My beloved spiritual children in Christ Our Only True God and Our Only True Savior,
CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE. Ο ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΕΝ ΤΩ ΜΕΣΩ ΗΜΩΝ! ΚΑΙ ΗΝ ΚΑΙ ΕΣΤΙ ΚΑΙ ΕΣΤΑΙ.
MONDAY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
Blessed art Thou, O Christ our God, Who hast shown forth the fishermen as supremely wise by sending down upon them the Holy Spirit, and through them didst the world into thy net. O Befriender of man, glory be to Thee.
Kontakion Hymn
Once, when He descended and confounded the tongues, the Most High divided the nations; and when He divided the tongue of fire. He called all men into unity; and with one accord we glorify the All-Holy Spirit.
+++
ON ACQUISITION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
By Saint Seraphim of Sarov
The Aim of the Christian Life
"It was Thursday," writes Motovilov. "The day was gloomy. The snow lay eight inches deep on the ground; and dry, crisp snowflakes were falling thickly from the sky when Saint Seraphim began his conversation with me in a field near his hermitage, opposite the river Sarovka, at the foot of the hill which slopes down to the river bank. He sat me on the stump of a tree which he had just felled, and squatted opposite me.
"The Lord has revealed to me," said the great elder, "that in your childhood you had a great desire to know the aim of our Christian life, and that you have continually asked many great spiritual persons about it."
I must admit, that from the age of twelve this thought had constantly troubled me. In fact, I had approached many clergy about it, however their answers had not satisfied me. This could not have been known to the elder.
"But no one," continued St. Seraphim, 'has given you a precise answer. They have said to you: "Go to church, pray to God, do the commandments of God, do good-that is the aim of the Christian life." Some were even indignant with you for being occupied with such profane curiosity and said to you, "Do not seek things which are beyond you." But they did not speak as they should. Now humble Seraphim will explain to you of what this aim really consists.
"However prayer, fasting, vigil and all the other Christian practices many be, they do not constitute the aim of our Christian life. Although it is true that they serve as the indispensable means of teaching this end, the true aim of our Christian life consists of the acquisition of the Holy Spirit of God. As for fasts, and vigils, and prayer, and almsgiving, and every good deed done for Christ's sake brings us the fruits of the Holy Spirit. All that is not done for Christ's sake, even though it be good, brings neither reward in the future life nor the grace of God in this life. That is why our Lord Jesus Christ said: "He who does not gather with me scatters" (St. Luke 11:23). Not that a good deed can be called anything but gathering, even though a deed is not done for Christ's sake, it is still considered good. The Holy Scripture say: "In every nation he who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to Him" (Acts 10:35).
"As we see from another sacred narrative, the man who does what is right is pleasing to God. We see the Angel of the Lord appeared at the hour of prayer to Cornelius, the God-fearing and righteous centurion, and said: "Send to Joppa to Simon the Tanner; there you will find Peter and he will tell you the words of eternal life, whereby you will be saved and all your house." Thus the Lord uses all His Divine means to give such a man, in return for his good works, the opportunity not to lose his reward in the future life. But to this end, we must begin with a right faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Who came into the world to save sinners and Who, through our acquiring for ourselves the grace of the Holy Spirit, brings into our hearts the kingdom of God and opens the way for us to win the blessings of the future life. But the acceptability to God of good deeds not done for Christ's sake is limited to this: the Creator gives the means to make them living (cf. Hebrews 6:1). It rests with man to make them living or not. That is why the Lord said to the Jews: "If you had been blind, you would have had no sin. But now you say 'We see,' so your sin remains" (St. John 9:41). If a man like Cornelius enjoys the favor of God for his deeds, though not done for Christ's sake, and then believes in His Son, such deeds will be imputed to him as done for Christ's sake. But in the opposite event a man has no right to complain, when the good he has done is useless. It never is, when it is done for Christ's sake, since good done for Him not only merits a crown of righteousness in the world to come, but also in this present life fills us with the Grace of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, it is said: "God does not give the Spirit by measure" (St. John 3:34-35).
That is it, your Godliness. Acquiring the Spirit of God is the true aim of our Christian life, while prayer, fasting, almsgiving and other good works done for Christ's sake are merely means for acquiring the Spirit of God."
"What do you mean by acquiring?" I asked St. Seraphim. "Somehow I don't understand."
"Acquiring is the same as obtaining," he replied. "Do you understand, what acquiring money means? Acquiring the Spirit of God is exactly the same. You know very well enough what it means to acquire in a worldly sense, your Godliness. The aim of ordinary worldly people is to acquire or make money; and for the nobility, it is in addition to receive honors, distinctions, and other rewards for their services to the government. The acquisition of God's Spirit is also capital, but grace-giving and eternal, and it is obtained in very similar ways, almost the same ways as monetary, social and temporal capital.
"God the Word, the God-Man, our Lord Jesus Christ, compares our life with the market, and the work of our life on earth He calls trading. He says to us all: "Trade till I come" (St. Luke 19:13), "buying up every opportunity, because the days are evil" (Ephesians 5:16). In other words, make the most of your time getting heavenly blessings through earthly goods. Earthly goods are works done for Christ's sake that confer the grace of the All-Holy Spirit, on us."
"In the Parable of the wise and foolish virgins, when the foolish ones ran short of oil, they were told: "Go and buy in the market" but when they had bought it, the door of the bride-chamber was already shut and they could not get in. Some say that the lack of oil in the lamps of the foolish virgins means a lack of good deeds in their lifetime. Such an interpretation is not quite correct. Why should they be lacking in good deeds, if they are called virgins, even though foolish ones? Virginity is the supreme virtue, an Angelic state, and it could take the place of all other good works.
"I think that what they were lacking was the Grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God. These virgins practiced the virtues, but in their spiritual ignorance they supposed that the Christian life consisted merely in doing good works. By doing a good deed they thought they were doing the work of God, but they cared little whether they acquired the grace of God's Spirit. These ways of life, based merely on doing good, without carefully testing whether they bring the grace of the Spirit of God, are mentioned in the Patristic books: "There is another way which is deemed good in the beginning, but ends at the bottom of hell."
"Saint Anthony the Great in his letters to monks says of such virgins: "Many monks and virgins have no idea of the different kinds of will which act in man, and they do not know that we are influenced by three wills: the first is God's All-Perfect and All-Saving will; the second is our own human will which, if not destructive, neither is it saving; and the third will is the devil's will - wholly destructive." This third will of the enemy prompts man to do no good deeds, or to do them out of vanity, or merely for virtue's sake rather than for Christ's sake. The second, our own will, prompts us to do everything to flatter our passions, or else it teaches us like the enemy, to do good for the sake of good and not care for the Grace which is acquired by it. But the first, God's All-Saving will, consists in doing good solely to acquire the Holy Spirit, an eternal inexhaustible treasure which is priceless. The acquisition of the Holy Spirit is, in a manner of speaking, the oil, which the foolish virgins lacked. They were called foolish just because they had forgotten the necessary fruit of virtue, the grace of the Holy Spirit, without which no one is or can be saved, for: "Through the Holy Spirit every soul is quickened and trough purification is exalted and illumined by the Triune Unity in a Holy Mystery."
"The oil in the lamps of the wise virgins could burn brightly for a long time. So these virgins, with their bright lamps were able to meet the Bridegroom, who came at midnight. With Him, they could enter the bridal chamber of joy. But the foolish ones, though they went to market to buy more oil, when their lamps were going out, were unable to return in time, for the door was already shut. The market is our life; the door of the bridal chamber, which was shut and barred the way to the Bridegroom is human death; the wise and foolish virgins are Christian souls; the oil is not the good deeds, but the Grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God which is obtained through good deeds and which changes souls from one state to another-such as, from a corruptible state to incorruptible state, from spiritual death to spiritual life, from darkness to light, from the stable of our being (where the passions are tied up like dumb animals and wild beasts) into a temple of the divinity, the shining bridal chamber of eternal joy in Christ our Lord, the Creator, Redeemer and Eternal Bridegroom of our souls.
(To be continued)
_____________________________________________
MY BLESSING TO ALL OF YOU
The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
+++
Glory Be To GOD For All Things!
+++
With sincere agape in His Holy Diakonia,
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
+Father George