Love must be the measure of all the things we do. Not sentimentalism, not other feelings, but true love. And true love always means the wish that the people we love may live in welfare, in prosperity. It is hard to understand this. Because we have the impression that if we love someone or something, we should own that, we should cling to that person and never let him go. But as you know, something like this is impossible. Love means freedom, not slavery. If we love someone, we cannot take him into our possession. We have to allow him be himself. If it does not happen so, it means that we love in him only what we like. Meaning that in fact we love ourselves. How dangerous is this condition! The Lord says: „If you do not die for yourselves, for your pride, for your ego, you will not have life in yourselves. But we cling on to our ego, to our trodden paths and then we wonder why we cannot pray, why our life turns into ruins. This happens because we listen to ourselves instead of listening to God. He tells us: You must die, you must quit this life of yours. But we say: No, in this case He wants to say something else. This does not refer at me. I can do whatever I want, I will reach that place anyway.
From the book Don’t prefer anything over the love of Christ. (volume II) Archimandrite Ioachim Parr
