Hello, my dear ones! God bless you! Christmas is almost here and I'm trying to find my way to
one of the abandoned villages nearby I've never been here the brothers have been but
there's a way to take a half an hour break from all the work concerning the Christmas services
and preparations for Christmas and everything I'm going to climb this hill and get to see this
abandoned village and like it or not you're stuck with me do you see the rainbow just behind me
I don't know how to use this um video so I can point it if you look where my nose is
pointing that's kind of where where it is it's been such beautiful weather I mean it's been
raining I'm sure you can hear the bogginess of the earth but it's been so beautiful this whole
week I think it's been beautiful just because everything has been at peace at the monastery
and um we've done our best to prepare and we feel that we have um well we've tried we've tried our
best and from now on everything is in the hands of God just like things should actually be
whoo this video will be just a collection of uh beats and pieces that will cut and
pace together as I find my way up this hill I just want to share with you this feeling of
losing control over oneself before a main feast Pascha or Christmas or any of the main feasts
when we want to welcome the feast in peacefulness and surrounded by serenity and in a contemplative
mode and everything that that we dream and we imagine of peace should be and then
and then this rush of worries takes over and within the blink of the eye we turn from our
ideal Marys into Marthas all of us with no exception in monasteries
and in the world we we've been cleaning all week and uh shopping all week and cooking all week and
of course the services take over and everything else that needs to be done before Christmas comes
and although it is in some way a distraction from the main thing the feast deep down if you are
careful there's no distraction at all because you are doing this if you are doing it right for the
feast you are doing this in order to honour the feast in order to prepare yourself for the feast
if you're doing all these things for the people around you because you love
them and because you want to help them and you want to be close to them then what you do
while you lose control and while you sacrifice this idol of self-fulfilment self-canonization
that we imagine will become these saints in peacefulness and quietness and all of that
as we sacrifice this uh this idol of ours we actually feed the love in us we
empty ourselves of our own worries and of our own obsession with ourselves and we allow
the grace of God to fill us with with love for our brothers and our sisters as he told us
we should welcome him we should not be an empty cave when Christ is incarnate we should be a cave
that is lit and clean and in love with everyone whom God created since Adam all the way to the
last man or woman ever to be created I think I'm getting close let me turn this around
there they are God only knows who lived here
all the people who were born here and were
happy or unhappy and had dreams and had desires and uh ambitions and who fell in love
and who died all this left of those dreams and ambitions and uh desires are these um empty ruins
we all tend to ruin here the only thing that survives is Christ and who we become
in him I suppose all I want to tell you today is not to be afraid to lose yourself to to love
as long as you act out of love as long as you act gestures of love do not be afraid
when you lose yourself to love you find yourself in Christ because Christ God is love do everything
that your heart tells you to do for your family for your friends for your neighbours for those
in the community who need you this has been such a dreadful and difficult year for so many people
there is so much pain so much suffering everywhere in the world there is so much to be done
let go of any idols we've created about how we should act how we should feel who we should become
what the feast should be like and just allow yourself to to sink down in love in the gestures
of love cook for as many people as you can help financially and practically as many people as
you can pray if this is what God has given you a grace to do pray for as many people as you can
go out and help in homeless shelters go out and help anyone anyone because everyone
every single one of us is brother and sister in Christ and is created out of love
lose yourself to love and you'll find yourself your true self in Christ take down
the idols of of what a feast should be like and who we should be like and what
our families should look like on Christmas and just work you are here to work in the vineyard
you are here to be a soldier in the army of Christ don't sacrifice that high calling for things that
will ultimately collapse into nothing focus on the other one and as you build up the other one the
one in front of you your brother and your sister you are building yourself up it is more important
and more blessed to give than to receive to help than to be helped to
to empty yourself in the name of love for God and for your brother and your sister than to
build yourself up outside of that love because whatever we become whatever we build outside
that love whatever we gather and whatever we build outside Christ is nothing but these ruins
and sooner or later this is what they turn into but what we build out of love remains
in the kingdom and survives death with us we survive death and we pass from death into life
because of these acts of love and gestures of love don't you feel how while on the surface on
the outside we lose ourselves to these worries and all these things we have to do but on the inside
if we act out of love and not out of pride or self-interest or God knows what are the
bad reasons but if we act out of love is the hustle and the bustle and the noise of
everything we want to do for our brothers and our sisters affects the outside of our skin
inside our skin there is a peacefulness and a quietness and a sense of grace that gathers
layer after layer blanket upon blanket like like snow on top of snow on top of snow this is grace
layers and layers of grace just covering our souls and our hearts and have you never
felt that exhaustion at the end of preparing for a feast and going through the service and
the dinner or whatever marks the fulfilment of the feast and then out of nowhere you feel
grace out of nowhere you feel peace out of nowhere you feel that you have done everything two hours
ago you have felt that you've failed to accomplish because ultimately my brother and my sister
we live at the intersection of that beautiful paradox where we need to do everything for our
brother and our sister but the grace we receive is still a perfectly free gesture of love coming
from Christ we need to do what is in our power as an expression of our love and then Christ will do
what is within his power as an expression of his love so all I wanted to say really as I'm starting
to go back towards the monastery to edit this and post it is that you are part of our Christmas
if you are alone this Christmas if you are alone for any reason if you are in pain if you are sad
you are with us and we will pray for you and we will remember you and will try to record
something even on Christmas day because I think it falls on Friday even if I have to
record on my way to church or coming back from church or I don't know in in my cell at night
I will by the grace of God because you are my brothers and you are my sisters and you
are my opportunities to tell Christ that I love him by manifesting my love for him through you
oh have patience with each other have love for each other don't condemn anyone be patient with
everyone this has been a difficult difficult year love practical love
manifested in practical things ranging from cooking to sending money to somebody who lives
somewhere far and who needs your help to visiting someone to making a phone call to someone who's
alone for Christmas to saying a prayer or asking somebody to pray for someone anything that you can
do all these things are practical manifestations of love and they are the tools of our salvation
I should end this video now but I don't want to I don't want to I want to keep you with me
for as long as I can and one day I pray that you will be able to come and visit and one day I pray
that we will be able to pray together in the meantime please stay safe stay healthy and do
for your brother and for your sister what you would hope that they would do for you as well
and if they fail you don't be upset we are only humans you do
the acts of love that are in your power and let them do what is in their power and if they fail
forgiving them is another act of love God bless you my brothers and my sisters and all our love
from everyone at the monastery is with you see you on Christmas Day, beloved ones. Amen, amen, amen.