The Spiritual heart

Posted on April 8, 2016 by Semto Mechal

spirtual heart

The heart is the inner person.  It is the center of our personality where we encounter God and where we can make our free choice concerning Him.  We can’t find our heart by our own efforts.  We find our heart because we have to say that the aim of the Christian life is for our intellect to be united with our heart.  Then we are healed and become whole so we can turn to God with our whole being fulfilling in a Godly manner the commandment where He asks us to love Him with all our heart, all our soul and all our being.

We can’t acquire the Holy Spirit, and know God unless our intellect is united with the heart.  We can’t make this happen by ourselves.  The intellect is united to the heart only through the action of the grace of God.  This grace comes when we crucify our intellect with the commands of the Gospel and when we learn to live, to think and to react in accordance with the Gospel decrees.  The intellect then makes this descent into the depths of the heart and from there turns in its entirety to God.  That is when people are healed.  By ourselves, we can’t work this miracle i.e. the union of our heart with the Spirit of God.  As the elder used to say that is the greatest miracle in the universe, in the whole world, the union of a person’s heart with the Spirit of God.  It is the grace of God that helps our intellect to unite with our heart but God has given us various means to acquire it to make this healing process work.

One of the ways is His holy name.  His holy name is the bearer of the energy of His person.  His name is linked to the person of the Lord Jesus.  And when we invoke His name, His presence within us come alive and with the invocation of the name of the Lord Jesus, we gather up the traces of His presence within us.  And these traces of His presence build within us the holy temple of God.  This is one way and one means.

The second way is His holy Word.  His Word is creative.  At the beginning of creation, the Lord said: “Let it be” and it was, through His Word.  “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made and by the breath of His mouth, all their host”, says the Psalm.  It follows that His Word is productive.  When we study the Word of God, and, even more when we pray with the Word of God, it becomes the language we use to speak to God.  God spoke to us with His Word and we pray and speak to God with His Word.  We learn the language of God.  And this language performs a productive task and leaves traces of His presence in our hearts.  “Let the Word of God abide richly within you” says Saint Paul.  “May the Word of God dwell in you abundantly”, he says and leave these productive traces of His presence in our hearts.  And it is these that construct the Holy temple of God within us.  Saint Paul says “Don’t you know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives within you?”  As though, it was a perfectly ordinary state of affairs.  So The Lord has given us these means and an even greater one.

The third way is the sacrament of the Divine Eucharist, the Liturgy.  He said a hard thing, as the Jews used to say when He said unless we eat His flesh and drink His blood, there is no life in us.  So when we participate in the sacrament of the Eucharist with a clear conscience and are nourished with His body and His blood, this then becomes our participation in the life of God.  We swap this short, transient life of ours for the infinite life of God in heaven and we build the holy temple of God within us.  He has given us a variety of means but I have mentioned only the three most important, His Name, His Word, and His holy Body of which we partake at communion, so that we can have life.

Transcribed from and interview given by Archimandrite Zacharias (Zacharou), of the Holy Monastery of Saint John of Essex.

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Does Faith make sense?

Posted on April 4, 2016 by Semto Mechal

faith

Remember the word of the prophet, if a watchman sees the iniquity of a man and does not declare it, he shall be guilty for a lost soul.  Therefore do not be silent but speak the truth in love.

For many, faith is what makes sense.  If it does not make sense to their rational minds then it can’t be from God or it can’t be good.

May I ask you then, How does it make sense for Abraham to obey to offer his son Issac on the Altar?  How does it make sense for Caleb and Joshua to believe that God will give them the promised land, when Giants were roaming the land?  How does it make sense for Gideon to defeat Israel’s enemies with 300 people?  How does it make any sense for David to dare fight the Giant Goliath?

My brethren, our faith should go beyond our rational thinking if it is to be faith in God.

Matthew 5:20  For I say unto you that unless your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Matthew 17: 19-20   Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?”  20 So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.

 

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Coming to himself

Posted on March 17, 2016 by Semto Mechal

The prodigal son coming to himself remembers his father.  He does not remember the Father till he comes to himself.  He began to rediscover his Father’s image (The Paternal image) within himself.  This image of the Father is what essentially made him different from the pigs.  The one thing these pigs cannot do is come to themselves.  At last, the prodigal son came to himself.  He did what that lost sheep could never do.  He reflected.  He bent back on his own act of thought, something only a human being can do.  Angels and animals cannot do it.  Only human beings can reflect on their own active thoughts.  A sheep can never return on its own.  Because there can be no return without reflection.  That is why the fallen angels will be forever fallen.  They have no ability to reflect.  It is already over.  The animal has no ability to reflect either.

A human being is distinguished by the freedom of reflection, which enables him to bent back on his own active thought and reconsiders.  The prodigal came to himself and rediscovered his soul saying I will arise and return to my Father.

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Voluntary acsestism or involuntary Trial

Posted on March 5, 2016 by Semto Mechal

Mourning, repen­tance and confession are among the most effective weapons against the passions. “Those who are clouded by wine are often washed with water, but those clouded by passion are washed with tears”.

The various trials and temptations in our life, that is, “involuntary causes” also are a supplement to repentance.  The virus of evil is great and requires the purifying fire of repentance through tears.  For we are cleansed from the defilements of sin either through the voluntary sufferings of asceticism or through involuntary trials.

When the voluntary sufferings of repentance precede, then involuntary ones, that is, great trials do not follow. God has arranged so that if voluntary asceticism does not effect purification, then involuntary causes “more sharply activate our restoration towards the original beauty”.  This means that many trials which come into our life are there because we have not willingly repented. Taking up the cross of repentance voluntarily and willingly results in our avoiding the involuntary and unwilled cross of temptations and trials.

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Passions are meant to be transformed

Posted on March 4, 2016 by Semto Mechal

The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis is about an imagenery bus ride from hell to heaven.  It is about how people in hell would experience heaven.  It seems that upon arrival, the riders hate heaven because the grass is too real and it hurts their feet and the sunshine is too bright it hurts their eyes.   There is a little creek at the outskirts of heaven where they get off.  When they get off the bus, they look like smears on the air rather than full human beings.  They are not fully human.

When our passions are our master, we are not fully what we are created to be.  We are not fully human.  To be fully human is to be like our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Jesus Christ is the true person.  There was a particular man from hell who has a white Lizard on his shoulder.  This white lizard is whispering licentious and lustful ideas in his ears.  As this lizard is whispering these things, the man comes upon an angel.  And the Angel asks the man, would you like to stay?  The man surprised by the offer answered saying, I sure would like to stay.  The Angel said sure you can stay and you can be more real but I must kill that lizard on your shoulder.  The lizard panics telling the man he will do it.  The Angel is ready and he has got his sword on his hand.   The Angel asks again, may I kill the lizard?  The lizard gets into a panic mode and told the man that he will make the fantasies almost pure if he promises not to have him killed by the Angel.  He said again, he will kill me if you don’t stop him.

Finally, they talk back and forth, and the man throws his hands up and said fine, go-ahead.  It will probably kill me too.  I know that you are not just going to kill the lizard, you are going to cut me in half with that sword.   He told the Angel, I am tired of arguing, just go-ahead and do it.  The Angel raises his fiery sword and comes down on the man’s shoulder to kill the lizard.  At this point, the man cries out saying I am undone and falls into the grass.   The lizard falls off his shoulder and start raving on the grass.   But neither one of them are dead.   Instead something amazing is happening.  The lizard begins to transform and pretty soon the man starts to stand up and finds he is more real than ever.   The white lizard on his shoulder has now been transformed into a beautiful white horse.   The man looks at the angel, smiles and jumps up on the back of the horse and rides into deep heaven.

We must understand that lustful passion who was keeping this man a slave was meant to be transfigured.  The desire was meant to be the man’s servant not the master.   All of our passions or desires, the ones we can see and the ones we cannot see, are not evil in and of themselves.   If the passions are undisciplined and run rampant, they will make a slave of our bodies.  We are meant to have those passions under control.   We are all meant to be like Jesus Christ.   Anything less than the dignity of an eternal companion with the uncreated God is unworthy of the human person.

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Does God Love The Devil And The Demons Like He Loves Us?

Posted on March 2, 2016 by Semto Mechal
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Why did Temptation Exist in Paradise?

Posted on March 2, 2016 by Semto Mechal

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Condemning others

Posted on February 18, 2016 by Semto Mechal

In reading scripture, we should apply it to ourselves and not to others.  Some would argue that Saint Paul applied the Scriptures to other people.  How are we to teach others and not to be judgmental?

For example, Scripture clearly says do not kill.  Should we tell other people not to kill?  The Fathers would say we don’t have to do that.  We can certainly continue to say killing is a sin.  But in this world, we are all killers so we cannot condemn others and very few of us are called to heal.  Condemnation is out of the question because we are commanded to love the enemy.  We have to love everybody, who is different from us.  But we can still call sin by its name.  We are not Saint Paul.  When can one pick up Scripture and tell others what to do or apply it to them?  The only time we can do that is when we become perfect.  In order to use scripture for others, we have to fulfill all the commandments.  One of the commandments is to love our enemies.  The test is whether we are able to use scripture to correct others in full love toward the other or do we use it simply as a tool of condemnation.  We can’t say for example someone will go to hell for this or that.  We don’t know for we are not in charge.  We also must perceive sin as an illness.

If we are perfect, we have the attitude of Saint Macarius the Great.  Saint Macarius the Great was like a God on the earth because whenever he saw evil, it was as if he did not see it.  Whenever he heard evil, it was as if he did not hear it.  That is perfection and that is when you can talk about others.  Saint Paul has reached that stage and he can tell someone, you have committed a sin, you have a problem because he was saying in his prayer so that he can go to heaven, let me go to hell in his place.  Until we get that attitude, we cannot condemn anyone.  We must not condemn sinners for we are all sinners and suffer from the same disease.  Otherwise, it will be like someone who is sick going to the Doctor and being condemned by him for being sick.  The fact is when it comes to sin, we are all victims and we are all in the same boat.

That is why we need to be focused on ourselves until we get this attitude of placing the salvation of others above our own.  When we have gained that perfect love toward mankind then we can tell others in what they are wrong because we will do it with a proper attitude. Until then, we cannot do it because we are as sick as the sinner we are trying to correct.  Otherwise, it is like someone who has the flu making fun of someone who has the cold.  The Lord said to watch out for the log in our eyes.  This is a commandment that will put us in the position of not judging.  Some of us are called to heal so we don’t have a privilege not to.  Those are the confessors, the elders, and the Saints since they have gained it.

Can we look at people and see the image of God?  For example, if we are walking on the street and we see someone killing someone else, can we see the killer in the image of God?  If we can do that then we have become a Saint and we can go ahead and say to that person, do not kill because we won’t do it with hatred or resentment.  We will only correct with love.  If we criticize, it will be with love because we are commanded to love our enemies.  So we don’t condemn sinners, we try to heal them.

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Sacrificial or Emotional love

Posted on February 13, 2016 by Semto Mechal
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I would have lost heart

Posted on February 11, 2016 by Semto Mechal

Psalm 27 New King James Version (NKJV)

  1. The Lord is my light and my salvation;
    Whom shall I fear?
    The Lord is the strength of my life;
    Of whom shall I be afraid?
  2.  One thing I have desired of the Lord,
    That will I seek:
    That I may dwell in the house of the Lord
    All the days of my life,
    To behold the beauty of the Lord,
    And to inquire in His temple.
  3. For in the time of trouble
    He shall hide me in His pavilion;
    In the secret place of His tabernacle
    He shall hide me;
    He shall set me high upon a rock.
  4. I would have lost heart, unless I had believed
    That I would see the goodness of the Lord
    In the land of the living.

The reason we depart from His house is because we fail to see His goodness and His eternal Love and focus on temporal circumstances.  We keep complaining and think that there must be something better outside. The prodigal son thought that there are good things on the outside and completely fail to see His father’s goodness.  The spirit of complaining, anger and frustration will put us out in due time unless we come to our senses and start to appreciate what we have in His house.

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