Why I Open My Arms To Christ | Saint Porphyrios of Mount Athos #orthodoxy #love

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Saint Porphyrios | December 2

Audio source: Vigil for St. Poprhyrios, December 1st 2024, Monastery of St. Symeon the New Theologian, Kalamos, Attica, Greece
Ιερά Μονή Οσίου Συμεών του Νέου Θεολόγου

Saint Porphyrios (Wounded by Love):
I don't like to converse with the 'old' self. That is, it grabs me from behind, by the cassock, but at once I open my arms to Christ and so, with divine grace, I show contempt for it and cease to think about it. I act like the little child who opens his arms and falls into his mother's embrace. It's a mystery and I don't know if you understand just how fine a matter it is. When you try to escape from the old self without the gift of grace, you are drawn into it and experience that old self. But with the gift of grace, however, it no longer concerns you. It continues to exist deep down. All things remain within us, ugly things included; they do not disappear. But with grace, however, they are transubstantiated, altered and transformed. Isn't this what Saint Basil's prayer of the Ninth Hour says: “…so that setting aside the old man, we may put on the new man and live with You our Master?”