The Importance of Prayer And its Effect Over The Soul

By: St. Macarius the Great

Persons, who love truth and God, who thoroughly wish to put on Christ with great hope and faith, do not need so much encouragement or correction from others. They never give up their longing for heaven and their love of the Lord, granted that from time to time they bear patiently a bit of a diminishment in that love. But being completely attached to the cross of Christ, they daily perceive in themselves that they are spiritually progressing toward their spiritual Bridegroom.

Having been wounded by the desire for heaven and thirsting for justice of virtues, they await the illumination of the Spirit with the greatest insatiable longing. And should they be considered worthy to receive through their faith knowledge of divine mysteries or are made participators of the happiness of heavenly grace, they, nevertheless, do not put their trust in themselves, regarding themselves as somebody.

But the more they are considered worthy to receive spiritual gifts, the more diligently do they seek them with an insatiable desire. The more they perceive themselves advancing in spiritual perfection, the more do they hunger and thirst for a greater share of and increase in grace.  And the richer they spiritually become, the poorer they consider themselves, as they burn up interiorly with an insatiable, spiritual yearning for the Heavenly Bridegroom, as scripture says:

“Eat Me, and you will hunger for more; drink Me, and you will thirst for more."   
(Sirach 24:21)

12 - BE RELEASED FROM YOUR EARTHLY DESIRES - By H.H. Pope Shenouda III

12 - BE RELEASED FROM YOUR EARTHLY DESIRES  

By H.H. Pope Shenouda III

The following is a collection of articles entitled, "The Release of the Spirit" written by HH Pope Shenouda III for the Sunday School Magazine from the year 1951 before starting his monastic life.  

These articles were published in the form of a book in the year 1957 including some of his poems which were published in the magazine as well.. 

It was his first published book and it gained the approval of many and was reprinted many times.

12 - BE RELEASED FROM YOUR EARTHLY DESIRES   

Do you know what things you ought to escape from? Escape from the interests, the hopes and desires... Escape from all such things if you really want to attain the release of the spirit.

My beloved brother, please let me go a little deep into your heart to talk to you frankly: You have great hopes which you are much concerned about and which occupy part of your heart. They even occupy your imagination and so when you are alone they come to you as daydreams and when you are asleep you dream of them.. You have certain aims which you know most and cannot deny.. You want to be of a great importance, you want to be known by others and venerated by them.. You have hopes regarding fame and good reputation, authority and power, hopes regarding wealth, social positions, knowledge, titles, future, appearances and credit.. You have certain desires concerning residence, food, clothing and various pleasures of the body.. You do not live in the world but in fact it is the world that lives in you, and dominates over your heart, your mind, your imagination and your will.. As for your spirit, it is imprisoned within all this; it desires to be released of the fleshly desires.. as "the flesh lusts against the Spirit."  (Gal. 5:17)

These hopes and interests make you miserable, my beloved brother, because not all of them can be achieved..

This of course makes you discontented.. You long for such things and this longing makes you unhappy.. So, you make your arrangements and seek the means to achieve them: you think, meet certain persons, write down papers, go and come, strive and try hard; then you sit and wait.. You may get bored and tired of waiting and of having hope.. You may get desperate and become anxious or feel afraid of failure. Thus you become unhappy and perhaps your labour and your attempts end for nothing and you do not attain your desire and this makes you more unhappy .

A more dangerous thing is that you may go astray because of such hopes and desires and fall in deceit, beating about the bush, fawning and flattery, lying or what is worse... This is what one of the wise men once said, 'A person will certainly fall in hypocrisy if he wants to hide something within himself.

I know that you feel tired and I pity you.. But when will you live in the fire of hopes! What is amazing concerning such worldly desires is that they make you unhappy even though they are realized. For when you attain what you desire, you will be pleased and such pleasure leads you to seek more.. as the Lord Jesus Christ said: “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again." (John  4:13)  And when one feels thirst one seeks water to quench one's thirst and the more one drinks, the more one will feel thirst and desire for water..

So, my beloved brother, I want to discuss the matter with you calmly.. Why do you hold fast to certain worldly desires while you know that ".. the world is passing away, and the lust of it." (1 John  2:17)  You are-like me-a stranger on earth and the hour will come when you will quit the world and all its possessions .. As you have come naked from your mothers' womb, you will return naked there. (Job 1:21)  You will be forced to leave the world with its glory, wealth and fame and descend into a pit in the ground like any base person.. Whatever authority, pleasures or fame you attain in this world, this will not protect your mortal body against corruption or prevent the worms from feeding on your body leaving nothing of it.. On the day of judgement, you will stand before God destitute of all worldly possessions. You will keep nothing from the world except your works whether they be good or evil.

Therefore, my beloved brother, it is not good for you to confine your interests and hopes to this earth. Do you not remember that this earth brought forth to you thorns and thistles! It had once accepted the blood of Abel the Righteous.. and the cisterns hewn in it can hold no water. (Jer. 2:13)

Take the example of the father saints who lived on the earth before us and whom the earth was not deserving to be trodden on with their feet.. Those holy fathers did not attain that holiness except when they emptied their hearts of the love of the world and the worldly things.. They had no longer any desire or lust, nor any possession in the world.. And because they did not hold to anything in the world, it was easy for them to quit it and they even longed for that..

As for you, my beloved brother, you still have some worldly desires and, ".. where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Matt. 6:21)  Your heart clings to the dust and its glory, so, the spiritual matters lose their value in your sight.. This is the same temptation with which the devil tried to tempt the Lord of glory, ".. the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.  And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.”  (Matt. 4: 8-9) 

Now, consider, if you do possess all such things and lose your soul which you imprison in a golden cage of desires, what will this avail you? Your soul wants to be set free...

 The Release of The Spirit

 By H.H. Pope Shenouda III

10 - BE RELEASED FROM YOUR 'SELF' - By H.H. Pope Shenouda III

10 - BE RELEASED FROM YOUR 'SELF' 
By H.H. Pope Shenouda III 

The following is a collection of articles entitled, "The Release of the Spirit" written by HH Pope Shenouda III for the Sunday School Magazine from the year 1951 before starting his monastic life.  

These articles were published in the form of a book in the year 1957 including some of his poems which were published in the magazine as well.. 

It was his first published book and it gained the approval of many and was reprinted many times.

10 - BE RELEASED FROM YOUR 'SELF'

If you are still concerned about how people may judge you trying by any means to make them have a better idea about you, it will be difficult for you to attain the eminence of the release of the spirit.. 

Sometimes, people do not praise you or they praise others more.. In such a case, instead of being pleased and rejoicing because the devil of vain glory is unaware of you even for some time.., I see you seeking to trouble yourself.. You beg the praise of people in such a way that does not fit your dignity as a son of God.. by proceeding to talk about yourself..

Would you, dear brother, let me discuss the matter with you with the same frankness we used before?

1. Why do you talk to others about yourself ? Do you want them to admire you? Then tell me frankly, 'Do you, in your heart, admire yourself No doubt, there are many defects in you which you are in fact bothered about.. Why then do you want them to glorify a personality which you yourself are not convinced that it deserves to be glorified?' 

2. If we do approve the principle of talking about oneself.. let me ask you, 'Do you give a true picture of yourself ? Or do you mention only the bright points and leave the shameful and vile points which would make them hate you? My friend, do you not know that half the facts are not all facts? Does not your talk about yourself include then some deceit and lies? Do you not present only one side of a picture which has its defects.. those defects which you know well and your spiritual father also knows?

3. No doubt, you know also that talking about your 'virtues' would deprive you of the reward.. And certainly you have read the Sermon on the Mount and saw what the Lord said, ".. do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing" and, ".. your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly" (Matt. 6:3,4). I feel pity for you, my beloved brother because you strive much for a certain virtue and in a moment of rashness, in which the cursed self-righteousness prevails, the devil comes and robs you of all your striving.. And behold, all your labour is wasted in vain...

When I see you talking about yourself, I imagine you as a person who planted some plant and when God gave the fruit you set fire to it instead of reaping the fruit and rejoicing.. or you let the devil reap it for you!

My dear friend, whenever you feel a desire to talk about yourself, listen to the divine words singing in your ears, "Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward".  (Matt. 6:2)

4. Another harm results from talking about yourself which is obvious in the following story: Once, on a certain occasion I was talking with enthusiasm and admiration about a blessed person whom I love and esteem.. But one of my spiritual fathers said to me, 'Please do not proceed in this talk, because by this you gather the devils around him to fight him.. Leave him to labour calmly, for he is still a beginner and needs many prayers'. Thereupon I stopped talking, feeling that I did something wrong against such a person..

The devils cannot bear to hear about a person doing something good. So, if God does something great through you, let it be in secret between you and God. Do not talk about it lest the devils should envy and fight you; in which case you will not only lose your reward, but will also be subject to a hard war the results of which are unknown..

5. Those were some of the harmful results that befall a person who talks about himself..  But can you tell me of one advantage on the other hand that may be gained from praising yourself ? Of course the sinful feeling which a person feels when he sees the admiration of others for him is not an advantage.. It is in fact a sin which needs to be cured!! But there is a real advantage which I draw your attention to, ie. If the desire to talk about yourself presses hard on you and you are unable to resist it, then tell the others about your weakness and your shortcomings.. Tell them about your falling in sins and how you would have been like the people of Sodom had it not been for God's help.. Ask them insistently to pray for you that God may have mercy upon you..

6. Another word I want to tell you frankly though I hesitated long before whispering it in your ear is that people feel disgusted of anyone who talks much about himself .. They even call him the boastful or self-conceited.. Thus such a person shall gain neither heavens nor earth..

7. Lastly, I want you to remember that the works which fight you with self-righteousness are not all due to your efforts.. There are the surrounding circumstances which help you to perform such works, the role played by others in this concern and the abilities given you by God..

No doubt you would be exaggerating if you ascribe to yourself all this forgetting God's work through you..

I am afraid I have annoyed you, my beloved brother, with my frankness? Forgive me then this weakness and pray for me.

 The Release of The Spirit

 By H.H. Pope Shenouda III