God bless you for your ability of “intrusion” into my head & revolve something in it!

It is also sad with Christians, as we never know whether our repentance is true, and whether it will be accepted by God. None of us can say that they are ready for passing into eternal life. Especially considering the fact that many people (like me, for instance) repeat the same sins, having confessed them hundreds of times. They may not do new sins, but the current ones, bad habits for example, are like stickers. We are even accustomed to them, and their meaning is diminished in our eyes, as we justify them as weaknesses, console ourselves that they are not mortal, that some day we’ll get rid of them. But they are like a rolling snowball, which becomes larger & larger, becoming very heavy in the end…

What also makes it worse is the moment of comparison. Seeing how other people sin, realizing that we don’t do what they do, we tend to think that we are much better…This poisoning thought affects our soul & mind. As if we just try to compare ourselves with saints, we’ll better see what we are & who we are…Besides, we don’t see how those “other people” repent, we notice their sins. I thought what – maybe we are so attentive to other people sins because it helps us to perceive our own ones, and to put up with them, and with the evil which reigns inside us?!

The last minute repentance is possible only by a special God’s plan. He then knows the virtues of the soul, even deeply hidden, and He know that the potential of this soul is not yet discovered, that the person is not yet opened fully, that there is much of good in the person’s heart, he has done much good for others. That this soul deserves the Kingdom. And He fights for every soul till the very end. But we cannot be sure that our soul deserves it, that WE have such a potential. And He does everything to disclose this potential. I know such example as well.

But we should not indulge a vain hope in reference to us. Maybe we just expired His patience by our sins & self-assurance?! We can never be sure that we haven’t buried our talents. The more I confess, the more I feel that something is not said. That the dirty hole of my soul is not yet dug out, that the stream of water is not clean. That I cannot confess properly, I don’t even say – repent…

God bless you!

Vasiliki

Its pleasures of the flesh …

I found it helpful to consider and speculate on the possible reasons and causes for the apostasy of St. James. In the end, it does not matter. But, for me, it is a way of identifying in my own life, possible snares and weaknesses that have the potential to be my undoing.

Fear is the first and most obvious suspect in St. James’ story for causing his apostasy. But I doubt it was fear of death–apparently he was a brave warrior who faced death on a regular basis. His fear may have been of losing his status or of endangering his family. Pride and vanity certainly must have played some role, as it does in almost everything. In the Menologian it said that he was “seduced by the Emperor’s beneficence.” He was a favorite of royalty!

I doubt his sacrifice to the pagan gods was done without any thought. He had to know the seriousness of what he was doing. So there must have been a lot of rationalization “Well, after all, I can sacrifice to the gods without really meaning it. I will still be a Christian in my heart—and God will forgive me.” and “I’m doing this for the sake of my family. They need the support that my status will bring. And I don’t want to risk endangering their lives if it is discovered that they are Christians, too.” “Perhaps by maintaining my position in the court, through my conduct I can one day convince the emperor to become a Christian!” And on and on….not truly seeking God’s will but seeking to justify his own will, all the while convincing himself his motives were pure and not really self serving.

Maybe he, like me, had used this rationalization process many times before to justify lesser sins than apostasy. Apparently he had been a very pious man, so surely he did not fall from a state of grace to apostasy overnight. How many times had he compromised on little things, kept his mouth closed when he should have spoken up and given in to temptation. He may have even confessed his weaknesses and asked for forgiveness–but made no real effort to do anything about them. The glitter of wealth and the seduction of power would be a great distraction–but “what profits it a man to gain the whole world, if he loses his own soul?”

And so a man dies by inches. Perhaps the brave and holy martyr even had this thought in mind as he was slowly cut to pieces, inch by inch, “This is what I allowed to happen to my soul.”