Danger of Spiritual Presumption
Read, if you want, the
Ecclesiastical History by Meletios of Athens, and see how many teachers Origen
and thousands of others were at first great luminaries of the Church possessing
extensive learning. But since they gave themselves over to the sea of knowledge
before receiving in hesychia the purification of their senses and the peace and
tranquility of the Spirit, they sank in the ocean of the Holy Scriptures. They
thought that their scholarly learning was sufficient. Thousands were lost and
anathematized by the Councils, of which they had previously been champions.
Read and you will see.
Diakrisis of the Divine will
…
diakrisis [discernment] of the Divine will is one of the most delicate and
complex matters in our lives. Especially for those who try to discover it
through prayer – even though this is required, according to the saying ‘knock,
seek, ask and it will be given you’ (Mt. 7:7) – it must nevertheless be
preceded by patient endurance, trials and tribulations and experience so as to
remove the passions and the individual will, which the exceeding subtlety and
sensitivity of divine grace abhors. Anyway, whether it is arduous or whether it
requires patient endurance, the method of prayer remains a requirement as the
only means whereby we communicate with God, and by which we shall also know His
Divine will.
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