When you find yourself at the bottom of the abyss, don't despair!

From my personal experience, I would give the following advice: when you find yourself at the bottom of the abyss, do not despair, and if you have reached the top of the mountain, do not become dizzy. Know that this second danger is greater than the first: to become dizzy when you reach the top. Because at the bottom of the abyss, you turn to prayer as a source of strength, but when you have reached the top of the mountain, you forget about it. This does not mean that we must forever request the bottom of the abyss from God, but, fatally, in a deep or shallow pit, almost each of us falls once or twice in the course of a lifetime.

It is important to have this weapon, which is unsophisticated prayer, without pretensions, without holiness, which, however, sanctifies you through its holiness, through which you feel that you are no longer alone, through which you feel that He accompanies you in danger, that He accompanies you in illness, that He extends a hand to you. It is enough for you to be receptive.

The other day, a very refined intellectual, whom I met in Cluj, asked me: "What happens to my everyday experience? I am an ordinary man. Can my encounter with God be permanent?" I told him: "It depends on you, it does not depend on God. He is always ready. What is important is whether you, as a man, have enough antennae for Him or whether you become receptive to God."

Here, for example, is a flower of the field: in the morning, the dew floats in the air, and the flower, if it opens its cup, receives the dew, but if it does not open it, it does not receive it. The dew exists and is ready to dew; it is important that the human soul, like a flower, opens up to God. If it opens, the encounter between God and man through prayer, mystical contemplation, and deep, spiritual living takes place and becomes unique in human life.

Metropolitan Bartholomew Anania