ΤΗΕ ROLE OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH
What’s
missing? True repentance!
-
Why do we, the faithful, go back and forth (in our spiritual lives)?
-
Because we do not REALLY repent. You know what we do? We just regret?
We
go to our spiritual father and say “You
know, I am very sad, I have done such and such… I did it again”,
but we do not sincerely repent, we do not make a solid decision to
allow for an explosion inside our souls and say “That’s
it; enough is enough. From now on, I will force my nous to pray.”
You
might ask “Should
this be done by force?”
And the answer is “YES, by force!” We must cut deep down within
our soul, to start the procedure of katharsis, purification.
Force
and fatigue during ceaseless praying
For
the noetic prayer, as I have already mentioned, in the beginning (but
also afterwards) we need to apply force. At this point, we need
faith. If you believe in it, you will do it. If you believe in God,
you will do the Jesus Prayer.
And this, because God gave it as an
order. God demands from us to pray ceaselessly. Do you know where
this is written? Ok, it is in St. Paul’s letters. But Christ said
it also. Where?
St.
Paul the Apostle said [Thess.
5:17] “pray without ceasing”.
Ceaselessly means not only 5 minutes in the morning and 5 minutes in
the evening, but 24h a day! I ask again, where in the Bible does our
Lord Jesus Christ say that we have to pray ceaselessly? It is in Luke
18:1 about the Persistent Widow and the Unjust Judge, where it says,
“And
he spake a parable unto them to
this end,
that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;”.
As it is explained by the Evangelist, Christ told us this parable, so
that we always pray and not give up.
f. Savvas Agioreitis
To be continued...
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