Christians of the Last Times
Bishop Augoustinos N. Kantiotes
A Christian not only a ascends, he also descends. Ascension is to close yourself into a room and to soar, to shore, to soar, to soar, to pray, to find yourself uplifted; to go to a monastery, to open the Psalter, to pray, to battle continuously [against your passions], to rise at night, to do a vigil, to become sanctified, to live on Mt. Tabor. Mt. Tabor is nice, to ascend is nice, to ascend is nice, but a descent is also needed.
A Christian needs both to ascend and to descend. Ascension exists because there is a descent. What is a descent? To bend low, low, low, just as Christ descended to Hades. A descent is necessary.
What is a descent? To bend down towards pain. To go where pain exists, to visit hospitals, the impoverished, jails, windows, orphans and sinners; to visit society’s hades. Of course, a person stands in fear at the sight of human pain, but we shouldn't forget about it or act as if it doesn't exist. A certain saint once said: if we assume that we find ourselves praying and ascending, and we find ourselves on Mt. Tabor, and we hear a person crying out for help, we need to leave our Mt. Tabor, interrupt our prayer and run to help the person in need. We shouldn't say ‘I'm praying right now, I can't come’. No. We should leave our prayer and run to help.
There should be two poles. One pole is their ascension, and woe to us if we don't ascend. If we don't understand, we will fail to descend.
If we ascend, if we leave the Mt. Tabor of prayer, then we will be able to descend safely into that world, into society's Hades.
Pages: 182
Dimensions: 14 x 20 cm.
