Listen to a spiritual talk (the first part) that Father Pimen Vlad gave in Timișoara, talk in which he discussed various topics such as confession and the relationship between deed and recompense – God’s justice.
Enjoy!
We start with a little prayer: Glory to the Father, our God, glory to You, O Heavenly King, O Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, who art in all places and fillest all things; Treasury of good things and Giver of life, come and dwell in us and cleanse us from every stain, and save our souls, O gracious Lord! It is truly right to bless you, the Theotokos, ever blessed and most pure and Mother of our God. More honorable than the Cherubim, and beyond compare more glorious than the Seraphim, incorruptibly you gave birth to God the Word. We magnify you, the true Theotokos. Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and forever and to the ages of ages. Amen. Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy, father bless us! Father bless. Through the prayers of our holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy and save us. Amen.
Now have a seat… and with the help of the Mother of God, as you can see, we meet each other live, once more for a little bit. You’ve got used to the recordings and videos that I’m making. You know how I start: my beloved ones… I wasn’t scheduled to be here. I arrived here with another job in Timișoara I was supposed to be left by now. But because people heard of me being in the area, they started to contact me and then I said I can’t go from here to there, from one to another… Just today at one o’clock I told Mr. Cozma to tell those who want to come and then somehow to be able to see you all. Lately I’ve had a lot of people there, about four months continuously and I’ve gotten tired and that’s why I’ve avoided longer discussions.
Now, if the Mother of God has ordained, because in Timișoara I’ve talked before, 3-4 years ago. It was 2-3 years in a row when Mr. Dorin, who had a lounge at the Royal Hotel… The Mother of God has ordained, good people can be found and places where we can change a word, to strengthen ourselves, help each other… The Mother of God always works in order for us to receive a small benefit for each of us.
What shall I tell you now? I talked a lot, you saw so many videos, so I can say that I may repeat some things, that at some point I can’t say only new things, because they are all only about our connection with God, with the Mother of God, with the saints, with the heavens where in fact, later, that’s where we end up… some earlier, some later, but no one remains here on earth. It’s the surest thing, that we all leave, even if it’s hard for us to accept or it seems to us that if everyone around me has died, I’m sure I’m going to live I don’t know how many years, but for each one of us the time comes, sooner or later and we meet our Creator, God!
Not only do we meet, but He asks us what we did with the talents He gave us, if we multiplied them or buried them in the ground, that there is no man who does not have a talent. Many ask how can we discover them. Simple! Everyone, even when he is a child, begins to see what he leans towards, what he likes to do more, what he would like to do in his life, that is, what he enjoys, not where the gain is bigger, no! I mean, what feeds him, and is done with love and with joy. It doesn’t matter, any job, because we can’t be all managers or doctors! There have always been people for every job and that’s why God puts the talents in all areas, so that people can help each other, so that people will need each other, so that we complete each other and move toward God!
Because that’s really the purpose of our lives, to get closer to God because the earth is pulling us down. Whatever we do, it still pulls us down! But God keeps telling us to look to heaven all the time, whatever we do, and He has left us the confession that is one of the greatest Mysteries! Why? Because after the confession everything was erased! Whatever the devil has tormented to instill in us to do, after confession, through the gift that was given to the priest to bind and untie, all is forgiven! You realize what a wonderful gift God has given us! Whenever we make a mistake, so many times we can get rid of them, let’s get rid of them so that they won’t weight us down. Because any sin is gathered as a kind of weight in the bag of our soul which bends us more and more to the earth.
And at some point we stop seeing the sky. I mean, to become too hunchbacked, and look at this matter that is pulling us down. But the moment we confess, we take the weight from our backs and start looking up into the sky, towards all the beauty around us. That’s why let’s not postpone the confession because we don’t know the moment when we leave here. God has left so that we don’t feel like we’re leaving. That’s why he told us to remember to be careful, ready because the last day, the last moment can be at any time and then everything is over and we go beyond unprepared and we answer for everything we have done in life.
Many times I have said one thing, as a foundation for the people, a saying of the people. If we went after it we would get much closer to God: “Don’t do to others what you don’t like to be done to you!” It’s an old saying. Always ask yourself the question: What wouldn’t you want the other to do to you? Or what would you want the others to do to you? What would you like? How to behave with you… what to do to you? Not to offend you, to help you, to be by your side… Then do this and don’t expect for the other to do it first! Do it yourself! Do good deed that then God will ordain so the good you have done will get repaid.
If you do harm, expect to be returned to you, sooner or later! As they say, with the hand you give with that hand you will receive. And then we mumble and are unsatisfied why God allowed a certain thing to happen! But if we search a little bit into our life, we see that there is no injustice from God! We once did harm and it came back to us, perhaps with a different measure. That’s why we should be very careful in our lives, let be flowers where we pass! Not thorns and puddles, but only the flowers of good deeds. And no matter how poor or bitter you are, a smile or a good word you can still give to those around you. No one says that you have to necessarily reach for your pocket. But from what you can give, from your poverty, a kind word, a smile, you help someone with something. If God gave you hands and feet and you can help someone without any effort. Go, no problem, take it easy, don’t run because you’re not on the field of… like that, slowly. Look, this is the way to make the life beautiful! Or we can torment ourselves! This life is the precursory to the one beyond.
I mean, if we taste a little bit of heaven here, we’re going to have heaven in the afterlife. If we make our life a hell here, in hell we will be in the afterlife. Because by making our life a hell, we are hurting those around us. In a family, at home, if one comes drunk, slamming and smoking, swearing, doing all kinds of things…, not only does he hurt himself, he hurts the whole family and everything turns into a hell for them. So that man, if he doesn’t go, if he doesn’t confess, if he doesn’t struggle, he can’t expect that in the afterlife to receive the beauty of heaven. As they say you can’t plant corn and get potatoes out, you can’t! I mean, whatever you say… Sir, but I wanted my potatoes to sprout. Well, you had to plant potatoes if you wanted that. You planted corn, corn comes out. It’s kind of like that and in our lives, what we plant that we reap. If we plant good things, we’re going to reap good things.
So it’s all up to us, because God has left us freedom, he hasn’t restricted us or anything… Complete freedom! But he told us: if you do this you get there, you do the other one you get the other place…, you get on this road, that’s where you’re going to arrive! We do what we were told not to do and after that we wonder why we got there! As they say, you look at the sign to Arad (a city in Romania), you go to Arad, and you marvel that you have not reached Craiova (another city in Romania)! That’s what we do in life, we do harm and we marvel at why bad things happen to us! I was talking to someone else… he did a lot of harm, he swore God and then he marveled that everything was going wrong for him. He wondered where did he do wrong! He did wrong every day if every day he swore God.
Let’s say a man helps you and instead of thanking him, you swear him and you throw him boulders after him! And the second and third day the same! And at some point you wonder why that man doesn’t greet you anymore or help you. You don’t have to wonder anymore because it’s the result of what you’ve done. We kind of do that with God. When we are tight and we can’t take it no more, we say Lord help me, Lord, do not let me! After he has helped us we swear God. If I stepped wrong and tripped, we swear as if it were God to blame for drinking an extra glass and then we end up rising up against God. And if we have God against us, it’s all over! God always gives grace to the humble, and to the proud he stands against.
If we humble ourselves, we will never hurt others and we will not judge them! Because we see ourselves lower than everyone else and we cannot afford this. And then we have God’s help. But if we rise ourself, we rise above others, we consider ourselves great, we walk on the others and just put our interests in front of the others, we make God stand against us. And then who else do we ask to help us? Do we cry out to the Mother of God? Well, if you swear God, how do you cry out to His Mother? It is already automatic that something is not right Always be very attentive to our lives. Because the life is short, let’s not wait until it’s too late!
Let’s pass on to the questions!
Because after that I keep talking and… Yes, they gathered, they gathered. Yes. No problem, we try as best we can, where we can. I don’t answer everything as I am omniscient. As much as I know myself and as much as God enlightens me. Let’s see. I will also read the question so that we know what to answer.
“How can we increase patience when we have difficulties coming one after the other, without any breaks?”
It is said that God scolds the ones he loves and is scolding you! Someone said to me: father, I think God adores me at how many difficulties I have! God never gives us more than we can carry, and He only gives us what is useful to us. It never gives us something that is of no use to us. But in same time if he gave us a difficulty or a weight, he also gives us the patience to be able to carry it. But we immediately get lost, we are impatient, we want everything to be resolved quickly. Not! Look at the grass, who doesn’t want the grass to grow quickly, but it grows slowly. You don’t see it when it grows, but at one point you see it grown up. It’s kind of like that and with the patience, we slowly acquire it, asking God for patience.
To give us strength to be patient in difficult times and then easily and, without realizing it, we see that if before you gone crazy or swore at a word said by someone, at some point it will not bother you. This means that slowly, by being patient, you end up not having a hard time with such things. Just as someone said that he somehow tried to be able to overcome this thing, that still made him angry, he paid someone to swear him and throw bad words at him every day. Thus, as they say, when the world was dearer to him, that person would come and whom the others did not know, and he would scold him. It took a couple of years for this job until it ended up not bothering him anymore.
At one point that man went through the square and accidentally stepped on somebody’s foot, and that person swore him, and our man started laughing. The swearing man asked him why he was laughing, and our man said, “Well, think about it, I paid a man two years to do this, and you do it for free! How can I not laugh now? I’m really glad.” This way, through patience, came to be no longer affected by such words, struggling. Look, we will gain patience with patience, but we also have to pray in those moments, so that we can overcome it, because only using our strength is harder. Slowly, slowly the difficulties when they come we will overcome them.
“Is there any chance that two people will reconcile after 25 years of separation?”
Within God everything is possible! Nothing’s impossible within God, but it’s up to the two people if they want that. If they don’t want to, God never forcibly unites them. So, it’s up to them if they admit each other’s mistake and want that, it’s best to meet. If they have had some divergence or problems in their youth, to put each of them on a list of claims to the other and if they decide that they accept each other’s requests, they can go forward, reconcile. Otherwise, they meet a little bit and encounter the same problems again as it was in the beginning. It won’t work out! They must reach a little bit of understanding and then they can reconcile. But first and foremost, they have to want to and ask God for help in order to reach an understanding.
“The woman, the pants, the headscarf, …”
Now you know what’s going on? In the winter when it’s minus 25 degrees, you can wear ten skirts! If you don’t wear thick trousers you frost… I mean, we don’t close minded on this matter either. Some even have problems, their legs, their bones hurt… Nothing happens if he wears pants! In the old days they didn’t even exist, that’s the reality there were skirts and then… Who saw the movie “Şatra”? They had skirts there… ten skirts at a time, one on top of the other! That’s what kept them warm… so it wouldn’t be that they reconciled now, that they’re wearing pants, but let that not be exaggerated. And especially if you go to church, it’s good to be dressed appropriately, also as a man. How much honor you give, that much you receive!
If you go to church dressed inappropriately, it shows that you do not have godliness to God, to the Mother of God. You must be conscientious, especially young women with tight clothes, it can disturb others. You must think, “Why do I go there, for a show of fashion, to see others or I go to talk to God? If you go to someone to talk, to a person above, you don’t go dressed inappropriately, you go as elegantly as possible, as modestly as possible so that you don’t disturb, and receive the result you came for. But when you go to God?! If you go dressed I don’t know how… That is, by itself, it’s like you feel like “Lord, help me!”. But God looks at you and says, “But did you come to church or somewhere else?” It’s up to us and we need to have a little bit of attention for this things!
And we don’t have to be dressed righteously for fear that God would punish us, but as much as we give, that’s all we get! We are more righteous and, we are more attentive, then God is more attentive to us.
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