When we feel sadness or face a trial let us take our soul by the hand as if it were a child and go with it to heaven, to hell to Jerusalem. From there Christ will take it to the heavenly Jerusalem where it will rest and won`t see any earthly things, only heavenly things. To see Christ how He takes you by the hand and tells you sometimes fatherly words and other times words which are appropriate for the bridegroom
When someone loves God if he tell Him a `God have mercy !` or a few words of prayer, God will expand them so much within him that his soul will get lost in the greatness of God and in the divine bliss. But we must knock very powerfully at His door, not demurely to open the door and receive us inside to delight ourselves. Think of His joy and merriment. The soul refines itself, it becomes so sensitive, so beautiful that wishes to behave only with kindness and gentleness. All these are His gifts. What He wants is to give Him our mind, our heart, to embrace and kiss Him. That is why the holy fathers filled the desert with their wails and their life was full of greatness, a heaven.
One day I cried and I asked to be taught how to pray. On that night I saw a young man dressed in white who told me: `When the man will love God from all his heart with all his mind then he will raise his hands in the air when he prays. When the soul has humbleness and the love of God is measured, then he crosses his arms to his back. Afterwards that bringer of light knelt down and cried as if he embraced the feet of Christ just as we do when we embrace someone`s feet and cry. When the man prays in this way, he sees himself as a worm, as a nothing and his soul feels an inexpressible joy and merriment. The next day, when I went to pray, I stood for three hours motionless and from my eyes tears came out without cease. It seemed to me that only a minute passed, I didn`t realize how the time went by. In the end I felt so much comfort and relief as if I had had a bath. Prayer gives much joy, much merriment and much relief. When temptations are big God gives many blessings. Let us pay a great attention to prayer for it is an earthly heaven which comforts and enlightens the soul.
Everything we suffer, we suffer because of our idleness and our mouth. Obedience purifies and enlightens the soul. The soul raises to the skies and enjoys the spiritual delight which comes out from the spiritual obedience. But because we didn`t renounce at our own will, at our own self, deprive ourselves of all these although God wants to give them to us. Although we could receive a living in the band of the angels and saints at the bosom of Abraham we`ll see them from afar because we made just a little effort, we had just a little humbleness, a little obedience and a little prayer
Excerpt from Words from the heart –Abbess Macrina Vassopoulos, Evanghelismos Publishing, 2015.
