By Father
Andrew Lemeshonok
Our earthly
life is getting shorter. The life of a Christian seems strange to other people, who
need large-scale events and effects. The outer life of a Christian is much more
humble and simple. It is difficult to imagine from the outside, how it could be
so: stay in your cell, and it will teach you everything you need. People want
to travel, to gain certain impressions. However, when a person finds God, he understands that God
embodies everything what can be in this world, and contains in Himself far more
than we can find on this earth. This is why a person spends all his
energy to reach his own heart and stay there with God, to make his own heart
turn into the Heavenly Kingdom.
But sometimes we cannot do this. We are often torn apart. On the one hand, there is an old "self" with its emotions and feelings, always trying to gain something new, something interesting, something tasty… On the other hand, a new self wants nothing new at all. It is bored, because everything is the same in this word – it was the same a thousand years ago, and it is the same today. What can be new in this world except from God? We think that he is hiding from us, but He is near us. But we do not see Him…
But sometimes we cannot do this. We are often torn apart. On the one hand, there is an old "self" with its emotions and feelings, always trying to gain something new, something interesting, something tasty… On the other hand, a new self wants nothing new at all. It is bored, because everything is the same in this word – it was the same a thousand years ago, and it is the same today. What can be new in this world except from God? We think that he is hiding from us, but He is near us. But we do not see Him…
When a person
preserves peace inside, then he will feel as if he is in Heaven, wherever he is. When
we lose this peace, when the sin prevails in us, then we begin to dislike even those who are close to us. We do not want to be with them. Today we have read: “If any man
will come after me, let him deny himself” (Luke, 9:26). How can one deny
himself? How can one desire to sacrifice his soul to save it? A spiritual man
dies, and we feel sorry for him. What concerns me personally, I can say that
earlier I was interested in everything beautiful, in everything nice, in nature…
Now I cannot fill my heart
with these things. What should we do? How should we live then? A
Christian understands that each step towards God causes pain, because it is impossible
to preserve this grace in our heart by our own means. The grace leaves you, and
you suffer in despair, because you cannot live like you have lived before
anymore, but at the same time you still cannot live in a new way.
Where are we going? To the
Resurrection from the Dead, to Pascha! This is why we should not be afraid of following Christ. This way seems scary to the people, who do not know that God
is love. Has God deprived someone? Could it be possible, that God gives someone
more than another one? Equally. The thing is, we perceive the gifts of God
differently, and keep them differently as well.
We need to die
and resurrect in this life, so that we will not be afraid of physical death.
Our energy goes away, and we can do nothing: our eyes do not see, our ears do
not hear. A person can hardly move, his physical resources are exhausted. Only
the end is ahead of him. If we are tied to this world, our life becomes the way
to our own grave. But we do not want to die, we want to live forever. This is
why we come to church, and this is why we come to the Chalice. We have to
learn again. Our study will help us discover a completely different view on
what life is, what the world is, and what love is. “My sister and my brother
are my life” (from the prayer of Sophrony (Sakharov)) – this is how we should
look at a person near us. He is not a hindrance, not a burden or a competitor,
but my life. If we start looking for beauty in one another, then the world
around us will change.
Today we thank
God, for we have opportunity to speak about Heaven, about something important
in our life. People speak rarely about these things. They do not have time for
this; they have a lot to do. Everything is artificial in this world. Everything
is substituted and confused. Not only food and relationships become artificial,
but our life itself becomes unreal. People like natural food, because it is
healthy. Natural materials are more reliable. And we need a natural, a normal
life with God. Without God there is no life at all. We ask God to strengthen
us, because each of us is weak. Each of us dithers. There is a lot of sin in
each of us, which disfigures everything around us. We should not be afraid of rooting this sin
out. We should be not afraid of pain this can cause. We have to work on
ourselves. This is what our earthly life is intended for – to enter the Kingdom
of Heaven, to restore what our ancestors have lost in Eden, to restore the
connection with God, which will make a person like God in our image.
March 20, 2017
St. Elisabeth Convent
CONVERSATION