When a person repents, he becomes aware of God’s love.
+ Elder Aemilianos of Simonopetra
lamps of our heart
If we wish to stay on the path that leads us to God’s presence, let us, like good pilgrims, prepare wisely.
The psalmist gave his whole soul, his whole heart, his whole being to God; he endured countless dangers, suffered many deprivations, for the sake of the only truly worthy cause: to enter into immediate relation with God; to commune with God Himself and to be filled with Him.
How I would like to see this kind of love, this kind of faith, in our own pilgrimage to God.
+Elder Aemilianos of Simonopetra
the Psalms and the Life of Faith
give yourself up
What God seeks from me is something entirely spiritual. The sacrifice that He wants is a sacrifice of the heart. The Lord loves mercy and truth, and mercy us not do much an expression of love as it is an act of sacrifice, since it calls of me to sacrifice, not something I think I need to give up for God, but to surrender my very self; to make of my self an offering.
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Elder Aemilianos of Simonopetra
Psalms and the Life of Faith
Thine own of Thine own
God asks the pilgrim for his love and his trust, but especially for his own self, and then He will give him His grace and glory.
But God does not give back less than He asks for, and so the grace and glory that He gives are God’s own self.
However we shouldn’t expect to receive anything from Him until we’ve journeyed to Him like the pilgrim, in a movement of the soul toward union with the Beloved.
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Elder Aemilianos of Simonopetra
Psalms and the Life of Faith
yesterday gone
That which we ask of You, O Lord, is that our years be bound up together with You, that we live for You. Our days pass. We see that we all fall down and die. We ask nothing than to reach the land that spreads out before us.
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Elder Aemilianos of Simonopetra
come receive the light
When I reject the way of repentance, I reject God.
When I chose to remain in sin, I expel God from my heart.
But as soon as I turn from my sin, God enters my heart.
And when He does, I discover my place in the Church,
which is His body and His bride.
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Elder Aemilianos of Simonopetra
The Sacrament of Confession, is for an Orthodox Christian, the turning from sin and coming to one’s senses. One is conscious of their unworthiness, yet joyfully receives the longed for, heartwarming embrace from the Father.
It is the lost sheep returning to the flock, borne on the shoulders of the Good Shepherd.
The Church Fathers tell us that gift of repentance is the work of divine grace, which we, then, wholeheartedly offer and return to God. Saint John Chrysostom says that “repentance opens up heaven“.
While the Sacrament of Confession is the same for Orthodox world-wide, different localities may offer their own customs.
Over the summer, at a monastery retreat, Confession was available during the Divine Liturgy, in a side nave of the Church. The nave was dark except for a candle stand with one lit candle and a monk priest.
“The light of Christ illumines.” (1)
Only a few partook of Confession, but as each communicant received the prayer of absolution, she lit a new candle from the flame of the Confesson before her, so that with each new flame, the blaze and glow of each Confession literally overcame the darkness of that little chapel.
A powerfully striking impression that says more than words ever could. What a joy to behold – that as each woman left, heart lightened and unburdened – the tiny chapel became lighter and brighter. Repentance overcoming darkness and returning to the light of Christ, which illumines the faithful.
Like the Resurrection service of Pascha, Confession invites us again and again, to “discover our place within the Church” and continue on this journey redeeming the time.
“Come take ye light, that is never overtaken by night, and come glorify Christ, Who is risen from the dead“.(2)
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(1) Orthodox Service of the Presanctified Liturgy
(2) Orthodox Christian service of Pascha
make straight in the desert a highway for a God
It may be the case that we have many highways in our heart.
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But in the end, the goal of our pilgrimage is not a place at all,
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but God Himself.
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Elder Aemilianos of Simonopetra
gladsomelife.com 