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Metropolitan Ephrem (Kyriakos)
The chief passions are three: money, authority and pleasure. Authority is itself legitimate, but domination is not legitimate.
Knowledge of the true God causes us to enter into eternity from this moment, despite the weight of the present unhappiness and misery. We feel the presence of eternity, which comforts us and makes us shine.
Man approaches the pure angels and likewise their glory and holiness with dignity, becoming a king of creation, master over all God's works. The Son of man became a suffering, dying man that might might become a glorified god.
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Christian spirituality is a paschal spirituality. Christ's passion is not a site of grief, but a site of joy. The Lord Jesus told His disciples before His passion, "Most assuredly, I say to you that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; and you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy" (John 16:20).
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Saint Gregory Palamas says that intellectual knowledge is not independent of purity, of our liberation from the passions. Our true knowledge, divine illumination, does not come from studies, but from purity: purity of body, mind and spirit.
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Let us always remember that our brothers are our life because they are the image of our God who gave us life and who continues to give us life. Let us share every good thing with others, who are the image of our Creator, so that the Lord may permit us to share in His heavenly kingdom because in all simplicity, if we love His children, then we have loved Him in them.
A person brings forth good or evil after practicing devotion and sacrifice. God is the wellspring of Good and the Devil is the source of evil. Both of them seek sacrifice and devotion. The holy fathers, physicians of the soul, work hard to treat and cure man's illnesses. They guide people in order to transform man's negative powers into positive, constructive powers.
Prayer in the family, in the house and in the church makes a child feel secure because prayer goes into the heart. It is very useful for the family to gather together with the children in order to pray together. A child must be trained to participate with his parents in prayer, even if it is for only a little part or a hymn that he has learned by heart. It is very useful for a child to see his father and mother praying in front of him. This picture in childhood will not leave him during his entire life.
Orthodoxy strives for the experience of divinization! It has been tasted fully by the friends of God to whom God has appeared, such as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It is the experience of the prophets, the Apostles and the saints.
One might wonder what that rich man did to go to torment. Did he do something evil to Lazarus? He did not harm Lazarus and did not do or say anything to him. So what is the mistake that the rich man made?
What must we do and what must we be, we Christians who bear the name of the risen Christ, in order for this resurrection, the resurrection of Christ within us, to remain continually?
