“Whether our New Year will be good and blessed will depend on our
logismoi/thoughts!!! And this is because (we have said this before), the thoughts determine our life.”
We also mentioned this during the speech which we gave last Sunday, on the same subject, when we explained that we face two difficulties during our spiritual journey:
First, egoism (selfishness) and secondly, the resulting anger!
From these two, all other evils begin and follow, my brethren: These are,
judgment, misunderstandings, quarrels, fights and the like…
Well, if we really want and wish our New Year to go well and to progress spiritually, we must work hard to heal both, that is anger and egoism!
You will find no teacher and model in achieving the above objective, other than Jesus Christ and the little children!!!
The God-Man Jesus himself exhorts us:
“Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Mt 11:29).
You see, the antidotes to anger and egoism are: Meekness and humility!
But also as regards little children, who have a natural simplicity and lack of evil, it is
mentioned in the New Testament:
“Let the little children come to me (said Christ), and do not stop them; for it is such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly, I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it. And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them” (Mark 10, 14-16).
And elsewhere says Jesus:
“Truly I say to you, unless you change and become (in simplicity and lack of evil) like little children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matt. 18, 3-4).
(Please let me make a clarification here: When the Lord asks us to change and become like little children, He does not mean in mind, but in simplicity and lack of evil…)
The Apostle of the Gentiles, the Great Paul, makes this clear to us:
“Brethren, do not be children in your thinking; rather, be infants in evil but in thinking be adults” (1 Cor 14:20). That is, my brethren, be not like little children as to the mind, but become infants as regards wickedness. Be perfect as regards your mind and your wisdom.
So, my brethren, I beseech you in my turn:
For the love of our Christ and in the interest of our souls, and having as an example the conduct shown by little children:
As from now:
- Let us have simplicity (in our thoughts, in our words, in our behaviour…)
- Let us always forgive everyone and everything…
(Note: This, of course, does not mean, as we have said that before, that we also agree with the harm someone has done. Nor does it mean that we should be inseparable friends(!) “Keep two arrows of safety distance”, we have said that before, from those who have it as their norm to always involve us in their useless and harmful affairs…)
Finally,
- Let us have kindness; that is, never misunderstand anybody for anything!
Let us pass over every evil word of our neighbour and every evil behaviour of his!
Let us not increase evil by an evil attitude or by an evil thought!
In other words,
Let us put out and not fuel the “fire”…
Let us not forget our good teachers, the innocent children!!!
This justifies the good word of Saint Paisios, which may scandalize some, with which he exhorts us to:
“Try always to have a good thought and you will not lose…”
I wish you that!!!
Happy and Blessed New Year!!!ALL PATERNAL ADVICES (in Blog Fromat)
ALL PATERNAL ADVICES (translated from no. 664) in PDF/WORD format