When I Told Him I Was Definitively Leaving for the Monastery
When I told him that I was definitely leaving for the Monastery and that in a few days they would tonsure me, he leapt for joy. On that day he spoke to me and advised me extensively! In the end, when we were bidding each other farewell, he naturally took my hand and kissed it. I, living the mystery that surrounded me, asked myself what meaning did this have. Then he said to me:
“Do you see what I just did?”
“Certainly, you kissed my hand, the hand of the wretched and unworthy one:’ I responded.
“Therefore, you must know that with your tonsure Christ will embrace you. He will kiss you and you will become His own. He will become your own.
“Our Christ makes your soul his Bride forever, for all eternity.
“Know that I will pray for you because I love you a lot. Your soul is sensitive and has all the good dispositions to love Christ a lot, as one ought.
“It is such souls that Christ wants for His Brides.
“If you love Christ with all the strength of your heart, everything will be easy for you. Even obedience and humility will be easy. Then your love for all the brothers will be love unforced and spontaneous. It is the same love that Christ has because it will not be you who loves but Christ Himself Who now possesses your heart.”
Love temptations
The Elder told me, “Pay attention to only one thing. Clarify your thoughts that are pressured and grieved by your sensitive personality. Banish them away so they don’t remain with you. Love the temptations (2) which come to you and you will not be agitated nor will you be grieved.
“Love exceedingly all the brothers equally. Love the Elder very much for an Elder is like Christ”.
“How can I love the temptations and the difficulties?” I asked.
“This is an important issue. It has its ways. “If Christ enters your heart He fills it with His love. When this happens an ambivalent attitude cannot exist such as don’t do this or don’t do that. Only love prevails, above all Love (3).
“The negatives existed before the advent of Christ. Christ abolished them. He brought Love to replace it. The life of Christ is Paradise, obedience, and humility:’
~Adapted from Monk Agapios, The Divine Flame Elder Porphyrios Lit in My Heart
(2) “The advice to Love the temptations seems strange, because every day we pray as follows: and lead us not into temptation. However the Fathers distinguish between voluntary and involuntary temptation or between temptations of sin and temptations of affliction. They teach that the Lord’s Prayer refers only to the voluntary ones or the temptations of sin. Whereas as regards the involuntary ones or the temptations of afflictions that James writes in his Catholic
Epistle. “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing:’ (James 1: 2-4).
In other words, have great joy, my brethren, when you fall into various afflictions because you must know that the trial of your faith (which occurs within afflictions) creates patience. Let your patience have a perfect work so that you may be perfect. Let your work be complete without you lacking in anything (spiritual). See Abba Isaac, Homily 44 “For he who flees temptations, flees virtue. While temptation J say not of desires, but of afflictions.” See also Maximus, the Confessor, the chapters on Theology, the fifth hundred §63. Philokalia of the Neptics Fathers, vol. 2, page 145, ed. Aster (in Greek).
“While the Lord on the one hand teaches us to pray against voluntary temptations, like the delight of the flesh which causes pain to the soul. While the Great James, speaking on involuntary sins urges us to rejoice in our temptations, as taking away the delight of the flesh. “In other words, while the Lord teaches us to ask to be delivered of our voluntary temptations because they bring delight to the body and pain to the soul, the Great James urges us to rejoice in our involuntary temptations, which take away delight from the body on the one hand and pain from the soul on the other hand. So it is obvious that the Elder Porphyrios is referring to the temptations of afflictions.
In general, the Fathers urge patience with temptations. See for example the saying of Saint Anthony in the Gerontikon. “Take away temptations and no one will be saved” (Ed. Aster by P. V. Paschos, page 1 in Greek). See also Abba Dorotheos, Practical Teaching on the Christian Life, Translation, introduction and glossary by Const. Scouteris, Athens 2000, page 205 § 14l. Temptations greatly benefit those who bear them with courage. For even though passion bothers us, we ought not to be disturbed by this. In other words, temptations greatly benefit those who bear them with patience. Even a temptation which aims to stir up our passions, should not be allowed to upset.
(3) The meaning of the words of Elder Porphyrios is that the negative commandments, Thou shall not steal, thou shall not commit adultery, thou shall not bear false witness etc., had been given before Christ and they demanded implementation out of fear for God. After the Advent of Christ, however, the commandments are kept by Christians out of love. (“If you love me, you will keep my commandments” John 14: 15) and they are not abolished as some deceived people contend.
