“…Look at what St. Paul says in his epistles when he’s talking about the antichrist, and the coming of the antichrist. And he says that ‘Many … will follow him because they have not the love of the truth.’ He doesn’t mean truth in ideas only or even mainly.  Truth in ideas would be… the learning about God or about the reasons for being of the things of this world. Right? And that’s an important aspect of truth, absolutely, that’s part of the revelation and also part of the creation of God. We see in God his handiwork and so that leads us to God – that still is ABOUT God and not knowledge OF God. Experiential knowledge of God. And all that is good, but it’s not enough. We have to go deeper. We have to come to the knowledge of God experientially.

We have … to seek like Thomas and say ‘Now, I experientially know that He is good and He is the grace of God that I have experienced.’ That’s our goal. And even if we don’t reach degrees of the saints we see, in the lives of the saints, that’s fine. But that’s our goal and we have to go for that, and nothing less.

So, we have to love the person of Christ… Saint Gregory Palamas says famously that ‘Those who are not of the Truth are not of the Church.’ So that’s the… expression. And that’s the criteria. What does he mean ‘those who are not of the truth’? It doesn’t mean the ideology, the knowledge about God, he means this knowledge of Christ experientially. They’ve come to experience the grace of God.

So being in the church, truly being in the church, this is what it means. It means to participate in the mysteries AND to do it fruitfully so that we, day after day we see a change within us….”

“…We’re provoked… the passions are provoked all the time. We fall. Right. And we get angry or we judge. What’s going on there? Well, what’s going on there is that the nous, the soul, the spirit of man was not directed and focused on God but was lost in creation or in himself and there was… that in and of itself is a sense of pride, arrogance. The only way one can get ahead of the temptation and not fall into it is if he has the remembrance of God and is in the presence of God. Because it’s impossible for us to get ahead of the lightning action of the passions.

The passions are in us and immediately they’re at work with, they’re provoked, we see some delicious food, we’ve already eaten a meal and we want to eat it. Even if we don’t eat it, we lust after it, OK? The only way that is not going to happen is not because we do something more, better and quicker but because we get out of the way and God is in us and prevents us or let’s say saves us from this inclination and we are in the grace of God. So a way to understand this is… our whole movement is actually negative. The human movement is negative and the saving grace is the presence of God. So we cannot… get ahead of the passions or get ahead of the sin ever on our own strength. So, that’s a sign that we don’t have the grace of God, at least not to the degree that we need it to become… to have him reign within us. The reign is not within us. So, prayer and watchfulness is the key. It’s at the center of everything and if that’s not happening within us… that’s why, again, the Jesus prayer is so SO important because it becomes… it works within us and His presence within us is actually what prevents us from falling into the sin.

(Fr. Theodore): So when I see the cake and I realize rationally that I’m not lusting after it like I always did, or not running over to get it even though I’m full…

(Fr. Peter) : Yes, you’ve made progress….maybe some people will think ‘well, maybe I really can’t measure the spiritual life. OK, right? I just go about my life and I hope in God.’ No, it’s not true. It’s not true. If you are living the spiritual life, you understand it. You recognize it. You recognize the passions to a certain degree. And the more you live it the more self-knowledge you obtain, the more you see and then the more the grace of God allows you to get ahead of the passions.

So, if you today are a slave to Coca Cola or you just cannot have under 4 cups of coffee every day and if you don’t get the 4^th cup you’re crying… if that’s the case, and you can’t do any better, then… if however you did that a year ago but today that’s not even a thought, you don’t even think about it, I’m just giving you bad examples but you understand what I mean. Then yes, you’ve made progress.

Give Glory to God, though because it’s God’s grace within us that has allowed us to make the progress. We should see progress in our spiritual life. We should see change. We should see repentance. We should come to the knowledge that we should feel the peace of God within us and the joy of Christ within us, absolutely. This is what we’re doing. Why would anybody struggle with the spiritual life if you don’t have this as a result of the spiritual life?? Why?

 (Fr. Theodore): [changes] where a person starts recognizing that things are changing in them because of their ascetic practice I guess I’m not reacting to situations that I know I would have in the past. I just am not giving in to the temptations when things happen, [there is a –Ed.] transformation.

(Fr. Peter): They key is self-condemnation or self-critique, continually looking at ourselves, not our brother. Looking inside, praying to God continually, not just looking but continually praying to God ‘I have this passion, I have this problem.’ Recognizing our weakness, our inability to do anything, really without the grace of God. That’s a continual process of prayer. I cannot do it without You, I am pathetic.

The opposite is, you know, I remember people in the village, I would be like ‘You ought to come to church, you ought to come to confession.’ They would say ‘I’m a good person, I don’t need confession.’ I was like ‘You need confession especially. If you’re telling me you don’t need to come to confession, you’re the first in line tomorrow.’ So this is the kind of thing. That’s the recognition actually that you don’t know anything. So the opposite, if you’re recognizing continually how much you need… you know the saints… the paradox  of holiness is that the closer they get to God the more they see how far they are. And the farther you are from God the more you think you don’t have the need of God, it’s a paradox. So they see… So it’s kind of like we’re in darkness and we look at ourselves and of course we’re filled with all these spots that we’re wearing and we’re in a perfectly white t-shirt or something, or dress shirt, right? And it’s filled with garbage. But we’re in total darkness and we don’t see any of it. The more you approach the light the more you see all this, right? And the more… the light and everything is illumined, the more you see how much you [need God.] So there’s never a time that you’re going to say, ‘I’ve arrived.’ There’s never a time you’re going to say ‘I’ve arrived’….”