For us to have right communion with Christ, it is necessary that our entire soul becomes conscious, that it comes into the light, into the grace of God, and that nothing remains in darkness. However, no matter how much someone believes, no matter how much he, everyday, makes a new start in the true life and struggles to give himself and devote himself to God, he must realize this vital point: that within him, the ego, pride, and selfishness, live and rule. This self-love, this self-worship, lives and reigns. Therefore, man must become humble: every day, he must increase in humility. We have many things, many realities from our everyday life that help us with this work.
He who truly loves humility, and desires to become humble, begs God for this. In this way, in the beginning, and imperceptibly –later perhaps more truly– he starts, little by little, to feel this, the emptying of the soul from the ego, from selfishness, from the idol which we have installed within us. And so if one is completely humbled, surrenders himself to God and is devoted to him –meaning that every day he makes a new beginning, from which the whole object of his soul will finally come into the light of God– in truth, man will arrive at this state which the Lord promises to us.
But what is this state?
The Lord didn’t come simply to die himself. Rather, he said that we will also die with him. And in the same way that he himself resurrected, we also will resurrect. Whatever Christ is after the resurrection, this man also becomes when he is united to Christ. He is not simply a good man who thought up some good things. Christian means little Christ. In the end, Christ will make each one of us whatever He is himself. He does not simply advise us from the outside, but enters into us and takes us into himself. We are united and become like unto him. Even from this life we become like unto Christ, but this will become complete in the next life
I pray this for all of us.
Archimandrite Symeon Kragiopoulos (+)
