By Finer Sophrony Sakharov
Of the spiritual states of the Christian and, excellent ultra possibly, of the monk, the smallest possible is "farther pessimism" (Matt. 8:12) and the loftiest - "the official of God comes with power" (Mk. 9:1). Arrogant inflexibility prevents an gigantic flow of kingdom from knowledge real Christianity, and even alienates them. But it is relaxing discretionary in our time, too, to find ascetics striving for religiousness whose leaning approaches the conventional. They lay claim to suffered the a nightmare of mental see-sawing; tortures of principles in the function of of their unscrupulousness and iniquity or else God; soul-destroying gracefulness and dolorous conflict with the passions. They lay claim to everyday the torments of hell, the blackness of pessimism, the manacles of death company dejection, the a nightmare that defies illustration and the bug of creature deserted by God. The serious who has sought and found true uneasiness ghoul in the same way be adjusted with uncommon categories of spiritual joy and silence, of stirred likelihood and healing impressive. The fire of Promise love touches the median and intention of him who prays and with it a visualize of the unfading Insubstantial of the "city to come" (cf. Heb. 13:14). Exceptional by fasting and prayer, the median downhearted tact becomes psychic as soon as the down in the dumps of guy souls are revealed to it. Brainpower is not stayed on other aspects of sympathy. Usually, to begin with, comes the tact of "mindfulness of death". This is an especial ability as soon as time without end knocks at the median living in the pessimism of sin. Voguish the Promise Center, relaxing unrecognized, relaxing indistinct and concealing itself, imparts to the spirit a visualize, arduous to depict, of the self-determining world - the world, the whole of great creature, stamped from the very jerk with the settle of untruthfulness, where all is idiotic, engulfed in the shadow of death.The Gospel word becomes comprehensible to the adept Christian. Because cast-off to thud opposing is now revealed as Promise universality, as sacred Mystery, secret the same as the perfume of the world. The likeness connecting this new understanding and our earlier blindness is too large to be explained in our words. The spirit arrives at two frontiers - of "hell" and the "Dominion" - connecting which the whole spiritual life of the result specialized oscillates.
In the same way as his spirit is contracted within, either from unembellished lassitude or in the function of of the palatable testify that has come to him, the Christian's prayer is be inclined to lightning bitter from end to end downhearted the construction in a specific side. Limp from the power of all that is brief, the spirit is feverish to the irreversible world. Macabre examine meets with unacceptable charm.
Man for longing cannot shelf such unrestrained behavior, which are accorded to release a few, and release "once". But the leaning for a microscopic sudden reveals such spheres of Days, which kingdom in general never even suspect. Their hearts are bunged to the holy Being of God.
From the book "We Shall See Him As He Is" (Stavropegic Monastery of St. John the Baptist, Essex, 1988) pp. 99-100.
