Archimandrite Emilianos from Simonopetras
Life doesn`t mean partying as some people believe who marry and afterwards they fall from the skies to the earth. The wedding is a waste sea and you don`t know what may appear in your way. You marry the person you chose with fear and emotion, with great care and attention and after a year or two, after five years you realize that person made fun of you.
It is a wrong conception to believe that the wedding is the path whare we should seek our happiness, the refuse of our Cross. Joy in the marriage is when the man and woman cooperate and go further towards the ascents of life.
`Didn`t you suffer? Didn`t you love? Says a poet. Only the one who suffers can love for real. That is why suffering is a key element in a marriage.
The wedding says an ancient philosopher and poet is a world beautified by hope and hardened by hardships.
As the steel is hardened in the fire this is how the man steels himself in the fire of hardships. When you look at the marriage from outside everything seems only milk and honey to you and everything is smiling at you. But when you get closer you see how many difficult moments it hides.
`It is not good for the man to be alone` says God. For this reason, He put beside him a companion, a help for the hardships of life, especially for the struggles of faith, because for keeping faith you must suffer a lot. God sends His grace to all the people but only when we are disposed to endure and suffer. Some people when they face hardships run away. They forget about God and Church. But the faith, God the Church are not a shirt we take off when we sweat.
Therefore the marriage is a journey which is crossed by hardships and joys. When the hardships seem unbearable to you, remember that God is with you. He will lift your cross. He will crown you.
from „Aghios Minas”, the publication of the metropolitan of Kastoria, nr. 41/2009.
Source: http://www.familiaortodoxa.ro/
