ΤΗΕ ROLE OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH
How
to reach purification
I
would like to remind you: the Jesus Prayer is not the only thing to
be practiced. It is the entire therapeutic system of our Orthodox
Church we have to observe. This means we should live a liturgical
life (attend Church services frequently), we should live an ascetic
life (fasting, keep vigils, love for hardship and toil), try
practicing obedience to everybody (except for sin), cut out our
logismoi, develop a proper dogmatic conscience, which means to get to
know our Orthodox Faith better, and to constantly try to serve God’s
will and not ours.
How
to know the will of God
How
are we supposed to know the will of God? This is possible only when
we have a spiritual leader. We cannot discover the will of God all by
ourselves. You may read all the spiritual books of the world, but
again, you will never get to know His will this way, because it is
not about intellectual knowledge. It’s all about humility,
obedience, Divine Grace, experience of God. This is the right way to
know what God wants from us and what decision we should make in every
instance.
That’s
why we need a personal spiritual leader: he will show us the way and
will give us the keys to gradually be able to know God’s will and
each time to act accordingly. There will be a time, when you will be
able, by God’s Grace, to discern things by yourself, but not from
the beginning. First, you will have to go through catharsis
(purification) and reach illumination. Then it will be easy for you
to guide not only yourself (not by abandoning your spiritual leader,
of course), but to help others, by showing them the way to get where
you are now.
Truly,
this wonderful thing is taking place in our Orthodox Church. When you
are done purifying yourself, you may become a doctor for others!
f. Savvas Agioreitis
To be continued...
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