For the soul to repent it must first be awake. It is in this awakening that the miracle of repentance occurs. This is where human will plays a role. The awakening however is not something that rests solely with the man or the woman. The individual alone is not able to bring it about. God intervenes. Then Divine Grace comes. Without Grace a person can not repent. The love of God does everything. He may use something — an illness, or something else — it depends — in order to bring a person to repentance. Accordingly, repentance is achieved through divine grace. We simply make a move towards God and from then on Grace supervenes.
If we love Christ, all things will change in our lives. We do not love Him in order to receive some reward such as health. Rather we love Him out of gratitude, without thinking of anything, only of the love of God.
The humble person believes that all things depend on Christ and that Christ gives His grace and in that way he makes progress. The person who possesses holy humility lives even now in the earthly uncreated Church. He always has the joy of Christ even in the most displeasing circumstances. We see this in the lives of the saints. What was Saint Paul? He was a man like us. But what happened? He became and instrument of God, a chosen vessel. His words bear witness to this. ‘It is not I who live but Christ lives in me… for me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” He was consumed by burning love for Christ. His humility raised him up to that state. To burn for God…. that is everything.
God has placed a power in man’s soul. But it is up to him how he channels it —- for good or for evil. If we imagine the good as a garden full of flowers, trees and plants and the evil as weeds and thorns and the power as water, then what can happen is as follows. When the water is directed towards the flower garden, then all the plants grow, blossom and bear fruit and at the same time the weeds and thorns, because they are not being watered, wither and die. And the opposite, of course, can also happen….
It is not necessary therefore to concern yourselves with the weeds. Don’t occupy yourself with rooting out evil. Christ does not wish us to occupy ourselves with he passions, but with the opposite. Channel the water, that isu, all the strength of your soul to the flowers, and you will enjoy their beauty, their fragrance and their freshness.
I have said to you many times, devote yourselves to the study of Holy Scripture, the psalms and the writings of the Fathers and study them with Divine Eros. Look up every word in the dictionary and read clearly and correctly and with attention to the meaning and every last detail and punctuation. Find out how many times a word, such as for example, simplicity, occurs in the Holy Scripture. The light of Christ will flood your soul.
The good-hearted person who has no devious thoughts attracts the Grace of God. Above all – good hearted-ness and simplicity attract the grace of God. They are the pre-conditions for God to come and make His abode in us…
Simplicity and goodness, that is everything if you want to acquire divine grace.
When you find Christ you are satisfied, you desire nothing else, you find peace. You become a different person. You live everywhere, wherever Christ is. You live in the stars, in infinity, in heaven with the angels, with the Saints, on earth with people, with plants and animals with everyone and everything. When there is love for Christ, loneliness disappears. You are peaceable, joyous, full. Neither melancholy nor illness nor pressure, nor anxiety, nor depression, nor hell.
Christ is in all your thoughts, all your actions. You have grace and you can endure everything for Christ, and indeed with joy. Just as Ge suffered so you to can suffer unjustly. Did you choose Christ to avoid suffering? This is our religion for our soul to awake and love Christ and become holy- to give herself over to divine Eros. And so He too will love her.
Saint Porphyrios
Wounded by Love : The Life and Wisdom of Saint Porphyrios
The Church is without beginning, without end, and eternal, just as the Triune God, her founder is without beginning, without end, and eternal. She is uncreated, just as God is uncreated. She existed before the ages, before the angels before the creation of the world – before the foundation of the world’ as the Apostle Paul says, ‘She is a divine institution and in her dwells the whole fullness of divinity. She an expression of the richly varied wisdom of God. She is the mystery of mysteries. She was concealed and revealed in the last of times. The Church remains unshaken because she is rooted in the wise providence of God.
Saint Porphyrios
Wounded by Love : The Life and Wisdom of Saint Porphyrios (p 87)
We shouldn’t blackmail God with our prayers. We shouldn’t ask God to release us from something, from an illness, for example, or to solve our problems, but we should ask for strength and support from Him to bear what we have to bear. Just as He knocks discretely at the door of our soul, so we should ask discretely for what we desire and if the Lord does not respond, we should cease to ask. When God does not give us something that we ask for insistently, then He has His reasons. God too, has His ‘secrets’. Since we believe in his good providence since we believe that He knows everything about our lives and that He always desires what is good, why should we not trust Him? Let us pray naturally and gently, without forcing ourself and without passion. We know that past, present and future are all known, “open and laid bare” before God. As Saint Paul says, “before Him no creature is hidden, but all are open and laid bare to His eyes.” We should not insist, such persistence does harm instead of good. We shouldn’t continue relentlessly in order to acquire what we want. Rather we should leave things to the will of God.
Because the more we pursue something, the more it runs away from us. So what is required is patience, faith and composure. And if we forget it, the Lord never forgets, and if it is for our good, He will give us what we require, when we require it.
Saint Porphyrios
Wounded by Love : The Life and Wisdom of Saint Porphyrios
When we have a relationship of absolute trust with Christ, we are happy and joyful. We possess the joy of Paradise. This is the secret. Then we can exclaim with Saint Paul, “for me to live is Christ and to die is gain and “it is no longer I who live, Christ lives in me.” Such marvelous words! Delightful! All things must be done simply and gently.
We must go on our own to God in simplicity and artlessness of heart. What does wise Solomon have to say? He says that we need simplicity. “Be mindful of the Lord in goodness and seek Him in simplicity of heart, for He is found with those who do not tempt Him.”
Simplicity is holy humility, that is absolute trust in Christ, when we give our whole life to Christ. In the Divine Liturgy we say, “we commend our whole life to Christ our God,” and at another point, ” To You, O Loving Master, we commend our whole life and hope, and we entreat you and pray and supplicate.”
Saint Porphyrios
Wounded by Love: The Life and Wisdom of Saint Porphyrios
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