Rejoice…
Nothing can take away the joyful mourning, the joyful sorrow which comes as a gift from God. This is a divine state. Nothing can take it away from you, when it resides in your heart. Regardless of how many problems or difficulties you may have to face up to, this does not affect you.
In your heart in the midst of sorrow you have joy, not just plenty of it but infinite.
The Lord may allow this and that… On the one hand, we need to realize that if God allows for certain things to happen, we need them because we are still rough round the edges. We need a lot of things to befall us to get refined. On the other hand, let us obey to the Lord, overcoming our own pleasure, our own mood, our own comfort and the tendency to sort things out the way we feel like it.
When people accuse you of something, try so that the accusations are not true for you, if they are unfair. Otherwise, the more people are unfair to you, the more you should rejoice.
The more they despise you, mistake your intentions and mistreat you, the more you should rejoice because this is some kind of contribution to minor martyrdom.
We are all called to martyrdom one way or another. The more you accept what God provides for you, God indeed provides more and more and more so that your soul is sanctified!
Virtue comes at a cost. However paradoxical this may sound, if you decide to live in God, your own brothers, not enemies or pagans, will eat you alive. Not everybody is involved in spiritual struggle so as to know exactly what this means. When man sees someone involved, he gets annoyed, is seized by relevant feelings and loses control.
People in the world do what they do to please themselves. Christians head this way, too. They may fight spiritual fights; yet, the ulterior motive behind their struggle is that things turn out to be as they wish them to be. It is very rarely that we come across a soul which will say: “my God, let things happen however you want them to happen”. And not only say that, but also willingly accept what God will allow with pleasure, at whatever cost.
It’s very rare to come across a true Christian. Without realizing, we fall into the same trap the whole humanity has fallen into. What’s ideal today, what everybody is after is how to please ourselves, how to make things turn out as we wish them to, so as to enjoy as much comfort as possible.
This may sound exaggerated, but we should bear it in mind: it is possible that Christians commit a bigger sin because they use their relationship with God and whichever sacrifice they make so that what precisely they wish for, comes true. Which is, to please themselves.
Let us truly realize that because we believe in Christ, exactly because we take things seriously and we want to obey to the will of God and follow His commands, exactly because we want to be saved, we will go through a lot.
In any case, a Christian is what other people aren’t, what other people can’t be. He is happy indeed, he is joyful, he is at peace. Ηe is in a state of euphoria. He leads his life having both mourning and joy -joyful mourning- and when he leaves for the next world, he wins life everlasting.
Holy Hesychasterion “The Nativity of Theotokos” Publications.
Archimandrite Symeon Kragiopoulos
