A person living according to the desires of the heart is the most foolish of all.

A person living according to the desires of the heart is the most foolish of all.

If the heart is not controlled, it can lead to terrible things.

Truly, as Apostle Paul says, the devil can transform himself into an angel of light; this is exactly how an impure heart behaves. It transforms itself into an angel of light. 

It portrays any type of evil as good, lust and hate - as love, deception - as the Truth.

And in this heart, in this impurity, Christ the Savior must be born.

And for this, I need to put in the effort and struggle.

Do not give in to laziness. Learn the Jesus Prayer! 

The outer darkness in which this prayer is to be learned is symbolic of the darkness within us. 

Sit in this darkness within yourself, and there - keep calling Christ, relentlessly, for hours. 

Keep calling Christ and the time will come when your mind will be enlightened and you will see that Jesus dwells in your heart, despite the fact that it is full of impurity.

And so, the cleansing of the heart begins. 

And then, Christ does the rest. He will not forsake you. 

If Christ is not born in our hearts, then the Feast of Nativity means nothing for us.

Let us learn to dwell with Christ in our hearts,

Let us learn the noetic prayer!

Noetic prayer is the only practice in Christianity, together with the Holy Communion, without which Christianity turns into a mere doctrine, a theory without any real benefit to me and only serves as a source of delusion - when I think that I am something I am really not.

Archpriest Theodore Gignadze