One parishioner says in confession: “Behold, father, wherever I look at the believers in church, it’s a lie, a falsehood. Everyone only cares about their own well-being. This is why they pray and ask God: give, give! Fasting people, there is nothing good in these people.”
I convince you: but I confess people, I know their souls, their lives. Believe me, many of them are sincere. And they pray not in order to bargain something with God, but because they love God and people, they are ready to actively serve people.
This man waved his hand: “No, father, you are just a gullible person.”
But I know that he is wrong. Because a few meters away from him stands L., a young girl, a student, who visits an old woman, encourages and helps her (by the way, the old woman is mischievous, selfish, and unbelieving), brings joy to a four-year-old child in an orphanage, and she is friends with a blind girl, giving her such scarce communication. This same L. carries out many other wonderful obediences.
But here is a childless couple — S. and A. These are wealthy people, they provide financial assistance to the temple, and recently took two kids from an orphanage.
Here is fifty-year-old L. Today she works in a boiler room, she used to be a painter. With his friend, V., they made free repairs in the apartment of a good, but low-income person.
She also has a voluntary obedience, visits and cares for a sick old woman. And every year (EVERY!) she goes to her dacha, where she takes care of her husband, children, grandchildren, and takes a legless woman from a nursing home. And, imagine, this legless disabled woman knows that every summer she will not be in the city, not in her ward, but in nature, where the birds sing and the wind rustles. She, as a member of the family, will eat with everyone, laugh and rejoice.
…Yes, there are bad Christians, Christians in name… But why look up to them, because there are real ascetics of the faith, the best people. And maybe we will take an example from them, from the best, and not from the worst…
Archpriest Konstantin Parkhomenko
«From the priest’s diary»
Charity Fundnd Holy Land
Investment in the Soul!
