How Jesus appears in us and in others

The child Jesus born within us advances by different ways in those who receive Him in wisdom, in age, and in grace. He is not the same in every person, but is present according to the measure of the person receiving Him. He shows Himself according to each one's capacity. He comes either as an infant, or a child advancing in age, or as one fully grown after the example of the cluster. Christ is never seen with the same form upon the vine, but He changes His form with time - now budding, now blossoming, now mature, now ripe and finally as wine. Thus the vine holds out a promise with its fruit. It is not yet ripe for wine, but it awaits maturity. Meanwhile it does not lack in any delight, for it gladdens our sense of smell instead of our taste with its expectation of the future; by its fragrance of hope it sweetens the soul's senses. A faith firm in a grace we hope for becomes a delight for us who wait in patience. 

The loving, happy home

Neither do walls or rich furniture make a home.  Millionaires in magnificent mansions may never know a home.  But where there are good relationships, where love binds the family together and to God, there happiness is always to be found.  For good relationships are heaven anywhere.  Monotony and misery cannot exist where there is love.  But the fire of love must be kept burning warmly and brightly with the sweet wood of sacrifice.  In teaching us to cross the "I" out of life, our Lord tells us the secret of happiness; what the Saints call the ecstasy of self-forgetfulness.  For divine love is always self-effacing, seeks to give rather than to receive, to serve rather than be served, to love rather than to be loved, and will sacrifice anything for the beloved.  Only then does love become a clean and holy fire in the heart, and not an ugly flare of lust. 

Make our lives peaceful, O Lord

The letter below was sent by Fr. Demetrios Carellas on Monday of Bright Week this year.  The content is a valuable reminder for each of us as long-standing conflict is often a stumbling block for many and personal peace remains elusive.  I hope you’ll have time to read it in its entirety: 

"It is the day of the Resurrection; let us be radiant in the

festival, and let us embrace one another.  Let us say, O brethren,

even to those who hate us: Let us forgive all things

on the Resurrection..."

                                                               [Resurrection Doxastikon in the 1st Plagal tone]

Christ is risen!

This year, the words of the closing hymn of the Resurrection Matins service really spoke to my heart.  It is: a call to heart-centered intimacy; a call to forgive everything - past and present - in the spirit of the never-ending JOY of our Saviour's Holy Resurrection, even to those who hate us.

Well, then, should not this Christ-centered call apply also to family members and friends with whom we are currently - at best - 'benignly rejecting', and - at worse - festering bitterness and/or contempt?  My brothers and sisters in the risen Lord Jesus, how can we expect our Lord to - as another Resurrection hymn states - "make our lives peaceful", if we continue to show Him our contempt through the way we treat those closest to us?

What a glorious time this is for us to let go of our anger, harshness and judgment of those whom we feel have offended us, rejected us, been cruel to us --- even for years?  And here is the most effective way to do this: We must pray that our Lord Jesus will grant us His grace to take full blame for the conflict, and not expect any apology from the other party --- even if, by the standards of this fallen world, we were ones being "wronged".  In this way, my beloved sojourners on the sea of life, we will be victorious, even if the other person chooses to reject our efforts.  I have total confidence in the truth of what I am sharing with you, because I have frequently read about these things in the teachings of our holy Church Fathers, and in the lives of our Saints; and actually have seen living results of it in my 37+ years of service to our Lord Jesus and His Church.

When we surrender our wills to Christ in this manner, then He will give to our hearts at least these two things: His peace, "which surpasses all understanding"; and a love for the other person that is no longer me-centered and conditional, but Christ-centered and unconditional! And then we will experience and inward freedom, that words cannot circumscribe!

However, (please forgive the length of this!) we cannot approach the other person with any hidden agenda; or our efforts will bear no good fruit.  A story from the Desert Fathers will clearly illustrate this:  Once two monks at a Monastery became quite angry with one another, and begin to harbor resentment for one another. One of the monks decided to make an attempt reconciliation with his brother.  However, on the way to speak with him, he allowed the devil to fill his thoughts with memories of the unkind things the other had said to him, and to put in his mind that: if he asked for forgiveness, then the other monk had to do likewise.  Thus, the reconciliation attempt failed completely.

Therefore the monk went to his Spiritual Father, who explained to him that his hidden agenda made it impossible for God's grace to enter into the conversation.  Therefore, he instructed his spiritual child to pray fervently for God's grace; and to approach his brother --- unconditionally, and willing to accept full blame for the loss of their friendship.  Approaching his brother's cell in this manner, armed him with with God's grace, their division was destroyed!

O my dear and blessed brothers and sisters in the risen Lord, think of what healing power would start taking place within ourselves, our families, our parishes, even our Nations, if you and I  choose to follow this path during the next 38 days --- if we too "forgive all things on the Resurrection!

Truly He is risen!

Your servant in Christ,

+Fr. Demetrios

God's spiritual agreement with us

Our duty and concern must be how to please God and our fellow men; we should not be preoccupied with our needs, as God will take care of them.  There is a silent spiritual agreement between God and man.  He will look after us, while we will concentrate on how to live our lives according to His will.  "Cast all your anxieties on Him, for He cares about you," (1 Peter 5:7). 

Calm yourself

Even if your soul should suffer somewhat from an offense, keep the sorrow within yourself. For it is said, “Within me my heart is troubled,” (Psalm 142:4), that is, the passion has not come out, but has been humbled like a wave that has broken up on the shore.  Calm your raging heart. Let your passions be ashamed at the presence of reason in you, as playful children are ashamed before a man commanding respect. 

On the Mystery of Repentance

One of my all-time favorite spiritual books is Wounded by Love, the Life and the Wisdom of Elder Porphyrios.  The content of this book, I’ve found, is a balm for the soul, pure and simple.  Most Orthodox Christian bookstores carry this book, if you are looking for it and cannot find it, write to me and I’ll help you source one, if desired.  Here is an excerpt, starting on page 173, where you can read further if you have a copy at home.   

‘Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden…’

There is nothing higher than what is called repentance and confession.  This sacrament is the offering of God’s love to mankind.  In this perfect way a person is freed of evil.  We go and confess and we sense our reconciliation with God; joy enters us and guilt departs.  In the Orthodox Church there is no impasse.  There is no impasse because of the existence of the confessor who has the grace to forgive.  To be a confessor is a great thing.

I had the habit from the time I was a boy—and it’s a habit I still have—that whenever I sinned I went and confessed and everything went away.  I would jump for joy.  I am sinful and weak.  I resort to God’s compassion and I am saved, I become calm and I forget everything.  Every day I think that I sin, but I desire that whatever happens to me I turn it into prayer and I don’t keep it locked within me.

Sins makes a person very confused psychologically.  The confusion doesn’t dissipate whatever you do.  Only with the light of Christ does the confusion depart.  Christ makes the first move, ‘Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden…Thereafter we accept this light in our good will, which we express with our love towards Him, with our prayer and with the sacraments.

For the soul to repent it must first awake.  It is in this awakening that the miracle of repentance occurs.  This is where human will plays its role.  The awakening, however, is not something that rests only with the individual man or woman.  The individual on his own is unable to bring it about.  God intervenes.  Then divine grace comes.  Without grace a person cannot repent.  The love of God does everything.  He may use something—an illness, or something else, it depends—in order to bring a person to repentance.  Accordingly repentance is achieved through divine grace.  We simply make a move towards God and from then onwards, grace supervenes.

You may say to me, ‘If that is so, all things are done by grace.’  This is a fine point.  Here, too, we have a case of what I say, namely, that we cannot love God if God does not love us.  St. Paul puts it very well:  (Galatians 4:9) Now having known God, or rather having been known by God…The same happens with repentance.  We cannot repent unless the Lord gives us repentance.  And this holds for everything.  It is a case of the Scriptural principle (John 15:5), Without me, you can do nothing.  If there are not the pre-conditions for Christ to enter into us, repentance does not come.  The pre-conditions are humility, love, prayer, prostrations and labor for Christ.  If the sentiment is not pure, if there is no simplicity and if the soul is moved by self-interest, then divine grace does not come.  In that case, we go and confess, but we don’t feel relief.

Repentance is a very delicate matter.  True repentance will bring sanctification.  Repentance will sanctify us.

How our past affects us

From Wounded by Love, The Life and the Wisdom of Elder Porphyrios, pg 174:

Man is not solely responsible for his transgressions.  The mistakes, sins and passions are not only personal experiences of the person who comes to confession.  Every person has incorporated into himself the experiences of his parents and especially of his mother, that is, how his mother lived when she was carrying him in her womb—if she was anxious, if her nervous system was exhausted, if she was happy, if she was  sad, if she was depressed.  In other words, her whole nervous system affected the nervous system of the embryo.  So that when the child is born and grows up, it assumes also the experiences of its mother, that is, of another person.  A state is created in a person’s soul on account of his parents, which he carries with him all through his life.  It leaves its marks within him and many things that happen to him during his life are a consequence of this state.  The way he behaves has a direct relation to the state of his parents.  He grows up, is educated, bit is not remedied.  This is where a large part of the responsibility for the spiritual state of a person is to be found.

There is, however, a secret.  There is a way for a person to be freed from this evil.  This way is a general confession, which takes place through the grace of God.  Your spiritual father might say to you, ‘How much I wish that we could be in a quiet place and that I could be free of all other duties so that you could tell me about your life from the beginning, from the time you first had consciousness of your self, about all the events you remember and how you reacted to them, not only the unpleasant memories, but also the pleasant ones, not only your sins, but also the good things, your successes and failures.  Everything.  Everything that goes to make up your life.’

I have often used this general confession and I have seen miracles worked through it.  The moment you relate these things to your confessor, divine grace comes and frees you from all the unpleasant experiences and wounds, the psychological traumas and feelings of guilt, because while you are talking, your spiritual father is praying fervently to the Lord for you to be liberated from all these things.

Some time ago a woman came to me and made a confession of this kind and she was greatly benefitted.  Her psychological state improved, because something had been tormenting her.  Now this woman sent a friend of hers to me and we went out and sat on the rock outside the monastery al Kallisia and she started to talk.  I said to her, ‘Tell me whatever you feel you need to.  If I ask you about something, then tell me.  If I don’t ask you, then continue talking, just as you feel you need to.’

I listened to all that she was telling me, not simply with attention but I observed the effect of prayer on her psychological world.  I looked inside her soul and I saw that grace was entering her, just as I saw her before me.  Because in the confessor there is grace and in the priest there is grace.  Do you understand what I am saying?  When someone is making confession, the priest is praying for him.  At the same time grace comes and frees him from the traumas in his soul, which have been tormenting him for years without his being aware of what caused them.  Yes, indeed, I believe very strongly in all this!

You can speak to your confessor just as you feel, but that’s not as important as it is that, as he prays, the priest looks into your soul and sees how you are and transmits to you the grace of God.  It has been proved that this looking into the soul is a spiritual radiation, which relieves you and cures you.  Don’t imagine that these are natural rays.  These things are true.  And what happened with Christ?  He took hold of the hand of the woman with an issue of blood and said, I felt power leaving me.  You’ll say, ‘Yes, but He was God.’  Christ, of course, was God, but did not the Apostles do the same?

All spiritual fathers and confessors have this grace and when they pray, they transmit it as conductors.  For example, if we want to switch on an electric heater in this room, then we need to take the cable and plug it in, otherwise it won’t work.  As soon as the cable is plugged in, however, the current passes through the cable.  These are spiritual matters of our religion.  We may speak about cables, but in reality this is ‘divine psychoanalysis.’