Spiritual words

My dears, after you sit the conscience exam, which one of you will pass it?

    • Foto: Oana Nechifor

      Foto: Oana Nechifor

Let’s be humans in the whole meaning of the word, to bear humanity in oneself. Humbleness is similar with humanity. Unfortunately, in today’s world there’s little humanity. Each one is thinking about his own good, how to earn many millions; and his neighbour can’t buy his own bread. Thus, young people should reflect upon my words. Living your life in vain, driven by passions, orgies, or useless parties is a loss of time and can mean the loss of eternity – the eternal happiness for which we were created.

Can you give a definition of humbleness for young people and tell us a method to achieve humbleness?

The definition of humbleness for young people is the same as for the rest of the Christians. Even from what I said until now we can extract a definition of humbleness. For young people to be humble, they need to sit more often a conscience exam, as Christians used to do in the past. Each evening Christians would think what good deeds he had done since morning till that moment, and they reached the conclusion that they did more harm than good. Thus they did today, tomorrow, and started to know themselves, to understand that sin, not virtue, is ruling their life. And if this Christian who follows this process of thinking is a serious man he will choose the honest path of good deeds. Because the good my dears is also necessary in this life and it is useful to society, but also in the afterlife.

According to Saint Paul, nothing that is impure enters in the Kingdom of God. We need to clean ourselves every day from the mud of sins, so that we become humans before all. Humans with capital “H”. This is what God and the Holy Scripture want us to become: humans, to have humanity in ourselves. Each one is thinking about his own good, how to earn many millions and his neighbour can’t buy his own bread. Thus, young people should reflect upon my words. Living your life in vain, driven by passions, orgies, or useless parties is a loss of time and can mean the loss of eternity – the eternal happiness for which we were created. God did not fashion us for hell, but for living in Heaven, where nothing impure can live. It is up to us to use this life in order to prepare daily for the dawn of the eternal life, full of light, joy and God’s peace.

(Transated from Arhimandrit Sofian BoghiuSmerenia și dragostea ‒ însușirile trăirii ortodoxe, Editura Tradiția Românească, București, 2002)