From the teachings of Father Arsenie Papacioc
“I looked at you to see your faces, only, only, in this way I could see your hearts. The fact that you are here makes me understand that you are concerned with the problem of salvation, but more rationally. I’d like to talk about something that will move you. Not theory. You must fly with both wings, vertically, without the slightest deviation. For what Christ has done for us, not the slightest deviation is allowed. And if it happens, let it be without our will, let us seek the confessor and let us untie ourselves. For no calamity means anything if faith stands firm. Satan’s greatest gain is our discouragement through falls, weaknesses.
Dear ones, you can only go the way step by step, but surely. I don’t ask you if you have heard of hell. You have heard of it, but you don’t know it! Now you must get to know heaven. You know yourselves by the identity card, but you don’t know your hearts, your potential.
God created us only for Him.
My dear ones, man is superior to all creation. Man is superior to the angels. God created angels with a great mission. They can do a lot because they are pure. God created us only for Him. Not for anything else, not at all! He created us to be with Him forever and ever, and for that He made us free, but He made us fit, He gave us a guardian angel, whom you have forgotten! But you have not felt the devil on your back to see how important the guardian angel is against him. It is said that it is impossible not to die when you see an angel in his true light. This angel has a very important task. All your thoughts and words towards the Deity are carried by the angel to God.
There is no such thing as a “small sin”
At a conference we were given tickets. And one told me that he had a small sin. But I know a sin even smaller than his. Adam did nothing more than bite into an apple. He didn’t disobey God, he didn’t doubt the existence of divine power, but he didn’t listen. And he turned heaven and earth upside down. There is no small sin! Christ had to come to save man. And he brought us more than Adam lost! He gave us the power to become holy. We, beings in the dimension we are, have divine powers! We have an animality in us, and where animality ends, humanity begins. Until when, you ask, do we allow this animal in us to work?
Death doesn’t come to sit down and have coffee with you
I’ve seen many deaths in my life. Great screams, seeing devils, seeing sins as they did! They couldn’t save themselves, death doesn’t come to sit down and have coffee with you! It comes to get you. It takes you where your deeds are, it doesn’t play games. And they all wanted to live another day. Call it a little, but when your breath stops, you’ll see how important a moment is. Divine justice is framed by great divine love and forgives us with a sigh. That made me say that a moment can be a time and a sigh can be a prayer. And a great living person said that this moment is more than the basket of tears.
God wants a sincere heart, not a thousand prayers. He wants our heart. Nothing is more precious to God than time. He gave it to us to save us. He has suffered us, He has given us, just so that we can rise. That’s God’s mercy – it lasts a lifetime! If we could find it in our power to ask those above – what has it cost you to achieve such happiness, the answer would be: time, a little time, well spent. God made us free to fight, so that His grace doesn’t come to a milog, but to a hero.
If you can’t love your enemies, at least don’t hate them.
To love your enemies is a commandment, not an advice! I, who sit and talk with many people, have felt that they say to me, ‘Father, that’s it! I’ll do anything, 1,000 prostations a day, but don’t tell me to love my enemies. Do you see the devilish claws that rule over everyone? If you can’t love your enemies, at least don’t hate them, and you’ll be on the stairs instead of the gutter. Hellfire is a reality, not a scare brought by spiritualists or parents in religious education. Hell is a great reality! And if you don’t forgive, you go to the eternal fire. The fire there is a thousand times stronger than the fire here, and it’s without light. You don’t see anyone! And you don’t stay there for a while, you stay there forever! Imagine that, terrible! Because it’s not just the physical suffering that’s eating you up, it’s the fact that you’re cut off from God’s love for eternity. This kind of eternity petrifies you, my brothers!
40 years was a period of time, not an eternity.
The sufferings of hell were revealed to one man. He was up to his ankles in fire and screaming terribly. And someone asked him, ‘Why are you screaming like that? Because I am in this fire for ever! And he went away and met another who was in the fire up to his neck, but he rejoiced from time to time. And he said I am in the fire much more than others, but I rejoice when one of my kind is made a priest, and in forty years he takes me out of here. You see, psychologically, 40 years was a period of time, not an eternity. He was happy because he had hope.
Brothers, on the Judgement Day we will be asked: why didn’t you love? Because I slandered, because I spoke evil, because I killed! Fight, why do you not ask for God’s grace? When temptations of all kinds come, cry out to Christ: Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus! Don’t sit in inertia, live every moment. It is difficult, but God will understand, He wants to help you. He follows us because he loves us. Let’s love each other!”
Don’t make the sign of the cross like you are playing the mandolin!
When we make the sign of the cross, we bow to the Holy Trinity. When you raise your hand to your forehead, all the height, the Father, then all the depth, the Son, and bring to your shoulders all the breadth, the Holy Spirit. That’s why the devil flees from the cross! But if you do it as if you were playing a mandolin, I don’t know which devils will flee, in fact you will encourage them more.
(Monica Dumitrescu – Ziarul Lumina)