We forget that we are all heading towards death and that death is the only certain thing in our lives. Our life is under the specter of death. What do we do and how do we handle this? How can we turn this death into resurrection?
Watch this clip to find out.
Enjoy!
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and forever and unto the ages of ages. Amen. Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us! Amen.
Someone said, “All people must one day die but the difference is in the manner one does: As a lion or a chained dog.”
These are some lyrics from George Coşbuc, “Decebal to his people”, which often cross my mind. Now, brethren, know that we do not validate, I do not validate the Dacians and the romanticized history of the Dacians because it is not true, even though the Dacians were a special people in history. I don’t validate this because today there is a centrifugal force that takes us away from Orthodoxy into very dangerous areas, brethren, such as energy portals, crystals, tunnels – forms of paganism and Satanism, all kinds of things like that. Very dangerous matters!
Brethren, we are the only people in the world who have never been pagans, let us not become now! Let’s not think about things like that! We don’t have the burden of a pagan period in our history to be proud of – let’s not start now! …Like there is here in Greece when it comes to the gods of Olympus and so on.
For what reason, however, did I mention these lyrics of Mr. George Coşbuc? Today we are going to talk about death because until now we have talked about repentance and the consequences of sins, and the greatest, worst consequence of sin is death.
Holy Scripture itself says that “The wages of sin is death.” As we have already shown, sin is the act by which we separate ourselves from God, to a greater or lesser extent, being attracted to other centers of attraction, to other centers of pleasure. These forms of separation have broken human nature into constituent individuals — if you remember, we have spoken on enough occasions of the global Adam who has now fallen and become broken, we have scattered into individuals, brethren—and now, under time, over time, the individual cracks more and more under the influence of sin. And that is until it also breaks into the parts of which it is composed: the soul and the body. This is death.
The body, in turn, breaks down into the constituent organic compounds we know from anatomy and mineral salts and so on. So as we see over and over again, it’s about breaking, it’s about breaking up. But the soul continues its eternal existence as an image of God and the breath of God.
Brethren, this is why we die: because we like something else and we like it not through and in God, and we short-circuit our love and so ashes remain. God allowed death not because He rejoices when we become ash — on the contrary, to accentuate this awareness of our limitations, this shadow of death upon us so that we realize that it is not good. So that death will not reign for eternity. So the sin does not become eternal. Do you understand?
That is, to be aware of the decadence of sin and, therefore, of the possibility of repentance. We know very clearly that we are not well. Do you understand? The moment I see with my own eyes, that is, physically, that I am decadent and fallen, I will not persist like the devil in my sin. Or, this is how it should have happened. But I know cases that even decades later people do persist in sin, persist in hatred, in unforgiveness. They become stuck, brethren.
Let me give you an example: There was a man who had a small vacant plot between his house and his neighbor’s house. And the terrain could not be used for anything, it was only a few meters, I don’t know, 2 meters or so. Well, and at some point, his neighbor instead of leaving the fence in the middle or something like that, cuts the fence and allocates the land to himself. Even though it wasn’t [his]… And after 25 years, this man comes to me and says, “I can’t forgive him!”
It’s terrible, brethren! So this man was living as if in hell. Because the neighbor had taken a plot of land that had no relevance. And even if it had any relevance, brethren, alright, there is a judge in court, if he’d wanted to act in court, he could have. But well, that’s a judicial matter and as a monk I’m not interested in the discussion now. What hurts me is that this man, after 25 years, could not forgive him. That is, he was constantly bitter in this hatred of the other, in this death, this separation. Do you understand?
As you can see, because of sin, everything is struck by death, by decay, by decadence. In this dark and senseless desert the Savior came, brethren, He who gave us the possibility to reunite with Him and through Him [to reunite] with one another, so as to escape disintegration, death, eternal loneliness.
Unfortunately, we are not prepared for this, and we feel the light of the rays of loving and unifying divine grace as fire, as destruction of our heart [which is] petrified by selfishness, by sinful, bodily pleasure, pleasure that puts the lonely and cold individual first in the desperate attempt at self-deification in our loneliness. Do you understand?
The Holy Spirit destroys this; however we, unfortunately, do not want this destruction of our ego, of the stone in our heart, of our egoism. Heaven is the union of all, the return from the dark distortion of each of us, each of us from our paths under the luminous and loving gentleness of our Lord and shepherd Jesus Christ, but, as I said, we do not want this. We do not want union with others because we consider ourselves better, because we hate others, we consider others unworthy of us, and this is our torment.
Brethren, if we do not humble ourselves to death, [then] with the disappearance of the body the consciousness of our limitations disappears and, therefore, we will become stiff in the direction of loneliness we take, being firmly convinced that perfection is in that direction. I have given you the case of that man, brethren. I was horrified. He was an old man and could not forgive someone who in his youth had taken a plot of land…
So the paramount importance of death is that we cannot repent anymore once it takes place. Not because we are gone, brethren, but because we cannot repent afterwards. And the critical point of death, in fact, is this: it’s the moment when the soul is forced to detach itself from the material, from the worldly, from wealth, brethren, in different forms. If the soul loves material, worldly, earthly things more than heavenly ones, then it will cling to these and will not want to leave. If this worldly love is close to zero, then [the soul] will easily depart, like a fluffy, beautiful chick.
If, however, worldly love is a little greater, then there is something akin to sorrow that impedes eternal happiness, but man can still recover with God’s grace the moment he feels the pain and immensity of death corroborated with divine love. “Now that I’m dying, what do I care about?”
But if this glue of love for the world is greater, then separation from the world, from the body is – beyond the torment of death as an unnatural effect, because death is unnatural, brethren – it is like ripping a band-aid off your hand very quickly. It’s very painful. If this love for the world is even greater, then it is like cutting off your hand or another limb, and if worldly love rules us then we cannot break away, brethren, and collapse on takeoff. This is hell, brethren: worldly desires exacerbated to the maximum, hardened, desires to the fullest that can never be fulfilled again.
Because of this, the Holy Fathers who had experienced to a greater or lesser extent death, hell and/or heaven were very careful to avoid worldly pleasures, brethren, or at least avoid intense exposure to them.
Let me give you an example. There was a monk in the past named Hesychius. St. John of the Ladder mentions him. Hesychius was always in total idleness, having no care for his soul, he lived in pleasures. He became sick, bodily—well, he was sick in his soul— up until he was on his deathbed, when he was on the verge of death, then at that point he came to his senses. When everyone said he was dying, he came to his senses and asked everyone to leave him immediately.
After sending them all away, he sealed the door of his cell and stayed inside for 12 years without ever going out, and never spoke to anyone again. He tasted nothing but bread and water, brethren. He just sat there, with his mind fixed in ecstasy on what he had seen in this exit (in his ecstasy). He was so focused that he never changed this way of life again, being so outside of himself, having gathered his mind and shedding hot tears in silence, brethren.
But when he was about to pass away, when he was about to die, he opened the door and the brothers went inside. And begging him, the only thing the brothers heard from him, as he did not want to speak, was: “Forgive me! No one who has the memory of death can ever sin.”
The fathers marveled when they saw it, they were speechless, brethren. When they saw the one who was once so careless and lazy, how he changed so quickly, radically, such a phenomenal change and transformation. And after they buried him in the cemetery, after a number of days when the fathers wanted to search for his holy remains, they did not find them.
The Lord assured them of his careful, thoughtful, and praiseworthy repentance, of course. And this is an example for all those who want to make amends after such idleness in passion. Do you understand?
Philosophy in ancient times was the science that studied death – I’ve said this before. “Philosophy” is a Greek word that translates to “love of wisdom” and that’s because indeed the thought of death generates a lot of wisdom. Of course, after that, in history, philosophy expanded to the study of human life. And that’s because, in fact, our life is a road to death, brethren.
The very fact that death is a destination shows that it would be absurd for this destination, as it is today, to be the ultimate goal. Man is not made for death, but for life, for the fulfillment of existence and not for the annihilation of existence. So man does not just pass away.
If man were not eternal, his reason does not make sense and, in fact, the whole universe does not make sense, as St. Dumitru Stăniloae and, in fact, all the Holy Fathers of the Church say. Do you understand?
I remember an incident with several programmers on a forum; they were very, very knowledgeable, there was a very serious programming problem. The problem is solved and then there’s a conversation between them, and at one point one of them asks another great programmer – this programmer himself was one of Google’s search directors and he asks,
“What are your kids doing?”
And the other says, “I don’t have children.”
And he says, “Well, why don’t you have kids?”
And this executive who worked on Google’s search engine says, “I don’t want to sentence my child to death.”
Can you imagine, brethren, what hell this man was living? Because he was an atheist, he saw no meaning, nothing, he saw this whole world as one big cemetery heading inexorably toward nonexistence. It’s terrible, brethren!
Depression is the disease of the atheist, the disease of meaninglessness. Do you understand? To the extent that we also distance ourselves from God, we act like atheists, putting logic before us and not the mind, and then we too will suffer from depression, more or less. Faith is needed.
We must now remember that there is a difference between logic and mind, between intelligence and wisdom. That guy at Google was very smart, but he wasn’t wise. We have talked at length about the parts of the soul, but now we will look over them again a little from the perspective of death. Brethren, logic is the rational part of the soul that acts in steps, that separates things, and is made to manage things in this transient and material world, because matter has this property of separation.
You see, matter is not capable of union, but has separation as its main characteristic here on earth: here is one brick, from there on another brick, and so on. Do you understand? This happens down to the atomic level: here is one atom, beyond another atom. Of course, something else happens at the quantum level, but with logic we do not manage new quantum levels, but everyday life. Do you understand? That’s what we manage.
In the case of logic, there is this separation, these thoughts. Someone who does highly logical work is smart. He can be appreciated in this world, as I have shown you, because of the fact that he knows how to manage, to relate to matter, money, wealth, and so on – but, brethren, he has not solved his most serious problems: the problem of death, God and eternity. That is, man may be smart, but not wise. Do you understand?
The mind, however, which is different from logic, is made by God to deal with the eternal, the divine, the spiritual, and has a unifying mode of functioning. The mind is a sense organ – read Saint Diadoch of Photica. And the mind is defined as the ultimate attention, the finest attention – read St. Gregory Palamas.
The moment the mind no longer deals with God’s eternal and spiritual things, at that moment the mind becomes divided and darkened. It’s not in its nature. Do you understand? It is not in its nature to deal with worldly matters. Adam’s fall consists precisely in this: through disobedience, Adam divided his mind, that is, the eye of the soul from God, and turned it toward ephemeral, separate, and divisive things. That is, towards death, brethren. Matter is death.
As I said, the mind feels, the mind is the sense organ. The moment the mind, the ultimate attention, does not turn to material things, at that moment it begins to feel right – this is common sense, justice and wisdom. One of the main factors in extracting the mind from material things—if not the main factor—is the memory of death under the light of God’s grace. We need to remember that we are not here properly. Of course, [remember] in the light of God’s grace so that we do not fall into depression, like in the case of that programmer.
So the constant remembrance of death, brethren, is one of the main factors that make men wise. Wisdom, brethren, is the difference between good and evil: which thought, which deed, which action helps me have a happy eternity and which does not. What helps me die properly and what doesn’t. What helps me move in the right direction and what doesn’t. That’s wisdom, brethren.
Wisdom is not that he knows how to extract the square root of 2 with I don’t know how many decimal places. Do you understand? In fact, God gave us time for this: to learn to die. The right death is death with a loving heart, brethren, with an open heart to others and to God first. If we are not open to God, we cannot be open to others either.
If at the moment of death we do not love others more than ourselves, if we do not hate ourselves more than others, then we will forever close ourselves in the black hole of hell… I really like this image of a black hole that is hell, in the depths of matter, in the depths of inner loneliness.
But if we love others more than ourselves, and if we hate, of course, for God, ourselves more than others, then we will explode like a supernova, we will open up like a flower bud in the heaven of unity with God and with others.
Paradoxically, however, brethren, for this to happen we must distance ourselves a little from the world, distance ourselves a little from worries, reduce a little the frequency of the wounds we suffer because of our passions, brethren. We suffer wounds because of our passions and not because of others. First the passions are the cause and, secondly, the actions of others. Because whenever something hurts, the wound is within us, the problem is in us. If the other has done wrong, he will give an answer; still, we should overcome everything, bear everything, for we are made in the image and likeness of God. If we do not overcome, it means that in that place we have a disease, an existential fissure, and this must be healed through confession, prayer and other good deeds, through repentance – about which we have spoken in so many videos.
And, of course, by avoiding the causes that harm us. Beware, it is not people who harm us, but CERTAIN deeds of CERTAIN people. Being completely alone, without God and without any support from the confessor and from the other brothers has very bad results, brethren, the first that appears is depression, and the last, as I said before, is suicide. I did a whole podcast on suicide.
Know, however, that the moment man detaches, even partially, from the world, from worries and reaches hesychia, the tranquility according to God and thus peace, then he sees that heaven and hell are the first realities – as they truly are. Whereas if he is caught in the whirlwind of worldly worries they appear to him as the last, if they still occur to him, of course. Brethren, it doesn’t all end with death.
It all starts with death. Judgment is for everyone and it is very real, very absolute. It’s existential, brethren. It is not about questions and answers to find out the truth as it is in our courts where the lawyer comes, asks, the other says…. Brethren, Christ does not need to ask or be asked to find out the truth because He is the Truth. The truth is a person.
“I am the way, the truth, and the life,” said the Lord. He is the Self Being. He is He who is, as He told Moses on Mount Sinai. At the judgment, in an instant, it will be seen whether we are Christ-like or not. The way a face is placed next to the person after whom it was taken, like a photograph next to the original, and we judge at a glance whether they resemble it or not, the same in the case of the Judgment, brethren. If the photo is similar, the face is placed in a place of honor, in a place near the person after whom it was taken.
Like I said, similarly if we are in God’s image, we come to the likeness of Him, then we will be close to Him. If we are not like Him, we will not be near Him – God forbid! God forbid! It’s terrible, brethren!
You know, what surprises me, something I’m a little bitter about, is that death is the only sure thing in our lives, and – ironically! – we do our best not to think there. Brethren, death is the great exam, the absolute examination of our lives, and we do not prepare for it! For an exam in high school, college, driving school, I know we prepare assiduously, but for death – not at all!
We must remember death because remembering death is an everyday death. The remembrance of death is a sigh every hour. It’s asceticism. Now, the fear of death is an attribute of the flesh, you must know, that came into the flesh through disobedience to God, and because of this we avoid thinking about death.
Moreover, we don’t think about it – why? Because we are not only afraid of death, but also tremble before it, we dread death. The trembling of death is the sign of unrepented sins, brethren. So if you dread death and don’t want to think about it, then you have sins you have not repented for. Go and confess!
Christ fears death, but He does not tremble. Why? To clearly show the qualities of the two natures and, above all, to show that he is sinless. Because of this, he did not tremble in the face of death. You see today that you are induced with a lot of fear, brethren. They want to lead you through fear. And this is precisely to paralyze you from reaching Christ, precisely to NOT reach eternal personal perfection after death and – of course – as much as possible, to NOT approach perfection here on earth. That’s why they want to keep you down through fear.
So, brethren, as bread is the most necessary, the most necessary of all foods, so the remembrance of death is the most necessary of all the works of cleansing from passions. For this reason, brethren, for you in the world and for the monks of a community, for those in communities, the remembrance of death causes life, struggle, toil, obedience, dishonor – I speak of the patience in reproaches with joy and humility.
The man who fears death according to God, who remembers death according to God, is very much alive, brethren. He is pushed forward very well. Of course, for those practicing hesychasm, apart from noises, it allows them to cast off worries, pray incessantly, and guard the mind —watchfulness. To them the memory of death is both mother and daughter, as St. John the Ladder says – it is a chain reaction that pulls man out of the slime of this world and pushes him very well, very strongly towards the smooth crystal of the Kingdom of Heaven, for the Kingdom of Heaven is within us.
Courage, brethren! Courage! We’re going to get there anyway, and so we have to prepare for death anyway! Let us not be afraid! Let’s not say we still have time because nobody has the guarantee that we would live tomorrow – you see what happens!
Courage, brethren! Courage!
Oh yes, I want to tell you one more thing! And be careful not to become distanced from Christ by the enemy and, instead of having the natural fear of death that makes us alive, to move forward, you have the unnatural one that the forces of darkness try to instill in us to terrify and paralyze us in the project. Do you understand? Because paralysis in the project is the real death. It is not the passage to the Kingdom of Heaven, to life. Do you understand? Let us be brave like our ancestors!
May the good Lord help us to die properly; Healthy in soul and with a loving heart! Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us! Amen.
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