All of this is about life and death, all of this, our faith and everything that we
do based on our faith, is about eternal life or losing ourselves back into the hell
of the nothingness out of which we've been called into being by God. This is not about us
discovering a sense of poverty this is not about us discovering a sense of morality this
is not about us becoming good citizens and good neighbours in the sense of bringing each other
gifts and flowers and sending each other cards on feast days or birthdays
while at the same time alone in our homes we must hatred or judgment or condemnation or we despise
or we just simply feel much better than our brothers and our sisters because we are Christians
if any of that happens ultimately we are nothing even remotely like what a Christian should be all
of this is about life and death and all of this is about us entering the kingdom of God not becoming
pillars of our society not becoming again good citizens
I struggle so hard to record today because because although the topic is meaningful to me
I I fail I feel like I fail to convey to you in what way it is meaningful to everyone I wanted
to talk to you about shame today because someone a few of you have actually left comments about shame
on our previous video there is in our generation I genuinely believe that there is nothing useful
in shame shame was useful and the Holy Fathers do speak about shame in a positive way
as long as it happens before we fall into sin because there is something about shame
just as there is something about fear of God that could stop them those who
lived in generations before us from falling into sin but I very much suspect and fear
that to our generation both these concepts shame and fear of God are lost at least at
least at the beginning of our spiritual lives when when in fact they would be most useful
later on when we have experienced the grace of God and our souls have been cleansed and more attuned
to to put it metaphorically to the vibrations to the energy of God in us and in the world
yes shame begins to bite in a good way and fear of God fear of missing out on the treasure that
we have already tasted bites in a good way as well but at the beginning I actually think that
shame and fear of God are completely unhelpful shame for our generation is simply an expression
of frustration that we cannot do things on our own it is shameful not that we've fallen into sin
and that we've created a chasm between us and the spring of life God himself we feel shame
for having fallen not in relation to God but in relation to an idealized version of ourselves that
is being fed to us injected into us day in and day out by the society around us by the culture
around us you are perfect as you are we are being told you can do anything you apply yourself to you
and I and all of us are being told there is no need to change anything in you you are perfect
as you are and you are going to succeed as you are we are being told and of course all of that
comes back and just crushes us down and pushes us presses us to the ground and reduces us to nothing
because it's not true we end up believing it we end up internalizing this message that the
nothingness in us can achieve everything that this week fallen sinful being that we are and we all
know deep down that we are needs no change needs needs to do nothing in order to become God-like
who you are is your best version and there's nothing else you need to do nothing else you
need to change but when sin bites and when you fall again and again and again that proves to be
a bigger greater more horrible enemy than the passion itself because if this is my best self how
come that I fall again and again and instead of that helping us to question and to critically look
at these fake ads of the society around us fake messages and values that we've engaged for years
instead of us critically looking at these things and letting go of them because they've become such
a great part of who we are and because they are now the lands through which we look at ourselves
we end up one believing that we are worth nothing we must be completely fallen and God must
have completely turned his back and we must be completely condemned already if we keep on falling
and two we believe that if only we try harder if only we push ourselves
harder and harder every single time then maybe we are going to succeed so what do you do when
you follow this path of destruction which has been planted in us by the culture and society around us
you are feeding your despondency while at the same time feeding your pride the monster that eats away
at your soul this despondency that comes from us seeing the reality of us being
unable to achieve anything when we are cut away from God is then reinforced again and again by
the pride in us which makes us try again and again to do battle again and again without God's help
shame instead of pressing us to turn back towards God instead of you know we have so many sheep on
our island and when you drive away and there's a lamp in the middle of the road there's a lamb
and there's a sheep there when you approach that land with the car the lamb doesn't run away from
the car the lamb runs straight to his mama and starts feeding himself in the middle of the road
that doesn't do him any good I mean you could still crush both him and his mother his poor
mother who cannot run away because his baby is there feeding but the instinct in that lamb
is healthier than the instincts that we've developed fed on the lies of this culture and this
society that land knows that the safe place that the life the source and the spring of life for him
is his mother and he runs straight to his mother the instinct is healthy he knows that's where
he's going to be protected we don't do that when when the wolf the spiritual wolf attack
us attacks us we do not run to our mother our spiritual our heavenly mother our heavenly father
the source the spring of life for us instead we turn straight to the wolf himself and we
think that his advice is the advice that is going to save us from the wolf himself
it sounds absolutely mad but it is the same
bad instinct that was into Adam and Eve and then reinforced stronger and stronger generation after
generation all the way down to you and me my brother and my sister the same story that
once Adam and Eve felt the shame that could have turned them to God
and the devil approached them for the snake and told them well actually the way out of this
is to hide away from God and to turn your ear your attention towards what I tell you
the same thing happens to us there is nothing in us and there's nothing we could do to make
God ashamed or disgusted to approach us God when he was incarnate touched and healed and forgave
men and women who were caught in adulterous acts who were with issues of blood which was something
that should not have happened according to the rule of the society in which Christ lived
he touched those who were ill which again he should not have done he even touched us in our
ultimate manifestation of our sinfulness and nothingness he touched us when we were dead
think of all the dead young men young women think of Lazarus think of all those who had
collapsed into death which is the ultimate manifestation of our sinfulness
and our and our nothingness he touched them he placed his his human divine
hand onto that corpse an embodiment of God touched the embodiment of sin and the effect of sin
without shame without fear without disgust but with compassion and often times
with tears in his eyes as the Gospel so very carefully mentions and reminds us
if we only turned to listen to the word of God we would see that there is nothing
not even a trace of a chasm of a wall of a separation of the distance between us and
God the only one who wants to build walls between us and our creator is the devil and he will use
everything he can to reinforce these walls between us and our God who is always love all his life
he will use our shame he will use our despondency he will use our pride and then he is going to
create this circle that feeds itself where we think we can do this on our own the way Adam
thought he can become God-like without God and then we fall and that feeds our despondency so
we hide the way Adam and Eve hid and then we once again believe we can and so we try again
on our own without turning back to God and we fall and then we try and then we fall and then we try
until we are going to be completely crushed torn apart on the one hand by this utter art
despondency that confirms in us the words of Christ that without God we are nothing this is not
a metaphor this is this is the truth the essential existential truth of our being without God without
him who is we are nothing nothingness the nothing out of which we've been created and we
end up being torn between this understanding which instead of bringing us back to God just burns us
down and our pride that forces us to try again and again on our own and separates us from from our
spiritual fathers from our our good friends our fathers and mothers those who've lived before us
those who live around us today the Saints of the Church and their advice that comes out of of
painful but salvific experience and ultimately separates us from God himself there is no life
outside God and there is nothing in us that could possibly turn God away from us we are the ones
who turn our backs to God because we listen to the whispers of the devil that only feeds our pride
and then our despondency.
May God bless all of us, my brother and my sister, you and me and all of us so we may see clearly
this trap of the devil that has fought us all the way from the Garden of Eden
to our gardens and our flats and the houses in which we are kept in lockdown today.
Be blessed, my dear ones, wherever, however, whoever you are in this world. Amen, amen, amen.