The Holy Spirit and the New Laws – Fr. Pimen Vlad

Listen to a simple and timely word on the grace of the Holy Spirit as well as his relationship with us in the context of the new laws emerging in contemporary society.

Enjoy!

Here we are again, my dear ones! I think there will be a little noise because there are some workers 30 meters away working on a wall. For a long time I wanted to shoot here, among the roses, with our church, to see Athon, but I did not succeed because of the works and people aways here. When I go to the orchard, the place is quieter, but now I will try here, I hope you will hear me among the noise of the small motor and other noises, so we can talk a little bit.

I didn’t think about anything in particular, we’re going to exchange a few words so to speak, because lately we, people, talk less and less with each other. I consider it as if we are face to face when I talk to you. People no longer have time to rejoice in each other, to communicate or meet, that is, to look into each other’s eyes, to enjoy each other.

In a few days there is a very important feast, the Descent of the Holy Spirit or Pentecost, a feast of encouragement, of joy. As the Savior said when He ascended into heaven: “I will not leave you orphans.” And He said He would send the Holy Spirit. And you see any prayer at church and any prayer we start, we start with what we call the beginning prayers, after the blessing:

“Glory to Thee, our God, glory to Thee. O Heavenly King, O Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, who art in all places and fillest all things; Treasury of good things and Giver of life, come and dwell in us and cleanse us from every stain, and save our souls, O gracious Lord.”

See what a beautiful prayer? With this we always begin, and the Holy Spirit comes upon us, enlightens and wisens us, teaches us to choose good, and not evil, guides us on the path to God, to Salvation. At this feast many of those who were close to the Savior were gathered, the disciples, and the apostles, and the Mother of God. And what happened there? On a Sunday, the Holy Spirit came upon them in the form of tongues of fire. In this way their minds were enlightened, and a great change was made in them. From those scared and frightened people, pursued by the Jews, they became fearless, strong people, with strong faith, able to go to death for God without thinking. Those simple, fearful people suddenly began to speak powerfully, and every man in every corner of the earth understood it in his own language. They didn’t speak a hundred languages. They spoke the same language, but the Holy Spirit gave each of them the power to understand in his own language. Do you realize what wonderful work?

Everyone was wondering: “But aren’t these the poor fishermen who had only one coat on them? How do they have so much power? How could they speak with such courage? No one could oppose them. All the scribes and Pharisees, who, we can say, had lots of PhDs, could not oppose the fishermen, who were not learned men. Do you see what the Holy Spirit has made of simple fishermen? Do you see God’s work? He turned the tables on them. And not only that, they also worked miracles. Their word had power.

It was enough for the shadow of Holy Apostle Peter to pass over a sick person, and he would heal. See how much grace and strength? See what a wonderful God we have? Let us think that the 12 apostles, together with others around them, came to preach the Gospels, turning this whole world upside down – speaking from a humanly perspective. They threw everyone off, even the kings. The work of God through the Holy Spirit could be seen, through which these people got strength and they preached. And the Mother of God also went out to preach.

So we see, dear ones, how we gain strength. It happened on a Sunday, which means that when we gather on Sunday at the Divine Liturgy, in prayer, the Holy Spirit descends, turns the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of the Lord. All Heaven descends into the Church – and we are lazy to go to Church for a little while, to sit for 2 hours, for the grace of God to overshadow us, to nourish our souls, for stillness and peace to come in the soul, for the strength to move forward, for our faith to be strengthened, to no longer be afraid of all the madness of the world, of rumors, of wars, of earthquakes and so on.

Our faith is strengthened by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and that’s why I have said many times; our salvation is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit through the Mysteries of the Church—frequent confession, Communion, never missing the Divine Liturgy, prayers in the morning and in the evening, or, as the Holy Apostle Paul said: “pray without ceasing.” So as much as possible. And doing good, mercy towards those around us, all this fills us with the Holy Spirit. If we don’t judge, if we don’t have hate… because the Holy Spirit is very gentle, it is like a breeze. He does not accept evil, He does not accept scourges, He does not accept what we see now: a worldwide struggle to approve all these scourges that are against God. Why do you think the devil wants so much for state laws to impose, from the European Union or from other countries, the acceptance of all the scrouges as law with the approval of the government?

Those who accept all those scourges – not only those who commit them – are abandoned by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and the man who does not have the grace of the Holy Spirit is scared, he is frightened, he lacks clarity, he is in the dark, he is under the influence of the devil, thus unable to discern between good and evil. This is what the devil wants, to keep us away from the Holy Spirit because we are enlightened. We understand, this is white, this is black, this is bad, this is good… we can differentiate and pick the good.

The devil does not need something like this, and so he does his best, using these men who look at things rationally, who only trust themselves and science, only in wealth, only in power, to impose laws on all the others who go about their lives – simple or learned people, doesn’t matter – to impose as a law that they must agree with all these scourges. In this way, people no longer have the opportunity to receive the grace of the Holy Spirit, to become rich spiritually, to have their mind enlightened, and to understand what is good and evil. Be very careful, stay close to God, close to the Church, through the mysteries of the Church, with a lot of prayer. Whether or not it is within your power to approve or not approve these things, do not accept these things in your mind saying, “Poor them, let’s accept it…” No. We have mercy on sinners, but we cannot agree with sin, with the legalization of sin. No. Never accept or sympathize with sin. If they come out [to the streets] asking for their right to have their scourges approved, do not go there, do not sympathize with them, do not accept them in any way, because you are complicit in sin and the grace of the Holy Spirit leaves you.

All that is a scourge and a sin cannot be legalized. If they do, that’s their business, everyone answers before God, but we cannot legalize scourges. It’s like all the drunks in the world coming out and making a union of theirs to demand their rights, freedom to drink, the right to drink as they want, asking for all their rights since this is a passion too like all the others; But to have it legalized and have rights. To have people represent them, to give them free drinks if possible… is this not a madness? It’s the same with all these scourges.

Let us be careful not to anger God because we know that many years ago, in Sodom and Gomorrah, fire descended from heaven for this! Let us also remember the city of Nineveh, about which God had said that there were 40 days left and He would destroy it. But God did not destroy it because all the people, from the king down, put on sack cloths and ashes on their heads and fasted for three days, from the king, who got off his throne and took off his expensive clothes, to the last man, including animals and everyone. And they prayed and repented before God to forgive them for everything. It was a state law that nobody should sin. To stop all the scourges. Do you see? From the top down, the command was to stop evils, for everyone to return to God. In this way, God canceled that punishment. Do you see how much power repentance has? That’s what we should do now, from top to bottom. Repentance.

Let us stop from evils, let us turn to God, let priests be overwhelmed by all the confessions, let there be queues at every priest, at every church for confession. You don’t realize how much power confession has, being able to confess your sins and get rid of them! And by the laying of the hands of the priest, through which the grace of the Holy Spirit of whom we speak works, they are loosened, all is erased. Everything that the devil has managed to make you collect in a lifetime, in an instant everything is erased. Only then, freeing ourselves from all these sins, our mind is enlightened and we think differently, we look at life differently, and we struggle with more ease.

That is why, my dear ones, let us turn a little more to God. And you will see, with all the madness in the world, how the devil tries to scare us through some people, that there are wars, or diseases, or the so-called “global warming.” We see that it’s not hotter, the climate is colder than other years, God turns their plans upside down. When they say there will be global warming, great heat and so on… it is all equal to zero, they have no basis, only money that is justified. They’re publicly saying [the money] is used someplace: saying that they are putting millions and billions into stopping global warming, for example.

We all know that we humans consume oxygen, and trees produce this oxygen. So, they are our source of existence. But what do trees and plants consume? Carbon dioxide, which is produced by us and animals. All this carbon dioxide is necessary for trees, plants. Do you see the ordinance of God so that all that is bad for us will be consumed plants, and transformed into oxygen to give to us? It has come out now that people no longer have the right to keep animals because they pollute. Seriously? But before people had animals by the thousands and they weren’t polluting. Because it is within God’s order. Everything that is produced [by the animals] is consumed [by plants]. But we cut down the forests, we start to kill the cows, the pigs and all… Is this not a madness? Think about it.

We have gotten to the point that our mind is darkened. To cut down our source of oxygen, to destroy our source of food, the animals? They produce carbon dioxide, like us, which is used up by the trees, plants. God left a balance for everything to be in harmony. But where does pollution come from? From the nuclear experiments and everything done in this world, that’s where pollution comes from. From certain factories, which produce all kinds of crazy things, not from animals, it has never come from animals and never will. This is a darkening of the mind.

The devil is making a mockery of us through certain people who, unfortunately, have become the devil’s servants. And they are not enlightened. They cannot be. The devil, if he holds you in his arms, darkens your mind, and you think through him, you have no way of seeing the good. That is why, my dear ones, we need the Holy Spirit, the Mysteries of the Church, the Divine Liturgy at church, so that God may enlighten our minds, so that we can distinguish light from darkness. Let it not seem to us that we are in the light, but in fact be in the dark. Let us turn to God with all our hearts and you will see miracles around us! Great miracles! How God works… And let us not be afraid of anything. The Savior always said this when He appeared to the Apostles: “Do not be afraid!” and “Rejoice!” two things that we should take into account and rejoice in. Because we have God with us, we have the Holy Spirit. Let us not be afraid and rejoice!

And let us rejoice in every moment, in everything that is around us, nature, trees, flowers, animals, birds, people! Let us rejoice in all and live beautifully, because if we don’t live beautifully, we cannot rejoice. [In that case] we always have sadness, spiritual pain, dissatisfaction, and we can no longer rejoice in anything. If you have not confessed, go and confess, and see what that means and the grace that you will receive from God. Alright my dear ones?

May the Mother of God help us, [and] give us strength to go forward! May God help us!

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