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.
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THE VALUE OF TIME
By Metropolitan Augustinos of Florina, Greece, of blessed memory
At midnight on December 31st, when the clocks reach exactly 12:00, one full year--with all of its joys and sorrows--is fully erased, and a new year rises. The previous year becomes part of history; all of its 365 days are left behind, a simple memory.
My dear brethren, did you ever think, I mean truly contemplate the time period of these 365 days that on each December 31st becomes part of our own history? What have we truly accomplished during its duration? Let me assure you that all of us are immensely indebted for all of these days In an effort to provide a notion of our responsibility as well as accountability for each year of our earthly lives. I will draw you a picture and provide you a comparative example; I will present a small parable.
There was a king with many subjects who carried great fondness and devotion for all of his kingdom's citizenry. He loved them all very much, every single one of them, without any exception. One day, he decided to give them all a gift. He prepared and distributed purses filled with gold coins, one to each citizen. The grateful subjects opened the purses up and begun counting the coins within. They each counted them, over and over, again and again...All of them had the exact same quantity of gold within their respective purses: 8,760 coins! This was a significant amount of gold. The good and loving king gave it to them out of his goodwill and love, so that they could each use it for their own benefit and the benefit of their fellow men. And do you know what each of them did with their respective small fortune? You could have never guessed it! Instead of using this blessed inheritance for their home, neighbor or society, they each went by the riverbank, opened up their purses and began throwing the gold coins away into the deep river water, one by one, until all of their small fortunes was completely gone and their purses stood empty. If anyone of us had been there observing them, what we might we have said? Surely all of us would have assumed that they had all gone mad.
My brethren, this where my simple parable ends. Now, who is this loving king? He is our God. Who are these senseless citizens? We are the King's citizenry. And what is this 8,760 number? Grab a pencil and paper and figure it out. Every day that passes by has 24 hours and all of the year has 365 days. If we multiply the 365 days with the 24 hours of each day, we then determine that an entire year contains 8,760 hours; these are then the hours that each year of our life has to offer. From January 1st of each year to the next December 31st that follows 8,760 hours will have passed. I thus repeat my question: What have we truly accomplished during the duration of the year we are about to leave behind? Have we made it a worthwhile year? Did we add any value? Or, perhaps we are all like those foolish citizens that threw away all of their 8,760 gold coins. Let us then make an examination, each one of us on our own, and let us evaluate and estimate the usefulness of last year's 8,760 hours that are about to draw to a close.
Among all of these hours, was there any time set aside for listening to the Divine word of God and for the study of Holy Scripture? Were there any days that we ran to a church to listen to sermons or attend church services? How about opening and studying the Holy Bible? Did we do that? If the answer is yes, then we may consider ourselves blessed. This is how the Psalter begins. We read that "blessed" is the person, happy and with good fortune. Who does the Psalmist refer to? Is it the person that has lots of money, apartment buildings, businesses, limousines, and enjoys the finest of worldly entertainment? Not quite; the Psalmist says: "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in His law doth he meditate day and night" (Psalm 1:1-2). Blessed is he who takes time to place the Holy Bible in his hands and reads it. I thus ask all of us: During the year that is coming to an end, did our Angel see us hold the Holy Gospel in our hands and read it on a regular basis? Christ, Himself tells us: "Blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it" (St. Luke 11:28).
We are coming to the close of this year's 8,760 hours. I ask another question: During this entire year, were there hours regularly devoted to prayer? During the earlier years of Christianity, the faithful would dedicate hours upon hours for the purpose of prayer. Does our Angel ever "catch us" on our knees, in prayer to our Heavenly Father? Oh if we only knew the great power of prayer and how much we truly lose by not making prayer a companion to our daily life. There would have been so many unsolved problems (personal, family, professional, etc) that would simply find rapid solutions if, and only if, we used this invaluable key to unlock such solutions; the key of prayer is just another valuable gift granted to us by our God and creator. What great comfort and consolation can be found when we whisper "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior, through the intercession of the Holy Theotokos and all of your Saints, have mercy upon me!" (Source: Orthodox Heritage)
(To be continued)
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"Glory Be To GOD For All Things!" - Saint John Chrysostomos
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With sincere agape in His Holy Diakonia (Ministry),
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
+Father George