“I never hated any of the enemies who oppressed us and I never regretted going to prison”
As you have a humble and subdued heart, you become more and more free inside and then God descends into you. Our purpose on earth is to fill ourselves with God. And the only way we can fill ourselves with God is through humility. Humility has to be the foundation of our lives. We are not fulfilled by cheap narcisism, but only by humility.
To live in humility is to live a true life. And to live in pride is to live an artificial life. Therefore, whenever you are humbled, be patient and pray: ”Lord, accept these humiliations in place of the humility I lack. May these humiliations redeem the pride from which I cannot free myself voluntarily!”
I was imprisoned in communist dungeons and God only knows how much injustice, how much hatred, how much malice there was… You can’t even put it into words. When I was more tormented, I tried not to rebel, not to complain. I used to think like this: Let me remember what I have done wrong to God, that I am suffering these injustices now! And I thought about my sins, which only God and I knew about, and I looked at the suffering as a canon and did not rebel. I thought that if I had been better, the guards would not have been so bad – so – but I was guilty of their wickedness too. So I could forgive them all and pray for them, and I almost didn’t feel the suffering they caused me.
And I tell you the truth, when I could do all this and think about my sins, I felt such great joy in my heart and peace and an abundance of love that it was as if I was flying, even though I was in prison. I was so preoccupied with seeing my sins that even at night I would talk in my sleep and ask God for forgiveness. And there were those guards who lurked at the doors and listened at the bars to what I said; and the next day they would call me for questioning and serve me the words I had spoken in my sleep because of my troubled soul.
They would call out to me: Sinner! They repeated to me everything I had said in my dreams at night, God knows how.
But that’s what I meant: it’s very important to realise our unworthiness before God.
To blame no one but yourself. Always repent with all your heart. If I do not find myself really guilty and repent from the depth of my soul, then I cannot pray with strength and I cannot have the full joy of prayer. If you have these two things, humility and forgiveness of your neighbour, you will see how you begin to capture within yourself something of God, something extraordinary. Only the Holy Spirit can bring this “something” into our hearts. I never hated any of the enemies who oppressed us, and I never regretted going to prison.
I was needed there so that we could all suffer, together with our Romanian brothers, the wrath that had come upon the country. May our suffering, Lord, be a canon for our sins, but also a sacrifice for the forgiveness of the sins of the Romanian people and for God’s blessing on our entire country!
Try to do as much good as possible around you, pray as much as possible with the Jesus Prayer, do not speak ill of anyone and you will have peace of heart. May the Good Lord and the Mother of God always help you, wherever you are.
(Fr. Sofian Boghiu – Orthodox Family Magazine, No. 9(44)/2012, pp. 1-2)