“The Beatitudes”, with Elder Paisios of the Holy Mountain

Motto: (Lk. 6:24-30)

The Lord said to the Jews who had come to him, “But woe to you that
are rich, for you have received your consolation.

“Woe to you that are full now, for you shall hunger.

“Woe to you that laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.

“Woe to you, when all men speak well of you, for so their fathers did
to the false prophets…

 

 

“The Beatitudes” with Elder Paisios of the Holy Mountain

(Taken from the Elder’ Sixth Epistle)

Sister Abbess Philothei, Your blessing,

Today, a kind of craziness took hold of me and I took the pencil, as does the madman who writes his outbursts on the wall with charcoal, and I sat down to write my own things on paper like one crazed, and, again, like a lunatic, to send them to you in writ ing. I am doing this latter craziness out of much love for my Sisters, that they might be edified, even if only a little.

The reason for the initial craziness was five let ters, one after the other, from various parts of Greece on a variety of subjects. While the events described were great blessings of God, those who wrote to me had fallen into despair because they dealt with them in a worldly way.

After replying accordingly to their letters, I took the pencil like a madman, as I have said, and wrote this epistle. I believe that even a fifty-cent piece from your journeying brother will be something toward a flint for each one of the Sisters so as to light a little candle in her cell and offer her doxology to our Good God.

I feel great joy when every Sister, with her particu lar cross carries out the equivalent struggle with philo timo.

It is a small thing to give to Christ a heart equal in size and as luminous as the sun out of gratitude for His great gifts, and especially for the particular honour He showed us monks by conscripting us with personal sum mons to His Angelic Order.

A great honour also belongs to the parents who were thus made worthy of becoming related to God. Unfor tunately, however, most parents do not realize this and, instead of being grateful to God, are infuriated etc., for they see everything in a worldly way, like those people I mentioned earlier, who became the reason for me to take the pencil and write everything that follows.

1. Blessed are those who loved Christ more than all the worldly things and live far from the world and near God, with heavenly joys upon the earth.

2. Blessed are those who managed to live in obscu rity and acquired great virtues but did not acquire even a small name for themselves.

3. Blessed are those who managed to act the fool and, in this way, protected their spiritual wealth.

4. Blessed are those who do not preach the Gospel with words, but live it and preach it with their silence, with the Grace of God, which betrays them.

5. Blessed are those who rejoice when unjustly ac cused, rather than when they are justly praised for their virtuous life. Here are the signs of holiness, not in the dry exertion of bodily asceticism and the great number of struggles, which, when not carried out with humility and the aim to put off the old man, create only illusions.

6. Blessed are those who prefer to be wronged rather than to wrong others and accept serenely and silently injustices. In this way, they reveal in practice that they believe in “one God, the Father Almighty” and expect to be vindicated by Him and not by human beings who repay in this life with vanity.

7. Blessed are those who have been born crippled or became so due to their own carelessness, yet do not grumble but glorify God. They will hold the best place in Paradise along with the Confessors and Martyrs, who gave their hands and feet for the love of Christ and now constantly kiss with devoutness the hands and feet of Christ in Paradise.

8. Blessed are those who were born ugly and are de spised here on earth, because they are entitled to the most beautiful place in Paradise, provided they glorify God and do not grumble.

9.Blessed are those widows who wear black in this life, even unwillingly, but live a white spiritual life and glorify God without complaining rather than the mis erable ones who wear assorted clothes and live a spot ted life.

10. Blessed and thrice blessed are the orphans who have been deprived of their parents’ great affection, for they managed to have God as their Father already from this life. At the same time, they have the affection they were deprived of from their parents in God’s savings bank “with interest”.

11. Blessed are those parents who avoid the use of the word “don’t” with their children, instead restraining them from evil through their holy life – a life which chil dren imitate, joyfully following Christ with spiritual bravery.

12. Blessed are those children who have been born “from their mother’s womb” (Mt. 19:12) holy, but even more blessed are those who were born with all the inherited passions of the world, struggled with sweat and up rooted them and inherited the Kingdom of God in the sweat of their face ^{(Cf. Gen. 3:19)}.

13. Blessed are those children who lived from in fancy in a spiritual environment and, thus, tirelessly ad vanced in the spiritual life.

Thrice blessed, however, are the mistreated ones who were not helped at all (on the contrary, they were pushed towards evil), but as soon as they heard of Christ, their eyes glistened, and with a one hundred and eighty degree turn they suddenly made their soul to shine as well. They departed from the attraction of earth and moved into the spiritual sphere.

14. Fortunate, worldly people say, are the astronauts who are able to spin in the air, orbit the moon or even walk on the moon.

Blessed, however, are the immaterial “Paradise-nauts”, who ascend often to God and travel about Paradise, their place of permanent abode, with the quickest of means and without much fuel, besides one crust of bread.

15. Blessed are those who glorify God for the moon that glimmers that they might walk at night.

More blessed, however, are those who have come to understand that neither the light of the moon is of the moon, nor the spiritual light of their soul of them selves, but both are of God. Whether they can shine like a mirror, a pane of glass or the lid of a tin can, if the rays of the sun do not fall on them it is impossible for them to shine.

16. Fortunate, worldly people tell us, are those who live in crystal palaces and have all kinds of conven Iences.

Blessed, however, are those who’ve managed to sim plify their life and become liberated from the web of this world’s development of numerous conveniences (i.e. many inconveniences), and were released from the frightening stress of our present age.

17. Fortunate, worldly people say, are those who can enjoy the goods of the world.

Blessed, however, are those who give away every thing for Christ and are deprived even of every hu man consolation for Christ. Thus it is that they man­age to be found night and day near Christ and His di vine consolation, which many times is so much that they say to God: “My God, Thy love cannot be en­dured, for it is great and cannot be fit within my small heart”.

18. Fortunate, worldly people say, are those who have the greatest jobs and the largest mansions, since they possess all possibilities and live comfortably.

Blessed, however, according to the divine Paul, are those who have but a nest to perch in, a little food and some coverings⁹⁹• For, in this way, they’ve managed to become estranged from the vain world, using the earth as a footstool, as children of God, and their mind is con stantly found close to God, their Good Father.

19. Fortunate are those who become generals and government ministers in their head by way of heavy drinking (even if just for a few hours), with the world ly rejoicing over it.

Blessed, however, are those who have put off the old man and have become incorporeal, managing to be earthly angels with the Holy Spirit. They have found Paradise’s divine faucet and drink from it and are con tinually inebriated from the heavenly wine.

20. Blessed are those who were born crazy and will be judged as crazy, and, in this way, will enter Paradise without a passport.

Blessed and thrice blessed, however, are the very wise who feign foolishness for the love of Christ and mock all the vanity of the world. This foolishness for Christ’s sake is worth more than all the knowledge and wisdom of the wise of this world.

I beg all the Sisters to pray for God to give me, or rather take from me my little mind, and, in this way, se cure Paradise for me by considering me a fool. Or, make me crazy with His love so I go out my self, outside of the earth and its pull, for, otherwise my life as a monk has no meaning. I became externally white as a monk. As I go I become internally black by being a negligent monk, but I justify myself as one unhealthy, when I hap pen to be so; other times, I excuse myself again for be ing ill, even though I am well, and so I deserve to be thoroughly thrashed. Pray for me.

May Christ and Panagia be with you,

With love of Christ, Your Brother, Monk Paisios

(“Precious Cross”, December 2, 1972).

 

Source:  http://orthodoxword.wordpress.com

Cases of Childlessness

—Geronta, a husband and wife that both have Mediterranean anemia [1] asked us if they should try to have children. We told them to ask their spiritual father.
—Spiritual fathers should not tell such couples not to have children. They must guide them inphilotimo, so as to struggle in abstinence (to abstain), and with discernment grant them economia.
—Geronta, there are couples who, although they live very spiritually and want to have children, are not able.
—The reason God does not give children to some is so that they will love all the children of the world as their own and help in their spiritual rebirth. There was once a man without children but, when he would walk out of his house, all the children of his neighborhood would run to him and surround him with such love. They wouldn’t let him leave and go to his job. See, God didn’t give him his own children but graced him with the blessing of loving all the children of his neighborhood as a father and in his own way to help them spiritually. The judgments of God are fathomless.

In addition, God may not give children so that an orphaned child might be helped. I once met a good Christian man who was a lawyer. Once, when I passed through the city he lived I paid him a visit and in his great kindness he forced me to stay over and receive hospitality at his house. I also met his spouse who likewise resembled him in virtue. And, while from the wife I learned of the spiritual life of her husband, from the husband I learned of the spiritual state of his wife. Later, I learned about the both of them from many other Christians who know them well and whom they have helped. This man of God honorably worked as a lawyer. If he saw that someone was deceitful not only would he not take his case but he would sharply renounce them in hopes that they would come to their senses. If he saw someone who was guilty but repentant, he would try somehow to reconcile things or to reduce the sentence. If he saw a poor man unjustly accused, he wouldn’t take any money and would try to vindicate him in court. He lived very simply and therefore the little money he made was enough for him with enough left over to help poor families. The house of this faithful lawyer was literally a spiritual oasis in the Sahara of the city. The poor, wounded, unemployed, and those with domestic problems would gather there and he would support them all as a good father. He had acquaintances in different places so that, whomever he called on the phone with a need–to help with those who were sick, etc.—never told him ‘no,’ because everyone loved and honored him. His wife also worked in her own way. She would help poor children or children who had difficulties in their studies. They thought of her as a mother. She once, however, expressed to me a complaint. “Father, when we married” she told me, “I resigned my job as a professor because I said I’d now become a good mother. I even asked Christ to give me twenty children, but unfortunately He didn’t even give me one.” Then, I told her: “Sister, you have more than five-hundred children and still you are complaining? Christ saw your good intention and will reward you. Now that you’re helping with the spiritual rebirth of so many children, you’ve become a better mother than many other mothers and have passed up even mothers of many children.[2] You will also have a greater reward, because with the spiritual rebirth the children are reassured eternal life.” In the meantime they had adopted a little girl and had signed over their inheritance to her. She cared for them in their old age and, when they reposed, went off to a monastery–although their house was like a monastery, reading all the services as they did. For vespers and compline they had other brethren in Christ but midnight office and orthros the three read themselves. These blessed souls gave rest to so many suffering souls. May God also grant them rest.

That’s why I say that the greater and better parents of big families are those who were spiritually reborn and who help in the spiritual rebirth of children all over the world, to ensure their souls in Paradise.

—Geronta, some people who aren’t able to have children of their own, think about adopting a little child.
—Yes, it’s better to adopt. They shouldn’t insist on their own will.[3] That which man wants is not always the will of God.
—Geronta, should the adoptive parents tell the child that they adopted him at a certain age?
—It is better to tell the child once he is old enough. But what matters is to love the child greatly and appropriately. There are children who live with their actual parents but who love other people more because their own parents don’t have love.

Endnotes

[1] Mediterranean anemia (also known as Thalassemia) is a genetic (inherited) blood disease, particularly prevalent among Mediterranean peoples. In Europe, the highest concentrations of the disease are found in Greece, Italy, Cyprus and Crete.
[2] A family with many children (πολύτεκνη οικογένια) in Greece is seen as greatly blessed. As is said in the Orthodox sacrament of marriage: “Bless this marriage, granting to Your servants long life, purity, mutual love in the bond of peace, enduring prosperity, the blessing of children and the unfading crown of glory”.
[3] I.e. persisting in the hope that the mother will one day conceive.