1. All baptized Yardstick Christians are, my precious, one sacred and holy family, called the Religious. The Religious is ONE and not many. And this One Religious is the Yardstick. The Religious is a sacred creature, that has as its mind Jesus Christ. And at the same time as the mind, our Christ, is holy, us Christians, the members of the Religious, necessity strive to become saints.
The method and style to very great our religion is given by the Religious.
The claim of the Religious, my brethren, is not exactly to make "good" territory, in the function of the students of Plato and Aristotle, but the claim of the Religious is to make territory holy and God-bearing. The Religious is not a good charitable place of birth or a cultural long-standing, but it is a divine base, that has our God living and good within it, namely the Angelic Trinity, our Member of the aristocracy the Panagia, the angels and all the saints and all baptized Christians. The same as so as baptized Christians we belong to this Religious, we necessity and we are edging to tread the path towards religion, to twist to become saints. In my dialogue today I mood oversee you the method up for grabs to the Religious to very great our sanctification.
Real thing of all, the Religious has Her sacred Mysteries by which She gives us the Grandeur of God, at the same time as imperfect the Grandeur of God we cannot very great anything. But the Religious likewise teaches us the divine-human method, the intrinsic worth, by which we can steal our sin against passions and very great our sanctification. In regards to these intrinsic worth and spiritual exercises I mood speak with you today in a few words, my Christian brethren.
2. (a) The preliminary exercise and virtue is presume. To back presume method to distribute absolutely to our precious Jesus Christ and to be put to do anything for His love. "Believe" method to promptly supply in our God. Let us regularly say our prayer: "My Christ, harmonize me in my presume and in my love for You. Doesn't matter what happens in my life, may I never bequeath from You and never refuse to acknowledge You!"
(b) The explode exercise and divine-human virtue is prayer and fasting. These intrinsic worth necessity become a style of life, a way of life for Yardstick Christians. These two method, prayer and fasting, are necessity for our sanctification, given by our Lord Jesus Christ, and this is why I watertight these intrinsic worth "divine-human". Thanks and fasting, my brethren, bring the Grandeur of God to the soul and they ecstasy her and innervate her to be strong so she can clash unwilling the devil.
(c) Unconventional divine-human virtue, that we necessity back by all method, is love. Weakness, my brethren, necessity not back edge. Weakness does not ask who is a good nature and who is not, who loves me and who hates me. The good Christian loves everyone: they love friends and enemies, they love sinners and criminals, imperfect on the contrary loving their sins and crimes. Such love is a gift of God, and this is why we necessity ask for it from God in our prayers. Let us say in our prayers: "Lord Jesus Christ, God of love, offer me Your love, that I may offer it to everyone!"
(d) The fourth virtue is inferiority and reticence. Free the meek in center can subdued the savage and rebellious hearts. Free the wretched in center can wretched the bigheaded and choice souls. My Christians! In order to become meek and wretched in center we necessity put in it the wholly true "meek and wretched in center" (Matt. 11:29), that is, our Lord Jesus Christ. Our Christ humbled Himself, in the value bring shame on, so that He was crucified for us.
(e) And the other virtue, divine-human virtue, at the same time as it was given by our Christ, is the virtue of charity. in other words, to pick up evil, to pick up the sully and woundings of others, and to not opt to compensate evil for evil. Let us know, my brethren, that the world, the sin against world, cannot subtract the territory of God, fit in the function of it did not subtract our Christ. Martyrdom accompanies the true Christian. But the Christian necessity pick up the martyrdom of the mockery of the world and not be distinct.
3. These intrinsic worth and spiritual exercises that I told you about, my brethren, were given to us by Saint Paraskevi, by Saint Anthony, by Saint Gregory Palamas, by Saint Gregory V our Patriarch from Dimitsana, and all the saints. We necessity likewise smear these, that we may be blessed. The style of exercising these intrinsic worth is wholly taught justly within the Yardstick Religious, and this is why wholly the Yardstick Religious can sanctify someone. Self-governing of Her, religion does not point of view.