirits: destructive, of hatred, of envy, of rivalry, of fear, of lust… These come into our minds suddenly, like lightning, and are accompanied...

Has God placed you somewhere? Do as much as you can during the day, do as much of God’s work as you can through the human work you do. Are you a mayor? Are you a doctor? Are you a priest in a parish? In the time that God has appointed you, do the work that God has called you to do. […] Saint Basil the Great lived a short time, very short. And of this short time, his years as a bishop were only nine. And in these few years of bishopric, of serving God, he did as many other servants, whether priests or bishops, a whole life. Put your seal on the work you do, not even thinking about how long you have been assigned for it – a mandate, an interim period, a period in which you are directors of the respective institution, after which you may no longer be in that position – do it while it is day, as much as possible and as much as God gives time for the work, the works of the Lord, for the night comes, there comes an end when we can no longer work. And there is something else, going deeper. As...

How hard it is to talk to yourself! How hard it is to see your own wounds! How hard it is to know yourself! Ah, my soul, this sad truth hurts you! It hurts you, because I tempt you with solid food, and you still desire childish food. I tempt you with heavenly manna, and you still crave the food of Egypt. I promise you the wilderness, and you still strive for this world. I speak to you of Christ, and you remind me of the world. I strengthen you in the hope of eternal life, and you are terrified by the temporary death of the body. I describe to you the terrible and eternal torments of hell, and you, indifferent, laugh in my face. I present to you unexpected death, and you speak to me of life. Yes, my soul, we never understand each other. You never believe me. When I cry, you laugh, and when I call you to cry together, you ask me why! When it is time to rejoice spiritually, you look bored and cold and tell me that you have no reason. Yes, my soul, we never understand each other, never, be...

Communion with the saints is made and lived in the Holy Spirit. We, being still beginners on the Path, do not really know when and how the Holy Spirit works, nor when and how we drive Him away. He comes when we pray, when we call upon Him, and He dwells in our spirit. But we do not really have access to this either because of the thick clouds in the air of the psyche, still full of memories, fears, feelings, resentments, worries, and not-so-spiritual desires. But they, the Saints, are always in the Holy Spirit and they hear us, see us, understand us, and love us and help us with their prayers! When we talk to a Saint, he will certainly work and answer us. We will hear and feel the answer and its consequences only to the extent that we repent through repentance and the work of the commandments. First of all, those concerning forgiveness and non-judgment of our neighbor. Thus, our psychosomatic senses and feelings will be nourished by the spiritual ones and will become transparent and wi...

When and where can Love be more radiant than in the sight of one who has never seen? Everything that to those who see seems ordinary or even banal, to a blind man from birth who receives sight becomes full of wonder and an understanding radiance. It is, without a doubt, the opening of Heaven here and now. For one like him, the Resurrection passes from feeling and intuition into the most direct embodiment. For a former blind man from birth, the whole world that he begins to know through sight wears the garment of the Resurrection. Nothing superfluous, nothing insignificant, nothing random, but everything and everything filled with the brilliant light of the Resurrection. A blind man brought to sight is a resurrection from dull darkness, at least as precious as a resurrection from the darkness of death. In contrast to the blind man who receives his sight is the blind seer, the one who sees the light outside, but inside spends his time in deep darkness. There are all those who have made t...

The monk who strives to give the Lord a strong love, as He has shown us, and who tries to invent ever new ways of finding a closer connection with Christ, so that his heart can confess this deep love for Him, will certainly grow spiritually. Monasticism is indeed about love. I once told Father Sophrony that without the love of Christ, it is better for a man not to live even a day on earth. He took this thought further and increased my spiritual tension, answering me: “Without the love of Christ, it is better for him not to have been born on earth.” In the hymns of the Church, it is said: “You have shown us Your great love unshakable, O Lord, for You gave Your Only-Begotten Son to death for us. For this, with thanksgiving we cry out to You: Glory to Your power, O Lord!” In other words, Christ has begun a bond of love with us, a love that He has already manifested, but which He also expects from us. He who enters into this bond of love and does everything to keep this love strong will gr...

The Christian must guard against sick conceit, that is, both the feeling of superiority for his virtues and the feeling of inferiority for his sinfulness. The inferiority complex is one thing, and humility is quite another; repentance is one thing, and melancholy is quite another. A psychiatrist once came to me and began to condemn Christianity because, he said, it creates complexes of guilt and melancholy. I replied: “I agree that some Christians, because of their own mistakes or those of others, are trapped in the guilt complex, but you must also agree that those in the world often fall into an even more serious disease – pride. The religious consciousness of guilt, along with Christ, disappears, finally, through repentance and confession, while the pride of those who live far from Christ does not disappear at all.” Through these explanations, many of my doubts regarding the psychological problems of Christian life were dispelled. I understood that the Elder wanted us to guard agains...

As for the holy services of our Church, they are not despised by those who replace them with mental prayer. The holy services are written with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. In them, you can find wisdom, the dogmas of our faith. Through them God is glorified. It is a garden of spiritual delight. But, unfortunately, this garden, for most people, is locked. It is good to be lovers of services, but not to go to church only out of habit. That is, not to like only to read, sing, and spend a few hours pleasantly, but to seek to understand and delight in the divine words. Otherwise, we too will hear: “Do you understand what you are reading?” (Acts 8:30). God sent Philip to the Ethiopian to interpret the scriptures, but to us He sends the Holy Spirit Himself, when the mind is cleansed by unceasing prayer. Once, a very pious monk came to Burazeri and said to me: – Elder, I am not against prayer, but I do not agree with Your Holiness, because you give more importance to mental prayer and ne...

Let us be as the Creator intended and desires us. And we can be like that only if we receive Him and let Him work in all of our things: in fatigue, in anger, in disappointments, in fears, in desires, in joys and achievements… Let us choose the Life that He gives us, as He gives it to us, and the rest comes by itself and is completely and utterly different because it springs from Life. And all that was, or was leading us to death, becomes places of encounter with Him, God, with ourselves, with our neighbors, and with everything around us. And life ceases to be a series of events and experiences, becoming living water, flowing and consciously sensitive to His Presence in everyone and everything. And what is most wonderful is that neither fatigue, nor illness (which also have their purpose in this world), nor troubles disappear, but they become encounters of love. Everyone knows how terrible the fatigue is when we hate, and how wonderful it is when we love! And everyone can taste the good...

An eagle was flying high, enjoying the beauty of the world and thinking to himself: "I fly over vast distances: valleys and mountains, seas and rivers, fields and forests; I see a multitude of animals and birds; I see cities and villages and how people live. But the country rooster knows nothing outside the yard in which he lives and sees only a few people and a few animals. I will fly to him and tell him about the life of the world." And the eagle came to sit on the roof of the farm and saw how cheerfully and cheerfully the rooster walked among the hens and thought: "It means that he is satisfied with his fate; but, nevertheless, I will tell him what I know." And the eagle began to talk to the rooster about the beauty and wealth of the world. At first, the rooster listened attentively, but did not understand anything. Seeing that he did not understand anything, the eagle became sad and found it difficult to talk to the rooster. In turn, the rooster, not understandi...

Man today has expanded his knowledge frighteningly. However, although he knows what is happening in the four corners of the earth and in the infinite universe, he remains completely ignorant regarding his own self. We have information from the galaxies, from the five continents, and we have difficulty communicating with our neighbor. However, undeniably, what we know is certainly much less than what we do not know. Technology is developing excessively and unimaginably much, yet it is impossible for us to prevent evil from occurring. Today, we know only 1/10 of the functions of our brain. Man is as small as he is, so great, as wise as he is, as foolish as he is, as rich as he is, as poor as he is, as good as he is, as bad. We know a lot, but we ignore even more. Every man is an untold and bottomless mystery. Why does he choose this and why does he like one and not the other, why does he hate something so mortally, why does he cry, how does he suffer, why does he express himself in this ...

The path of our life is full of suffering and tears, of thorns and thistles. Everywhere are crosses, agony, and pain. Every step is a Gethsemane garden, every climb, a Golgotha, and every moment, a spear. If we could absorb the earth like a sponge, blood and tears would flow from it afterwards – man is like grass, his days like a flower of the field, so he will flourish, says the Psalmist (Psalm 102:15). Beautiful things are gathered with pain, but pain afterwards brings joy. The rose brings forth thorns, and these, in the end, the flowers. Usually, the rainbow rises after the rain, and the starry sky is preceded by storms. The discernment of faith and Christian philosophy, helped by inspiration, has the ability to penetrate beyond phenomena. Through suffering, he sees joy and hope, as well as the victory of Christ, which sprang from the pain of passion and the cross. The most wonderful statues receive the most blows, and great souls owe their greatness to the heavy blows of suffering....

"He who does not believe in the Son of God is condemned already." Why? Because when there is light around, he remains in darkness, out of love for it. The love of darkness, the hatred of light, makes him entirely guilty, even if he does not know what the truth is, because the one who has an unfeigned love for the truth, the truth takes him out of the darkness of error and brings him to the light of truth. An example is the Holy Apostle Paul. He was a true lover of the truth, fighting with all his soul for what he considered to be the truth, without any kind of interest. Therefore, as soon as Jesus showed him that the truth is different from what he considered to be the truth, at the same moment, he rejected the old opinion, shown not to be the truth, and he attached himself wholeheartedly to the new discovery, proven in a felt way to be true. The same thing happens to anyone who loves the truth without hypocrisy. The truth about Christ is as clear as daylight: seek, and you w...

If you ask what culture is, I could say in one word: harmony! If someone were to ask me what Scripture is, I would answer, “Harmony, sir!” That is, to always be in a position to maintain peace, because the ratio between justice and peace is two to eight. So, you do justice, and you gain two, but you lose eight. You make peace, you gain eight, but you lose two. So, peace is four times greater than justice. Only then can you make harmony. So, you must be a hero of harmony, a hero of peace, in any form. In this way, you can develop the discernment to be able to understand someone’s heart. Any person who has peace of mind has an incredible value in his soul and harmony in the unity in which he lives. – How do we reach this much-desired peace in our days, in urban agglomerations? – Yes, these things are very important. Well, peace means giving up your opinions, giving up your tastes, your sinful callings, or giving up making a gratuitous war, as someone says: “He told me, I told him, and I ...