Eternity. One must inherit it. We need patience. No one is as dangerous to us as we ourselves, so remain a servant of God in the short span of your earthly life and you will inherit eternity filled with joys and unceasing spiritual delights.
Saint Ignatius Brianchaninov
How true it is that we all must die! That this life compared to eternity is nothing but an insignificant moment. No man has remained immortal on this earth. And yet still we live as if we were immortal; the thought of death and eternity slips away from us, becoming completely foreign to us. This is a clear testament to the fact that mankind is in a state of fall; our souls are united by a kind of gloom, by some kind of indestructible bonds of self-delusion, with which the world and time hold us in captivity, in servitude. We need to constantly exert ourselves, to constantly struggle, to fight with oneself, in order to swim out from this dreadful, dark abyss; we need patience, in order to magnanimously endure all the unseen storms of the soul. Temptations found in our mind and heart are more terrible than any external temptations.
No one is as dangerous to us as we are ourselves.
"Watch and pray" said the Lord, "lest you enter into temptations. The spirit indeed sis willing, but the flesh is weak (Mark 14:38). To keep watch over oneself is only possible by the light of the New Testament. The light, by which spiritual watchfulness is accomplished, also pours forth from the writing of the Holy Fathers. Holy Scriptures and the Holy Fathers ceaselessly remind us of God, His good works, our purpose, the future which is either eternally blessed or endlessly miserable; they expose the deceit of the world, its intrigues and show what resources there are to avoid these intrigues and how to enter the harbor of our salvation.
Remain a servant of God in the short span of your earthly life and you will inherit eternity filled with joys and unceasing spiritual delights. One must inherit eternity!
Do not despair over stumbling blocks, the state of being free of sin is an impossible dream!
Stumbling blocks are natural to all mankind, who, due to this very inclination toward falling, are instructed by Christ: "By your patience possess your souls." (Luke 21:19) "But he who endures to the end shall be saved." (Matthew 24:13)
Remain a servant of God in the short span of your earthly life. And you will inherit eternity filled with joys and unceasing spiritual delights.
+ Glory to God for All Things +
Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov) became a monk in 1831 and the bishop of the Caucasus and the Black Sea in 1857. He devoted much of his life to writing spiritual works; his most famous work in English is the Arena which has been in print continuously for almost half a century. St. Ignatius reposed in 1867 and was canonized in 1988 by the Russian Orthodox Church.
I, as a sick man, should have as harbor for my hope not my works, not my merits, of the God-Man Jesus.
