Life with and without God

Who referees our lives?

            In today’s world there is no more talk of hell because hell implies punishment, and punishment implies sin, and sin implies the existence of God Who does not want the sin to be committed, but only good instead.

            But if God does exist then there is Someone Who created us, Someone Who governs the world, Someone Who loves us all, Someone Who wants us to be happy and not to suffer. And for all of us not to suffer and to be happy all together, we should obey some rules of behaviour, a system in which we should all be equal (equally loved), although we are so different. The perfect system hasn’t proved to be neither communism, nor socialism, nor even democracy, but common-sense, love, forgiveness, peace, tranquility, beauty… God’s commands actually.

            If for one day all people on Earth ceased forgiving, if that one day they ceased loving, ceased showing respect to one another, what would happen? There would only be quarrels, yelling, beatings, ugliness, wars… it would be hell on Earth. What or Who keeps this harmony among us? The laws and the national constitutions? Human rights? Obviously not, for most of us have never read our country’s constitution or all the laws.

            Why are we tortured by remorse when we start to do evil and especially after we have done it? What is this voice within me which tells me it is not right to curse someone, that it is not right to hurt someone, that it is not nice to brag to everyone? It is God’s voice inside the human being, just like for a child the basic upbringing is always the ‘voice’ which tells him what is right and what is wrong.

            God the One Who whispers to us the good thoughts and reprimands us through our conscience for our bad thoughts and deeds, is the One Who keeps the harmony and peace between us. He gives us peace and tranquility, He gives us the power to respect, to forgive and to love.

            ‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.’

            He guides our world from outside but especially from inside us. However, He never infringes upon our free will. He always suggests to us the good thought, he always suggests the way we can be joyful and lets us analyze, judge and make decisions.

            If God referees the world why there are so many wars, thefts, murdering, injustice?

            Because man’s greatest gift is freedom. Because God can override everything but not our free will. Why?

            Because He loves us!

(Balan Claudiu)

Translated by Claudia Iancu

I am thirsty! Give me something to drink…

“I’m so thirsty … But no, I cannot leave you alone. I’m so thirsty that a full glass of water would be too small for the thirst that is in me. But why am I talking about a glass of water? … now it’s fashionable to buy a refreshing drink from the Coca-Cola Company, we do live in the XXI century …

Well, unfortunately no such drink would quench my thirst. I try to lay my thoughts on paper. I try to tell other young people, how deep it is … this thirst nested in a corner of my desecrated heart …

But let’s get over the introduction. “I am thirsty! Give me to something to drink … “- Sounds familiar? Though not many young people recognize it, everyone is thirsty.

Our questionable attitude, our un-spiritual, unlit, wild, untransformed nature, scattered everywhere and stuck in the place, form and images of our sins and the sins of this world cause this thirst, this “lack” born in us. “I am thirsty! Give me something to drink … “does not refer to a natural cry, a cry for help, but refers to an endless cry, a relentless cry of the heart.

Today young people want to be the best, to get to the top; they get thirsty through their little or big rebellions, always trying to create something of their own, something completely new and independent. But then,  this “something “ often causes a worldly craving, so if “anyone drinks this water will thirst again” …

The thirst born in us since childhood, symbolizes the lack of love and communion, symbolizes the lack of the highest level, namely: love. This thirst of the young man, reflects the alienation from  the holy;  alienation and also the escape in a world of sin, in a vicious circle of lust, a circle based on thoughts, feelings caught in a fabulous mirage of time.

The void created in us by this spiritual emptiness brings us to seek out the deepest meanings of our lives. We wonder who could quench our thirst. Who could fill this void in the depths of our being?

To our question, Christ comes and says: “Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! “.

There is only one way we can come to Christ, one way we can approach Him, and we can receive love. This path refers to the relentless training, the relentless pursuit to become stronger, more able to receive the grace of the Holy Spirit and more worthy to drink from the Cup of Eternity. Only through Christ we can share the original depths of His love. Only through Christ the thirst that dwells in us, will cease:”whoever drinks the water I give them, will never thirst. “

The youngster who thirsts for Christ, the young man who wants light, truth and life, will remove the unnatural thoughts. Christ actually helps in the permanently discovery of thoughts, He alone enlightens us to identify those foreign thoughts, conceived in us.

The thirst of the contemporary young explains in a paradoxical way, the normal anxiety, the search state, the spiritual anxiety that always keeps you awake and aware that everything that is out of Life, is doomed to absurdity. Those who say they are living and do not have Christ, they are not living. The Cup of Eternity, about which I wrote in the previous lines, is the water of the everlasting life that only Christ can give. It frees us all from darkness, sin, fear and hesitation, it gives us the strength and power, brings us unending joy, immeasurable understanding and love for others. Water leads to eternity, as our Savior says “the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life. “

In the 5^th Sunday after Easter Gospel the unlimited meets the limited; the woman’s thirst proves the insufficiency and the powerlessness of the existence by itself. This failure and helplessness we find even in ourselves, because we cannot return to the ways of God, without Him raising us up, giving us strength. He helps us get out of any deadlock of our journey, help us get through all the ups and downs of this life.

Christ urges us all to get closer to Him and drink the water of life. The Lord listens to your heart cry and pours over it rivers of healing and redemption. Christ sees the soul which yearns for the true and overwhelming mercy and His love for mankind.

Like the woman of Samaria, let us dare to approach the Savior and Giver of all heavenly and eternal things.

Let us ask Him for the water of life, water that makes us regardless of age … eternal, insurmountable, immortal. Water that makes us wish for Him, the Lord, to be more and more present in our souls …

“As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.”

 (Psalm 41:1).

(Georgiana)

Translated by Irina Holospin

The mourning of our father, Adam

Adam, the forefather of the whole world, experienced, in the paradise, the sweetness of God’s love and that’s why, when he was driven out from paradise and he lost God’s love (because he sinned), he deeply suffered and with loud moan he was sobbing in the wilderness. His soul was tormented by a thought: “I sadden God, Who I love”. He didn’t feel so much regret for having lost the heaven and its beauty, but for loosing the love of God, that, in every moment and insatiably attracts our souls to God.

Every soul that met God through The Holy Spirit and, after that, he lost the grace, is passing trough the torments of Adam. The soul is ill and he experiences a painful repent when he upsets His Lord.

Adam was sorrowful and he was painfully sobbing and he didn’t like anymore the earth. He was longing for God, saying:

“My soul desires the Lord and I’m searching for Him with tears. How can I not search for Him? When I was with Him, my soul was happy and serene and the enemy didn’t approach me; but now, the evil spirit took over me and he disturbs and torments my soul, so my soul desires my Lord to the last and my spirit pines after God and nothing on this earth can bring me happiness. My soul doesn’t want to comfort itself with anything, but to see again the Lord. I can’t forget Him either for a minute and my soul is tormented; because of my of sadness I cry with sobs: “Lord, have mercy on me, Your fallen creature”.

In this way Adam was sobbing and his tears were falling from his face to his chest and then on the earth; his sighs were ringing out in the entire wilderness.
Animals were silent and grieved and they were crying. Adam was sobbing because of his sin the entire creation had lost the peace and the love.

Big was the Adam’s pain after his expulsion from the paradise, but when he saw his son, Abel, killed by his brother, Cain, his pain grew up and, with his tormented soul, he was sobbing and thinking: “Nations will rise and will breed after me and all the creation will suffer and live in enmity and the men will kill each other”. And his pain was deep as the ocean and it can be understood only by those humans whose souls experienced the Lord and know how much He loves us.

I’ve lost the grace too and now I scream with Adam: “Have mercy on me, Lord! Give me a humble and a loving spirit”.

Oh, love of the Lord! Who knows You is searching for You ceaselessly, day and night, screaming: “I yearn after You, Lord, and I’m searching for You with tears. You made me know You through The Holy Spirit and this awareness of God attracts my soul to search for You with tears”.

Adam had lost the mundane paradise and he was searching and crying: “My paradise, my wonderful paradise!” But, through His love, the Lord gave him, on the cross, another paradise, better than the first one, where is the Light of The Holy Trinity. What will you offer in return to our Lord for His love for us?

Silouan the Athonite – Between the hell of hopelessness and the hell of humility

Translated by Lazar Ioana

What would I be without You?

There are moments when we say we can no longer bear the cross Good Lord gave us, and most of the times we come to this conclusion because of the despair caused by the presence of sin in our lives and of the disbelief in the Savior’s words.

Lately I have forgot about prayer and the joys it brings, my heart has become petrified, and my mind has darken… and all these because of my estrangement from God.

Many times I feel my shoulders heavy… heavy with the burden of sins. Although I know that only through repentance that I will be healed, thoughts of shame and despair overwhelm me… I am afraid of myself because I know I will always fall, I will always crucify the Lord Jesus and I will always turn my back on Him and I will love myself more.

Every time that God enlightens me and shows me my sins, thousands of thoughts of pride invade my mind… for a few moments I am aware of them… only for a few moments, and then I carry on with my sinful life. I wish this would not happen any longer, but because human nature is so weak and helpless, it is as if we said to ourselves that there is no use in fighting. It is exactly for this reason that the Christ , Our Savior  urges us not to fall into despair, because that the Kingdom of Heaven it’s available only for those who persevere , through the burning love inspired by the Holy Spirit and through unseen struggle with sin and passions.

No matter how many soul-strengthening teachings we receive, it is as if in our hearts we are not yet convinced that we can still achieve salvation in our days as well.

We should ask ourselves the question mentioned in the title but addressed to God… what would I be without You, Lord? I am certain that if we asked ourselves every moment, we wouldn’t forget our sins and, as beloved Father Cleopa Ilie used to say, we would constantly sleep in sins. Unfortunately, many of us do this… we forget that we are mere creatures and we are in God’s hands.

I started asking myself this question more often since the day I was at the subway and I caught sight of a billboard advertising a book with this title ‘What would be without you?’ written by Guillaume Musso. I haven’t read the book, but I heard it is about a woman’s two kinds of love: the love for her father and for the first man she fell in love with. She is forced to choose between the two beloved ones, because they are both caught in a deadly race, and their destinies cannot be separated.

I would have liked it very much if this question were addressed to the Lord Christ, and if the book had a Christian Orthodox topic. But I am glad because starting that day God has been helping me think more often about who I actually am.

Do not ever give up the spiritual struggle. Go to your confessor and confess your sins with repentance and sincerity.

I am anxious as well to go to my confessor because he is the person closest to me, who always awaits me with his arms open and wipes my tears. It is the Lord Jesus Himself through the confessor’s caressing and soul-strengthening words… and after receiving the absolution from sins and with the sincere desire not to sin anymore, the long expected joy comes along… the joy that lifts you to heaven and gives you wings to fly, the joy that cannot be compared to anything in this transient world.

Pray incessantly and struggle against sin… no matter how little it may be. It is because of sins that we are miserable and we cannot enjoy the gifts that God pours forth upon us out of His great love for mankind. Love your neighbor as yourselves and rejoice even together with the most humble beggar on the street corner… it is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself within that man’s soul who calls us and awaits for us to respond to Him with love.

(Bianca)