In the life of a person who is trying to live the right spiritual life, something strange happens as time goes on.
He becomes catastrophically short of time, and every second becomes precious to him.
Dostoevsky describes the psychological state of a man on death row, who is to be shot in five minutes, and who divides these five minutes in increments…
A minute and a half for this, a minute and a half for that, two minutes for this. He has only five minutes and then he feels regret for how much time he has wasted. He passed through his whole life, and now only five minutes remain. The sentence must be carried out in five minutes.
We actually are these death-sentenced men. Isn’t our clock also running? The difference in our case is that we do not know whether we will die in five minutes, in a minute, in fifty years, or a hundred years, but regardless, our clock is running. And as soon as a person sets it as his main goal to find God within himself and to become a temple of prayer - to have the Holy Spirit within him instead of the passions, he discovers that he is catastrophically short of time, and every second becomes extremely precious.
I can tell you that simply understanding this intellectually isn’t of much use… I understand it, but I still can’t do anything about it. I continue to waste a lot of time.
This is a process when we, with our state of being, must catch up with our knowledge, which can last a lifetime. It can take a lifetime to get to the state of never being without Christ, not even for a second, not even for a single breath. May this be realized within us, even if it is at the very end of our lives, even if it is at the time when we’re on our deathbed.
At this time, a person becomes like fire, but this fire does not burn. Instead, it brings sweetness because this fire has the most-precious name - Jesus Christ.
Archpriest Teodore Gignadze ©
Excerpt from a Sermon - December 14, 2021
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