Gratitude and Fr. John

  • The flu symp­toms are start­ing to clear up quite a bit, and thank good­ness. It sounded idyl­lic to just be a lie-about, but I never remem­ber that when you’re think­ing that, you’re usu­ally healthy. In real­ity, sick days are just days when the world passes by and you don’t even know what’s going on till it’s too late. I missed out on singing at my godson’s wed­ding, and that’s a chance I won’t get again (at least with that godson).

    And I feel like I’ve han­dled some things badly, and so with one thing and another, by last night, I was might­ily sick of the lit­tle prison of my own com­pany. I woke up this morn­ing a lit­tle like Ebenezer Scrooge on Christ­mas Day, just being glad that I was alive and had a chance to do better.

    It seems to me, in the tem­po­rary light of this tem­po­rary con­vic­tion, that I have been very ungrate­ful lately. I don’t know if the firm res­o­lu­tion of a per­son who is happy just to have a nor­mal body tem­per­a­ture will last long. But I hope it does. I can’t believe how much the lack of that one thing added lay­ers to the fleet­ing mis­ery of being sick.

    So it’s Grat­i­tude Day here at Greg & Grace’s. But else­where in Chris­ten­dom, it’s the feast­day of St. John of Kro­n­stadt. The two may go together well. I con­tinue to love my por­tion of the morn­ing time spent read­ing the daily reflec­tions of Fr. John that he com­pos­ited over so many years into the book “My Life in Christ.”

    I looked today for some­thing in it that would seem quin­tes­sen­tial — the “most” Fr. John of Kro­n­stadt. I knew I was look­ing for some­thing about pray­ing with faith. This is some­thing that he repeats often, and I don’t know any other Ortho­dox writer who says it just the way he does. Here are two exam­ples I found:

    Dur­ing prayer, always firmly believe and remem­ber that every thought and word of yours may, undoubt­edly, become deeds. “For with God noth­ing shall be impos­si­ble.” “But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.” This sig­ni­fies that even your words shall not be with­out power. “All things are pos­si­ble to him that believeth.” Take heed of your words; the word is pre­cious. “Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.

    Prayer is spir­i­tual breath­ing; when we pray, we breathe in the Holy Ghost; “pray­ing in the Holy Ghost. (Jude 1:20)” Thus, all church prayers are the breath­ing of the Holy Ghost; as it were, spir­i­tual air and also light, spir­i­tual fire, spir­i­tual food and spir­i­tual raiment.

    But then, while I was look­ing for those, I also found one that speaks exactly to my sor­row­ing heart today:

    Do not fear bod­ily pri­va­tions, but fear spir­i­tual pri­va­tions. Do not fear, do not be faint-hearted, do not be irri­tated when you are deprived of money, food, drink, enjoy­ments, clothes, dwelling, even of your body itself; but  fear when the enemy deprives your soul of faith, of trust, and love for God and your neigh­bor, when he sows hatred, enmity, attach­ment to earthly things, pride and other sins in your heart. “Fear not those that will kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul. (Matt. 10:28).”

    Amen and amen.


    Related posts:

    1. St. John of Kro­n­stadt, on prayer
    2. “My Life in Christ” by St. John of Kronstadt
    3. Spir­i­tual Coun­sels by Fr. John of Kronstadt
    4. Late win­ter, early spring
    5. The sash of the Theotokos

    October 19th, 2009 | Grace | 2 Comments |

2 Responses and Counting...

  • Anam Cara 10.19.2009

    Amen

  • Mimi

    Amen indeed.
    I’m glad you are get­ting better.

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