To become a man of God man will have to work his fingers to the bone; he will have to bleed. Unless he bleeds inside, all the things that have to be shed away cannot be removed. Unless he bleeds inside, he cannot eventually become the man God would like him to be.
All sorts of needless things burden us: all this meanness we have, our weaknesses, all this sin we carry along…They seem as if they are firmly stuck on us. Worse even, they seem to be oozing out of us, as if we were their own source and fountain. These elements, which are irrelevant to us, are spiritual paρasites, and man has to be “squashed and squeezed” in order for God to get them out of his system. I’m afraid there is no other way. In order to redeem him- self, man has to push himself hard as if he were going to bleed. And Abba Isaac says, “Nobody ascended to heaven easily”.
How can God take me seriously if I appear to take things lightly?
Archimandrite Symeon Kragiopoulos (†)
From the book: Archimandrite Symeon Kragiopoulos, “SPIRITUAL MESSAGES” Panorama Thessaloniki, 2017
