elder joseph -3-

We must not forget our goal.

Never!

As a first principle, regard our saints, it is a necessary element for monks, in order not to forget who you réally are. Because if you forget it, you cannot move on. How can you be able to keep accuracy in confession of Christ, when you have forgotten who you are? So, do not forget. When you pray, do not forget. Keep always in mind, that we are the greatest of all God's creations. We are His/its image and essence. This is our goal. To restore the image and essence again.

And to make it, you must have fully obedience and submission. But we didn't manage to keep obeying and submitting, and we failed to stay in Paradise. So some angels and some of our souls fell from God's Kingdom, and we taste eternal death now. But God pitied us, because the paternal affection has no change.

Although we committed this... complete disgraceful action against God... despite this fact... God couldn't stop loving us, and came as a human to us. God Himself wore the flesh, and taught us how to return back if we want.

Because after the Fall, man suffered a huge perversion, and man's self dominated now by false and evil, and not by goodness. So trying to keep goodness, and avoid evil, is called repentance. Jesus taught us, through His life here, the ultimate way of repentance...

And He said: just ásk for forgiveness, and it shall be given to you! Pray for your sins! So monks, that is our work here: to pray for forgiveness endlessly. God brought us here [in the monastery], because he wants us to return back...

Brothers, we must walk only by faith, rejecting totally our will, then nothing can defect from God's route, nothing can distract us form our goal. We do not rule ourselves, but God does that. So give the keys of your self to God. Because if you apply your will, you shall fail. And if we are now out of Paradise, and we have pain and die, it is because we applied our will...

Do not give up. As long as you are alive, constantly try to hang your self from divine Grace. Please, erase totally the immorality of your will. our duty is to love God. Nothing else. Is our duty, our duty! To love Gód!

We must prove practically abnegation [zelfverloochening] by obedience and allegiance. Obedience and allegiance indicate that we haven't our will or errand [boodschap]. We heve NOTHING, our lifes are dedicated totally on God. So we leave our lifes on God's providence...

Be careful!

The man who doesn't obey, believes on his will and speech. This man doesn't have self-denial... This man doesn't really repent. Divine Grace is absent from him... What are we doing here? Didn'we deny the world and came here to serve God? We denied our physical mother, we threw off all the cosmetics, because God called us?

So do not question! If... Perhaps... This is the biggest power of the devil which acts on you. Tell me something, monk. You got here, because you were dead in the world. And you came here, in order to reject your apparent self, and kill your passions, and thus be born again by the Holy Light inside you. To reborn your real self, which now sleeps inside you.

That is why Jesus came here for us. To be free from our captivity of sin...

These are tests... We have to prove it... we have to fight it...

We have to P-R-O-V-E- that we seek the Eternal Life.


~bron~