828 (FAITH/ SPIRITUAL STRUGGLE/ GREAT LENT/ RESURRECTION)
My brethren, we must carry on with our struggle lying before us with faith!
With faith we must go ahead with our struggle in order to get the celestial prize!
We, Christians have and follow the Christian Faith! The Christian faith, not the Christian religion!
The so-called religions are in fact human efforts and inventions so that man may find and discover the unknown to him God:
It is a movement starting from down and going upwards…
On the other hand, the Christian Faith is the answer and the acceptance (and this is why it is called Christian Faith) to the call and the revelation that the Triune God Himself reaches us, through the incarnation of the second Person of the Holy Trinity, the only begotten Son of God:
This is a movement from top downwards…
Every part, every piece and every “cell” of our Faith, if we analyse it, will result in revealing this word: Faith!
The same with Monasticism, which we follow as monks; if we would change its name, we might call it by the same word: Faith!
The main cause for sinning and for falling into the same mistakes, as Christians, my brethren, is because we either forget and/or break a certain aspect of our Faith!
Precisely for this reason, and in order not to sin and not to fall into the same mistakes, we must constantly have sobriety, attention and prayer, so that we may recall and remember what faith requires from us in each and every case!
Our spiritual struggle, my brethren, should be imbued with the logic of faith and not with the logic of the… brain(!); not because our Faith is illogical, but because it overcomes reason!
Now be careful to what I am about to say:
The decisions we make in our evening Account of the day, something that we should all do, and which require application and faithfulness, are also “pieces” and parts of our faith!This is the message that I would like to pass on to you, my brethren, through the messages of our “Paternal Advices” (that of Wednesday in particular), while we enter as from next Monday to the stage of the Great Lent, the stage of the virtues, the stage of exercising our faith(!) in all its aspects…; it is for this reason that in faith and by obeying, we fast…
Have a Good and Holy Lent, so that we may be found worthy to reach the stage of celebrating the Holy Resurrection! (and, for that matter, our own resurrection too!)
Amen!
ALL PATERNAL ADVICES (in Blog Format)
ALL PATERNAL ADVICES (translated from no. 664) in PDF/WORD Format)