We try to start our spiritual lives from the other end—with external deeds, rules, prostrations, fasting. And often, not seeing union with Christ as the purpose of his life, a man receives nothing from his fasting and prostrations, and thus he becomes despondent and enfeebled and his faith grows cold. But when a man’s goal is to be with God, to draw near to Him, to “smell” God, to see what’s pleasing to God or not, then his soul can truly begin to feel. Indeed, this is our goal—to understand what God wants from us, where to go, how to lead our lives, how to think about God, how to change ourselves.
When a man comes to know God, he’s not reluctant to cast away his pride, his vanity, his egotism, his irritability, his self-exaltation. Then, like a snake shedding his old skin, he becomes new, simple, light, and the Lord descends into his open heart. And the Lord says about this: If a man love Me, he will keep My words: and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him (Jn. 14:23).
And all the saints whom we venerate are an example to emulate. Every single one of them is as if saying to us: “Look, you can be like me, just love God. Love so that your heart lives and breathes Him, so you understand that God isn’t something alien to you, so you might exclaim together with the Apostle Paul: For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain (Phil. 1:21).
What scares me about this world? Wars, epidemics… I want to take off this mortal body, to see Christ with my own eyes already, so I might never fall away from Him again. Christ is what I was born for; He’s the One I’ll depart to eventually; He’s my closest friend, my brother, my father!
As Christ Himself said: Whosoever shall do the will of My Father Which is in Heaven, the same is My brother, and sister, and mother (Mt. 12:50). All the saints sought such kinship with God. They became saints because they found this kinship and united with God—not formally, not externally, but internally, deeply, with their spirit, their soul, their body, their mind and senses. And we ask all the saints to give us wisdom and enlightenment, that our minds and souls might wake up and we too might become spiritually sensitive people; that we might sense what holiness is, what the will of God is; that we might learn piety and forgiveness of each other.
