Philokalia Ministries The Evergetinos - Hypothesis XXVI, Part III
Scrutinizing the movements of the mind and the heart is never an easy thing to do. In fact we find ever more clever ways to avoid doing so. Truthful living, a willingness to acknowledge one’s failings and communicate them to a spiritual guide is put before for us by the fathers as a path that we should desire. It is not meant to punish us or to humiliate us, but rather to free us in our capacity to love God and to give ourselves to Him. We see in this hypothesis how deep this kind of observation penetrates into the thoughts and actions of an individual. Spiritual fathers have the responsibility to aid their children and help them to internalize this process and to ask themselves honestly whether they love and desire Christ above all things. How often and how easily we are moved by our own self-will. We can drag our feet when it comes to doing something that we to which we have an aversion or where we feel that we have something to do that is more important or pressing. It is far more difficult to allow ourselves to be moved by the Spirit of Love. The greatest acts of love are often those that go unnoticed or are rooted in the fulfillment of the simplest of duties. To take up responsibility without grumbling or to respond with immediacy to the need of another is what God sees and values.
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Text of chat during the group:
00:25:30 Anthony: One can take this passage and read it into the early chapters of the Acts of the Apostles. Was it a kind of monastic community, and Ananias and Sapphira tries to enter the community but remain in the world, holding some of their own possessions? 00:31:34 Rachel: How old were the Apostles when Christ called them? 00:46:38 Anthony: "They" say you die as you have lived. I suppose then that Jesus' "Into Thy hands I commend My spirit." indicates He perfected this emptiness of self as He lived. 00:53:26 Eric Ewanco: "Grasps another's hand ostentatiously"? What does that mean? 01:23:34 Rachel: The fact that they scrutenize is consoling 01:24:23 Rachel: Thank you!