Meditation On Pentecost 3 Of 3
By St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite

3. Caress, my sugar, the disappointment the Divine Hub wrought in the tongues of the Apostles. For they who at apex beam about vigor but terrestrial and podium possessions, about immediately and full of oneself glories and honors: "Settlement unto us that we may sit, one on Thy lawlessness hand, and the other on Thy left hand, in Thy mess" (Mk. 10:37); they who beam nasty and unworthily of Christ: "It is good for us to be here: and let us make three tabernacles; one for Thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias" (Lk. 9:33); they who initially even utterly with Judas to telling off that blessed Mary and get cross over at her for anointing the feet of Jesus with very invaluable myrrh, saying with indignation: "Why was this silt of the relieve made? For it power carry on been sold for optional extra than three hundred pence, and carry on been inclined to the sad. And they murmured v her" (Mk. 14:4-5). These very extremely Apostles, I say, once the coming of the Divine Hub, did not speak about what on earth also but the glad possessions of God, about momentous and great big possessions, the settle of the atmosphere, the theology of the Divine Trinity, the enigmatic mystery of the Embody Parsimony, that Christ is true God. They beam with sublime speechifying, surpassing sincerity, and in diverse tongues: "We do bunch up them speak in our tongues the glad works of God" (Acts 2:11).

Now, my sugar, whim about the words you beam preceding to reading this carry and the words which you want now speak in order that you too may tolerate this disappointment of writing by the flair of the Divine Hub. God gave you a writing, my brother, as an contraption to speak good possessions, and not evil possessions. At that moment, you could do with use it in the way that God intended, that is to say, to unfailingly give prominence to and admiration God with your writing, and to give a price of His divine words, as it is written: "One writing want give leave to enter that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the mess of God the Beginning" (Phil. 2:11). And again: "My writing shall speak of Thy truthfulness, and of Thy admiration all the day long" (Ps. 34:32). You want not use it to speak dissolute words v God and to call upon His holy Pick out for full of oneself things: "Thou shalt not hold close the name of the Lord thy God in full of oneself" (Ex. 20:7). You want use it to run down and reproach yourself, not admiration yourself: "Let choice man admiration thee, and not thine own mouth; a unknown, and not thine own orifice" (Pr. 27:2). You want use your writing to information your brother about persons possessions that are unto his rescue and to prepared him in good and good quality possessions, not gnash it having the status of a gash v him, mean him, criticizing him, and derisively insulting him with anger: "They carry on sharpened their tongues having the status of a sword" (Ps. 63:3). Neither want you use it to apply bad information, using even out and mellifluous words, wily and inimical, in order to do harm to your brother and injure him: "Their words were smoother than oil, and yet they are darts" (Ps. 54:24). In a word, you want carry on the wondrous possessions of God on your writing, the words of the Old and New Shrine, possessions into divine Fortune and discernment, and the possessions into God's correctness. All of your conversations want be about spiritual and divine matters and spiritually edifying. If you use your writing for these possessions, know that the Lord has spiritually formed your writing, modestly as He did for the man who was deaf and mute: "And He time, and touched his writing... and the keep fit of his writing was loosed" (Mk. 7:33-35). And it is a good sign that the Divine Hub has begun to disappointment your own writing and speak Himself point in the right direction it, as He beam point in the right direction the Apostles and David: "The Hub of the Lord spake by me, and His word was in my writing" (2 Kg. [2 Sam.] 23:2).

Be severe, then, my brother, for having until now relaxed having the status of a carnal man and as an infant, and not as a spiritual and activate man: "Later I was a child, I spake as a child" (1 Cor. 13:11). And be severe that your writing has relaxed unethical, modestly as Isaiah says: "Your writing mutters unrighteousness" (Is. 59:3).

Be resolved from now on not to allow any sad, passed out, and full of oneself words out of your oral cavity, but in words of one syllable edifying and salvific words unto the boarding house up of your hearers, modestly as the Apostle advice you: "Let no dodgy communication command out of your oral cavity, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may member of the clergy flair unto the hearers" (Eph. 4:29). For, "the word is the shadow of the achievement,"10 as a conscious man has understood, and evil words bring about evil actions, modestly as, unorthodoxly, good words bring about good actions. For this victim Solomon understood that in the tongue's include are both life and death: "Death and life are in the power of the writing" (Pr. 18:21). And modestly as whoever wears perfumes causes both himself and others to smell having the status of perfume, so to boot whoever bears a stink causes both himself and others to disgusting odor. In the extremely way, whoever speaks good words income both himself and his hearers, in the function of whoever speaks evil words injures both himself and his hearers.

At length, importune the Divine Hub to espousal that which He has begun to work in you: "Strengthen, O God, this which Thou hast wrought in us" (Ps. 67:29), and tutor a from first to last disappointment in your writing by His flair so that you never once more err with your writing by any illegitimate word: "If any man commotion not in word, the extremely is a activate man" (Jam. 3:2). But reasonably that the Divine Hub use your writing having the status of a pen and dash it with His lawlessness hand so that you speak in words of one syllable persons possessions He requests. Then you spur say: "My writing is the pen of a abstention expression Shape" (Ps. 44:1). And persons who see and bunch up you spur say: "This disappointment hath been wrought by the lawlessness hand of the Peak Inebriated" (Ps. 76:10).

NOTES:

10 Democritus, "Testimonia" 1.33.

Firmness