“Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” Matthew 6:33
Saint Paisios of the Holy Mountain:
CARING ABOUT THINGS IN THE RIGHT WAY
When monastic handicrafts are made with peace of mind and prayer, they are sanctified and they also sanctify the people who use them. Then, it makes sense for lay people to seek these handiworks from us as a blessing. …
If you act with piety and pray while you are working, you are always sanctified and everything around you becomes sanctified. When one has God in mind, his works and his handicrafts are also sanctified. Let us say, for example, that I am making a box while saying the Jesus Prayer; I am praying and at the same time working for the glory of God. My goal is not to make boxes, and to do it quickly, to produce a lot of them and end up full of anxiety. That would be a demonic state. We did not come to the Monastery for this. We came to be sanctified and to sanctify whatever we do.
This is the reason why sometimes you feel like a good employee performing your assigned tasks; you get so busy running around, doing your job that you forget to take Christ with you. But if you begin your work with the Jesus Prayer, you will feel like a servant of Christ. So, if you want to be sanctified and to sanctify your work, make sure that you make the Jesus Prayer a part of everything you do. Do you know how abundantly God will bless you then, and how many good things and blessings He will send your way? …
When the task is simple, it helps if the mind is not absorbed. But when the task is complex, then it makes sense to become somewhat absorbed mentally but not to let that take over the heart.
Q - How does it take over the heart?
How? Well, temptation comes and puts it to sleep with “morphine”! It gets hold of the heart with egotism. But when the heart surrenders to God, then the intellect rests with God while the mind concentrates on the work. …
Q - When we speak of a “carefree” mind, what do we mean exactly?
We mean that when you work, you should not forget Christ. Do your work joyfully, but keep your mind and your heart focused on Christ. If you do this, not only you will not get tired, but you will also be able to do your spiritual work.
When the task requires mental concentration, your work will be sanctified when your mind is focused on God. Then you will be living in the atmosphere of God, even if you are not able to say the Prayer. When one reaches a spiritual state, he is greatly helped by this. He does not attempt to understand the meanings of words [in a translator’s work] based on reason alone, but gets to know them by divine illumination. …
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We must not waste aimlessly the fruit, the inner core of our power and then leave the shells for God. The many cares of life sap the marrow of our heart and leave nothing for Christ. If you notice that your mind constantly wanders off to various chores that you have to do, you must realize that you are not doing well spiritually, and this should alarm you because you have distanced yourself from God. You must realize that you are closer to material things than you are to God, closer to creation than to the Creator. …
From Elder Paisios of Mount Athos, Spiritual Counsels: ”With Pain and Love for Contemporary Man”
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