Priest Ioan Istrati
One of the traps of the devil, the enemy who can`t impede us in our way to the church is the merchantability of the religious act.
Counter mentality in which God is sold at kilogram is coming from devil.
The church is not a fair where we negotiate for a cow, it is the hidden chamber where we encounter our Father, the Father of mercies.
Many times we hear the question : how much does it cost the prayer, father ?
It doesn`t cost a thing. It costs you everything. How can we put a price on the Grace of God, how can we quantify the healing of cancer of your mother? How can we administer the light offered to the reposed?
Of course the people understood that the priest must live too and his family as well and a holy service means time, effort, cantor, diesel and a crowd, that the church belongs to us all and it needs cleaning, employees, light, heat like in your home. The people with common sense put some money inside that sheet of paper with names which is nothing else than the diptych from the yore with all those from the community of the Church.
But the mentality of bazaar in which you have the expectation to receive health from God for three lei, is the opposite of the love of a son.
Before God we must come with a broken heart, with tears, humbleness, whispering our pain to Him like to a Father not complaining like at the market or crying out.
Saint Isaac the Syrian said: God doesn`t give us anything as an answer to our spiritual effort, but according to the humbleness which grows from great spiritual effort, meaning when you prayed a lot, when your heart broke out of pain and when you realized that you are a nobody before God, then you had become somebody and God embraces you and pours over you His blessings.
