⚖️ When the Lord said with His divine mouth: "Do not judge," 👑 He revealed to us the reason for our non-participation in judgment, and uncovered for us the corruption lurking in the soul; for He said: "For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you." (Matt 7:2) So how are we judged, or why are we judged according to the measure of judgment specific to us? First: Because it is a measure without goodness and mercy. Second: Because it is born from self-defense, which is the "wound" of that "hidden disease," i.e., death. Third: Because by that same measure we have placed God in the scale of our own judgment, which places us completely outside of communion with Him and His divine love. How great is the ruin we fall into when our souls lack the correct spiritual sense of God's goodness and mercy, and what inheritance do we think we will receive! #Judgment #DoNotJudge #Mercy #SelfReflection #CommunionWithGod

Dear Father, I've noticed how easily encouraged I become when conditions are favorable, especially with regard to spiritual exercises. I'd pray better in a cozy atmosphere filled with gentle, audible music. Love, joy, abundance, and comfort all seem to lift my spirit. But I came across a passage in Ezekiel which says: "In my thirtieth year, in the fourth month on the fifth day, while I was among the exiles by the Kebar River, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God." Five years in a foreign land, among the captives, and Ezekiel began to see visions? This is particularly amazing to me because not only do I thrive more in good conditions, I also struggle to maintain fervor as soon as I am taken away from my familiar atmosphere. Yet, in this passage, I see that, first, the atmosphere did not affect Ezekiel's connection to You, and second, it was evident that You were not far from him. The subtlety of familiarity is that it has the potential to condition our minds, often subconsciously. "For how shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" As though communion were limited by atmosphere, and unfamiliar circumstances could somehow blur our understanding of Your omnipresence. So our relationship with You easily becomes affected by whatever comes or goes around that does not appear favorable to us. So much so that we need not be exiled to feel exiled from You. How stable is this manner of spiritual engagement? I believe that, to attain stability, we must first settle in our hearts that communion with You is not reserved for favorable conditions alone. Translations; Slide 1: English Slide 2: French Slide 3: Bengali Slide 4: Hindu Slide 5: Urdu #LettertoGod #communionwithGod #fellowship #spiritualengagement #comfort

Dear Father, I've noticed how easily encouraged I become when conditions are favorable, especially with regard to spiritual exercises. I'd pray better in a cozy atmosphere filled with gentle, audible music. Love, joy, abundance, and comfort all seem to lift my spirit. But I came across a passage in Ezekiel which says: "In my thirtieth year, in the fourth month on the fifth day, while I was among the exiles by the Kebar River, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God." Five years in a foreign land, among the captives, and Ezekiel began to see visions? This is particularly amazing to me because not only do I thrive more in good conditions, I also struggle to maintain fervor as soon as I am taken away from my familiar atmosphere. Yet, in this passage, I see that, first, the atmosphere did not affect Ezekiel's connection to You, and second, it was evident that You were not far from him. The subtlety of familiarity is that it has the potential to condition our minds, often subconsciously. "For how shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" As though communion were limited by atmosphere, and unfamiliar circumstances could somehow blur our understanding of Your omnipresence. So our relationship with You easily becomes affected by whatever comes or goes around that does not appear favorable to us. So much so that we need not be exiled to feel exiled from You. How stable is this manner of spiritual engagement? I believe that, to attain stability, we must first settle in our hearts that communion with You is not reserved for favorable conditions alone. Translations; Slide 1: English Slide 2: French Slide 3: Bengali Slide 4: Hindu Slide 5: Urdu #LettertoGod #communionwithGod #fellowship #spiritualengagement #comfort

⚖️ When the Lord said with His divine mouth: "Do not judge," 👑 He revealed to us the reason for our non-participation in judgment, and uncovered for us the corruption lurking in the soul; for He said: "For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you." (Matt 7:2) So how are we judged, or why are we judged according to the measure of judgment specific to us? First: Because it is a measure without goodness and mercy. Second: Because it is born from self-defense, which is the "wound" of that "hidden disease," i.e., death. Third: Because by that same measure we have placed God in the scale of our own judgment, which places us completely outside of communion with Him and His divine love. How great is the ruin we fall into when our souls lack the correct spiritual sense of God's goodness and mercy, and what inheritance do we think we will receive? #Judgment #DoNotJudge #Mercy #SelfReflection #CommunionWithGod

💪 The Repentance of the Body 🕊️ The body repents with the repentance of the soul. The body becomes the mental vessel of the soul through prostration and standing in prayer, through abstinence from food, through solitude, through serving the brethren, and through the recitation of prayers. All these works transform the body into a spiritual vessel. When the mind turns to the body, the mind loses its ability to remain in communion; because the mind's turning to the body makes a person live by a sense of independence from God. However, if the mind turns to the body during prayer and the person offers his body as a sacrifice, he may feel independent from God, but he remains in communion from his side, i.e., because he remains alive in it. And if he leaves it due to the will turning to non-heavenly matters, he returns to communion with longing because of his love for the Lord. Let us transform our bodies into spiritual vessels so that they acquire a heavenly image that covers their earthly, dusty image, through prostration and abstinence from food; because successive prostrations with awareness and attentiveness strip the body of the image of its independence from the spirit and plant in the senses the unity of body and spirit. When we imagine our bodies as a tool or as something independent from us, we rush into sin; because the mind falls from communion with God into a deficient sensory knowledge far from the work of the Holy Spirit, who is the essence of our communion with God. #Repentance #BodyAndSoul #SpiritualVessel #Asceticism #Prayer #CommunionWithGod