WHAT DOES IT MEANT TO ALWAYS HAVE PEACE OF SOUL?

-Should lawlessness really not provoke any feelings?

-Where does any lawlessness start from? From the absence of peace. We say, “Why should I have any peace of soul, if lawlessness is all around me?”. Because lawlessness developed from the absence of peace. To stop lawlessness, we need to return to peace. To personal peace, for a start, and then in the family, in town, in the country. But it all begins with your personal peace. If you see lawlessness and get irritated, you double the lawlessness. That lawlessness birthed lawlessness in you, outward lawlessness gave birth to your inward one. And you got angry, and an angry person is also capable of lawlessness. A peaceful and calm person isn’t capable of it, but an angry person is.

Why inward lawlessness should not provoke anger in you? If you see someone else’s lawlessness, look into your own memory and surely you’ll find the same situation in you life. If you see somebody lying, – rummage in yourself and you’ll say: “I also had the same thing” – and you’ll be silent. You see someone betraying someone, you want to tear them to pieces, wait, don’t hurry, sort yourself out, and you’ll find not just one betrayal in yourself, but thousands. Remember that case with the adulteress that was brought to Christ? Should we stone her? And Christ was writing in the sand with his finger and said, The one who is without sin should cast the first stone at her (John 8:7). They stood there, then the one left, then another… Because their conscience was denouncing  them. Each one of them had even the sin of adultery. Even if it’s not outward, it was inward: adulterous thoughts, adulterous feelings.

#ArchpriestSergiyBaranov