Try to find in the Gospel passages that make your heart burn, even for a second, fragments that have touched your heart and made you feel that you and Christ have the same feelings, that you are one – yes, one with God.

There are fragments about which we may say that speak our own mind, where His feelings are our feelings. That we are one with Him in that moment. And when, all of a sudden, we discover that we have overcame that moment, that we have trampled it under our feet, that we were one with Christ but we have separated ourselves from Him – it means that we have abandoned the little godliness that there is in us. In a way, it is not important that we have violated some rules but that we have trampled under our feet our unity with the Loved One and the only One Who loves us.

And then we should read again those fragments, to see our reflection in them. It is not important to try and see what we have done wrong but that we have denied our loyalty, friendship, love. Because God makes this friendship impossible to be alienated, we were the ones who did it.

(Translation from Mitropolitul Antonie de Suroj, Mai aproape de Hristos. Spovedania și iertarea, Editura Doxologia, Iași, 2014, pp. 122-123)