You write, my child, that you are distressed in the world and by its vanity, delusion and impiety, sin and noise. So that I can lighten your affliction a bit I advise you to do the following:
First, think that God is everywhere present, and since He is everywhere, he also is in the wilderness and in the world, in the sea and on land, He is everywhere. And He is not far from each one of us, as the Apostle Paul told the Athenians. So since my child, God is near you, leave the old world, let it do whatever it wants, you will not give account for the world. At the 2nd Coming each one will give account concerning his own self.
Second, say about those who make noise and disturb you from morning till night: They do their job and I let me do my job. They shout, sing, dance and bless Satan, with lewd songs, dances and foul words. I must hymn, bless and glorify God, pray and ask Him to save me, to take me with Him into paradise, as He took the thief, the prodigal, the adulteress, the publican. Is it not, my child, a great shame to us, for them to have greater eagerness than us in working for Satan day and night, for him to damn them, and us to be negligent and cold and working for God with indolence?
So I advise you, have patience and don't abandon ceaseless noetic prayer, don't allow God to depart from near you. Joseph was in Egypt, in the place of sin, and he did not sin because he recalled God, he had Him near him. Adam was in paradise, where sin did not exist, but because he forgot God, he disobeyed Him and listened to the devil, and he lost paradise. So it is not the place, but the manner which saves man, the divine Chrysostom used to say.
THE ATHEISTS AND UNBELIEVERS ARE
INSTRUMENTS OF THE WICKED SPIRIT
....However such impious people have a very specific mission, to abolish faith in Christ. And if you ask them why are they taking up with such zeal the struggle to annihilate the Christian faith, they respond that they aim to enlighten people. Concerning the "enlightenment" which they received from their unbelief, their life and lifestyle witnesses. They, being false and devious hypocrites, promising freedom and equality, deceive many and after placing them under their own authority, instead of freeing people they make them their slaves, and instead of equals, they make them miserable and thrice-wretched. The type of enlightenment they received is witnessed by the most unfortunate condition of their own homeland. The blood which flowed like rivers especially in the Orthodox Christian empire of Russia... (Publisher's note. This letter was written in 1928). witnesses. The all painful evils which millions of people suffer witness...Because their teaching flatters the flesh, annihilates the spirit, quenches the censuring of the conscience and loosens the bit of the passions which tyrannize us, it deifies fleshly pleasure and pushes man to evil things, that is to the precipice of every foul desire and inhuman deed, for this reason it is imparted easily and multiplies, whereas it is healed and wiped out with difficulty.
These people who are perverse in mind accuse all the Holy Prophets, Apostles, Teachers, Martyrs, Confessors and Preachers of the faith. But whoever wishes to learn the truth, let him read the lives and the writings of the Saints and he Will understand that they were most pious people, impartial, truth-loving, adorned with every virtue and righteousness, and having the grace of the Holy Spirit richly in themselves, from which they were inspired and enlightened they did God-pleasing works, they did signs and miracles, they spoke and prophesied. Let them examine and let them observe both the life of the unbelievers and atheist communists and the rest of those who criticize sacred things and he will see that they are lovers of selves, greedy, haughty, prideful, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, senseless, without compassion, ruthless, slanderers, unrestrained, untamed, not good loving, traitors, insolent, big-headed, pleasure loving rather than God-loving, and in one world they are instruments of the wicked spirit, of the good hating and all evil Devil, whom he uses, just like the idolators and heretics of various former times, in order to fight the Church of Christ. But while they will be crushed, the Church being fought will again triumph, because "the gates of Hell shall not overcome her".
Such impious and all wicked destroyers flee from, my beloved, so that they do not destroy your soul "Their larynx is an open tomb" (Psalm 5, 10). "Their tongue is a sharp sword" (Psalm 56, 6). "The poison of the asp shall flow 10 from their lips" (Psalm 3,4). Close your ears when they speak the words of disbelief. Flee from their speech, as you flee from fire and the pollution of the plagues. "Son let not impious men deceive you", thus the Holy Spirit counsels you through the mouth of the wise Solomon. "Neither agree if they beseech you". "Do not travel on the road with them, stray your foot from their paths" (Proverbs 1: 10,11,15).
BE CAREFUL THAT YOU NOT BE DECEIVED
...Heaven and earth shall pass but the words of the Lord shall not pass. When the Son of God comes in glory upon the earth shall He find faith? And because the wickedness shall increase the love of the many shall grow cold. Then nation shall rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom ...and there shall be plagues and famines and earthquakes in places, and many false Christs and false prophets shall appear and shall deceive many, even from among the elect. And there shall be great affliction among the people, such as never occurred from the creation of the world and shall never be.
Of all the prophecies of our Lord Jesus Christ and of the Prophets, Apostles and holy Fathers and Teachers, of both old and new, till the Missionary and Hieromartyr Kosmas Aitolos, some have been fulfilled, while others shall be fulfilled in their proper times. All the prophecies of the false Christs, false prophet millenarians and other heretics have been shown to be false and shall be proven so. Be careful that you not be deceived from the false prophets...
When his disciples asked Him concerning the day of the end of the age, the Lord said: Concerning that day no one knows not even the angels in heaven..., and he added the following unwritten prophecy which is not written in the book of the Evangelists, that the end of the ages shall occur when men become women and women men. The divine Chrysostom when asked, when the end shall be, responded: When modesty is missing from women. Both prophecies we see in this day being fulfilled. So the end is close, but let us not cower or fear, but let us arm ourselves with the weapons of faith, of light, and lifting up hands and eyes, mind and heart, towards our Father in the heavens, let us beseech Him with contrition and humility of heart, with tears and sighs to cover us, guard us and save us from the coming sufferings and afflictions, and that He take us as a loving-caring Father, into eternal rest, joy, rejoicing, gladness, blessedness, and happiness, into His heavenly Kingdom, so that we may hymn bless, and glorify Him, with the Angels and Saints, unto the infinite ages of ages. Amen.
source: ELDER PHILOTHEOS ZERVAKOS (1884-1980) PATERNAL COUNSELS VOL II
Translated by Father Nicholas Palis -Edited by Father Mark Andrews
"Orthodox Kypseli" Publications, Spartakou 6, tel. 2310212659, 56626 Sykies - Thessalonika 2005
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