ΤΗΕ ROLE OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH
Daily
concerns and worries and the abundance of material goods pose an
obstacle to prayer
Well,
you might say “I have so many things to do and to care about; I do
not have time (to pray).” So, I suggest you stop them all, and
start praying. This is our main job, after all!
Why
did our Lord Jesus Christ say [Matthew
6:25] “Take no thought for your life (do not worry about), what ye
shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye
shall put on”?
Why did He say [Matthew
13:22] “He also that received seed among the thorns is he that
heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness
of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful.”?
The
thorns are, in fact, those worries and care-abouts!
And
we often say, “Let’s
buy us a machine/device to help us out with our job, so we can have
more spare time.”
We buy the machine and then say, “Now
that I have this machine, it is a great opportunity to take care of
some more things!”
… and we do this, we do that and so on…and we fall into another
great trap: the trap of doing MORE things, now that we’ve got the
machine, with an ultimate goal to feed our (usually sinful) passions
and foremost our selfishness.
At the end of the day, instead of
having more time available (for prayer), we have even less, and,
unfortunately, what we have more of is pure stress! … Because, you
know, the machine will get defected after a while and we will have to
fix it etc.…. and, in the beginning, we need to learn how to handle
it, and, when a new version of it comes to the market, we will have
to drop the old one and “update” with the new, … the brand-new
worries-maker!... this is the trap we fall into.
This
is the reason why our Church Fathers talked about indigence and
self-sufficiency, so they can lead a life as simple as possible; …
to possess less and be less busy. Do you see how we can easily return
to observing the healing treatment of our Church (Orthodoxy)?
f. Savvas Agioreitis
To be continued...
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