Jesus Comes to us in the Poor What finally counts is not whether we know Jesus and his words but whether we live our lives in the Spirit of Jesus. The Spirit of Jesus is the Spirit of Love. Jesus himself makes this clear when he speaks about the last judgment. There people will ask, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink?” and Jesus will answer,
How can we Satisfy our Need to Know? True knowledge is the light whereby we can infallibly distinguish good from evil. That limitless light illumines the way of righteousness which leads the mind towards the Sun himself. In that light the mind strives with all its energy after divine charity. Our longing for true knowledge is satisfied by spiritual discourse, provided it comes from God through the exercise of charity. The intellect ceases to be
Fr. Maximos went on to emphasize that the lack of inner peace emanates from our egocentric passions and unbridled desires. Furthermore, he pointed out that all external wars, violence, and social and interpersonal conflicts spring from our inner states of disharmony. For him, therefore, achieving freedom and justice must begin with an arduous effort to attain inner peace. Revolutionaries who fight for justice do not understand that, no matter how noble their cause may be,
Jesus’ notion of the Kingdom is a different understanding of personal freedom than that of most religious and secular leaders today. We think of freedom as not having to do what we don’t want to do, but divine freedom is the capacity to be fully who we already are, to develop our inherent and true nature in God, as much as possible—really wanting to do what we know we have to do. Only God can
© 2020 Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral
