Letters by Elder Joseph of Vatopedi, No 7

“On hardships”

Nea Skete 10/1/1982

To my beloved X and A, I wholeheartedly pray for our Lord’s and Savior’s mercy and Grace to come upon you, amen.

After receiving you letter, yesterday, Friday, we were both moved and upset and we immediately run up to the church and prayed to the Holy Mother. Today, we will continue offering liturgy and prayers, asking for the intervention of the Devine Mercy for your benefit.

Mostly, you must not lose your courage and your faith in our Lord, who knows and governs everything so that He turns it into our benefit. “It is not up to the one who requests, neither to the one who runs, but up to the merciful Lord” and “He is the One who looks (cares for) after us”.

If for the sake of this belief, you manage to endure everything, having your trust in the Lord, then you have truly found your purpose in life and your existence will be peaceful and tranquil.

There is neither continuous peace nor tranquility in this world, nor stability, especially these days when there clouds are gathering in the horizon and there is agitation and despair everywhere. However, rest assured that the more we are suffering in this life the more we are winning in the heavens. The reason is: any misfortunes in this life, which we endure having our faith and hope in the Lord, are converted into the currency for our bail out. Isn’t this how our Lord encourages us in His Beatitudes when says: “Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted”?

I do not intend to present you with any specific danger or threat but I am trying to wake you up and prepare you as the faithful workers of the Scriptures you are. You must always be ready to fight because as our Lord says” we do not know when the thief will come”. By “thief” we mean any trouble and temptation, the hidden devil and Satan, who persistently, continuously and sleeplessly, looks out to detain and destroy us!

As for us, my dearest souls, we must ignore, or rather we must close our eyes to the conditions outside and to the other human deeds and customs. We must look up to the Cross of our Lord, by which the world has been crucified for us and we have been crucified for the world. Our Lord is our one and only wish, our desire, our purpose, our whole world, our prosperity and glory, our plea, our progress and our source of energy. We look up to Him as our Leader, our Perfector and the centre of our being. We remain steadfast, without worry, believing absolutely that “He cares for us” and that “He would not allow more hardships than we can take”, but even when we are suffering “He will provide us with the outcome so that we can stand it”.

This is how it is, my precious hearts, my beloved. Jesus’ love keeps us connected and we are not far from you; distance causes only a brief separation. We are together spiritually in Christ, having the same goal, the same ideals, working towards the same purpose, citizens of Heaven; we are not ruffled by our enemies’ attacks, whether they come directly from the Evil one or his followers.

For, as I have said, the model of our lives is our sweet Jesus and all those who followed Him through the ages, who are now our fathers and teachers, and through them we derive courage and consolation no matter at which sad part of our lives the Evil strikes us: at our material processions, our values, our station in life, our loved ones, even at our own bodies. Then we realize that “No on one will ever do us harm” because our Lord is with us.

Our times are hard, as we have explained earlier, not because we have had a vision, but because of our experience and because events so indicate. Therefore, during the disaster one is not expecting nice things but calamity and storms because of our sins. Nevertheless, our Lord’s grace and compassion for the faithful creates reasons and causes to save us with these unfortunate circumstances, if we deal with them sensibly. Why should we fret and collapse and loose our courage because we have been deprived of or lost all those things, which are entirely futile and which we will leave behind whether we like it or not, in a short while? “What is there for us in this world?” “All that is human is pointless”.

Both you and we, your humble brothers, will face this hardship. We are praying to our Savior, Jesus Christ and his Holy Mother, if it is His wish, let His will be done and blessed be His name.

We are sending our love to all our brothers in Christ. We are always praying wholeheartedly for you.

Always yours, humble monk, Elder Joseph