Elder Justin Pârvu: “Man is half love, half struggle”

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Motto: “If we would be willing to descend into our selves to correct a bit this avalanche of wrongdoings, then our prayer will be heard, the world would be more at peace and our life would suit more the Lord’s liking.

We have become increasingly hostile towards each other by our own selfishness, we see no one but ourselves…and when we reach this state of no longer caring for those near us, we encounter the greatest fall”.

Man’s freedom is at the measure of his genuine love.

Freedom becomes precious only when it is lost. Or at least, this is how we think. All his life man seeks to be free, but does not appreciate the gift of his freedom until it is too late. Freedom is in our body but also in our heart. Freedom is in action but also in the mind and the intellect. Man is free by how genuinely he loves and is attached to the values of the faith.

We are free when we accept God’s plan for our life, and when we strive to achieve it. Being free does not mean lethargy and bliss, but the fulfillment of your human condition.

Freedom does not mean to do what I always wish, as many times by doing what I like I do the will of the devil. Freedom is at the measure of man discernment, and his capacity to choose between good and evil. Man must realize that only in Truth he can live freely and with so much confusion in this world, he should avoid deception. It was what Communists did not understand, that only on the Cross the human soul gains true freedom, that all their methods of torture and psychological pressure to re-educate us, have made more saints than slaves, have sanctified our land by the martyrs blood.

Elder Julian (Lazar): “If I Am the Church of the Holy Spirit”

The elder Julian (Lazar) is approaching the 93rd year of his earthly sojourn, brightened by his unceasing prayer. For the purity of his heart, God bestowed upon him the answers to many questions, some not even pronounced aloud. The “Elder of Prodromos,” as people with great affection call his holy mountain, is the kind of spiritual father who is more and more seldom found on Earth: a hermit who weeps with you over your sins and unfailingly heals the wounds of your soul with wise counsel and prayer. A great agent of the commandments, he is one of those men of whom it his said: “whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:19).

He has a pure heart, which reflects the heavens like a mirror, thanks to the goodness of his heart. When he is joyful his entire face begins to radiate. It is a great joy to find oneself nearby him then, because a feeling arises as if you are sitting on your knees by a grandfather with a snow-white beard, looking with love upon the inner child of your soul.

And yet, although he has a “good heart and a light hand,” according to Father Arsenie Papacioc’s expression for spiritual fathers, he can also be extremely severe toward your sins if he sees that you persist in them. Even in this severity though (towards the sin, but never the sinner!) his love for people was obvious.

For the purity of his life, God gave him the gift of always seeing (before you did!) where there is a “crack” in your heart, the place through which the passions penetrate into your soul. In precisely this place, Abba Julian teaches you to apply the cure.

Together with three good friends I visited Abba Julian in February 2014, and one evening when we complained about the many earthly cares and lack of time for prayer, the elder responded to us this way.

Deification

—I see that you people are very busy and could have much to say -- if it was necessary to speak -- but I think that in this life it is important to struggle for the life hereafter. Indeed, God gave us time and this life so that we would come to Him prepared. We do not know, for it is not given to us to know, neither the moment, nor the hour when we will depart to the Lord to give our account. After all, God did not create us without a purpose. He announced the purpose already in the very beginning of the Bible, in the Book of Genesis, 1:26: And God said, Let us make man according to our image and likeness. The next verse says that, God made man, according to the image of God he made him, and nothing is mentioned about likeness, because it should have been realized in Adam.