Source: Orthodox Teaching of the Elders
July 18, 2018
In this video recording Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica talks about our Christian calling to become children of light, so that everywhere we walk or go, the peace in us would shine.
Subtitles: English
Belgrade, 1990
Fr. Tadej:
“Therefore, we are called to be children of light and children of God filled with divine love.
So that everywhere we walk or go, the peace in us would flow everywhere, full of love and goodness.
However, unfortunately, we are the children of the fallen parents so we lost that strength and power, as we are in captivity.
Yet the Lord came, as He is that love and goodness, those of us who know well that the sin and death entered into us, because of the envy of the evil spirits who fell.
The Lord is the only one who can correct a man and restore him to his original state, as He created him. He condescended to our nature, which He took upon, in order to transform it, resurrect and bring into the original state.
So we can see that the apostle says the same, that at the day of the Last Judgement, The Lord will resurrect firstly those who reposed before us and those of us who happen to be in body at that moment will be transformed. The mortal will become immortal and the corruptible will become incorruptible, our body will restore to its original state. Our body which was immortal will transform into spiritual matter, independent of time and space.
In order to be prepared for such a day, and by every passing moment, we get closer to the end of life, and that is already little Judgement day, we go through the temporal judgement, and later on the grace of God will determine the place for us where we should be.
So let’s make an effort, as we all desire to be filled with love.
And here we cannot get that from limited beings, all that fullness that our soul seeks. So we should seek, with our whole heart, our whole being, the source of life, from our Heavenly Father. So that his Divine Love will be fulfilled in us.
You yourselves who pray can often notice that sometimes we are enlightened by the grace of God. The heart becomes inflamed with love which encompasses not only the earth but the whole universe.
What is that thought that we consider – to embrace everything with such unlimited love?
With God we can include everything, as we are in Him.
And when we thought how, being so little, we could not embrace so much as we are little creatures.
However, with God we can do a lot and everything.
Therefore let us make an effort and pray to God day and night, that the Lord will give us His blessing, have mercy upon us, as we suffered a lot, we have been through so many difficulties…”
