{"id":29146,"date":"2020-03-20T15:17:54","date_gmt":"2020-03-20T15:17:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/?p=29146"},"modified":"2020-03-20T15:17:54","modified_gmt":"2020-03-20T15:17:54","slug":"archimandrite-andrew-konanos-dont-look-for-excuses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/2020\/03\/archimandrite-andrew-konanos-dont-look-for-excuses","title":{"rendered":"Archimandrite Andrew Konanos: Don\u2019t Look for Excuses"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nI will tell you a story from patericon. One person visited St. Anthony the Great, asking for advice for a proper spiritual life. The saint advises him: “Try to pray for \u2026 hours.” He replies: “I can\u2019t do this.” – “You can\u2019t? Okay, I\u2019ll find something else for you. Read the New Testament little by little\u201d. \u2013 \u201cI can\u2019t\u201d. \u2013 \u201cThen do two or three bows to the ground\u201d. \u2013 \u201cIt’s very tiring, my back hurts\u201d. \u2013 \u201cGive some alms\u201d. \u2013 \u201cBut I do not have money\u201d. – And St. Anthony says to the monk who was next to him: \u201cYou know what? Cook some porridge for him, cook some oats, the person got sick\u201d.<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t this, you can\u2019t that, what do you can then? Are you sick? I tell you one thing, it seems difficult to you. I tell you the other, it seems unbearable to you. I do not demand from you to become an ascetic. I haven\u2019t told you to go to the Holy Mountain and stay there for a couple of weeks or months. On Athos they do not taste oil for a huge number of days a year, abstain from food for three whole days, make many bows to the ground, double bows during Great Lent. And what do you do?<\/p>\n

Do you go to church? I told you to do a little simple thing.Do something small yourself. Nobody will scold you for not doing something big and difficult. May the Lord see your good aspiration and desire, your diligence, what St. Paisios speaks of: “a little bit of diligence, my child.”Do not look for excuses all the time: “I can\u2019t, I don\u2019t have time.” Well, today you do not have time. When will you have it? Tomorrow? \u201cAh, I don\u2019t know, maybe\u201d You see, you don\u2019t want to force yourself to do something.If you do not force yourself, you will begin to suffer.You will become your personal nightmare. Your “self” will be your eyesore. To find God, you must first get rid of your “self”. Put yourself in the hands of God. I found such words of St. Paisios of Mount Athos: \u201cIf you get rid of your \u201fself\u201d, then you will find it in God’s embrace\u201d.<\/p>\n

Over time, your life will change. Do not worry about your “self” all the time. You think all the time about how not to get tired, not to lose something, not to do something difficult. But wait!Everything you do, all your deeds, is like stretching out your hands to receive God’s innumerable gifts.<\/p>\n

Some have already begun to work on themselves a little, others are just beginning. Remember: you must pray constantly and for those who do not do it. Think about the humility behind this: to be awake in prayer and to pray so that those who have insomnia could asleep.And do not envy those who sleep, but say: \u201cLord, I am awake for Your sake. I pray to you, but give a calm and quiet sleep to all those who want to sleep at this time, but cannot. \u201d<\/p>\n

This is a healthy exercise: to do ascetic work, but at the same time to show love for everyone, so that your exercise contains love and joy, so that you feel unity with all other people, not a narcissistic feeling, like \u201cI am independent, I\u2019m different, I’m more bold, maybe I’m a little bit saint\u201d.<\/p>\n

Source: https:\/\/pravlife.org\/ru\/content\/arhim-andrey-konanos-ne-nahodi-postoyanno-opravdaniy<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I will tell you a story from patericon. One person visited St. Anthony the Great, asking for advice for a proper spiritual life. The…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29147,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[61],"tags":[74],"class_list":["post-29146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-orthodox-wisdom","tag-spiritual-guidance"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/b546b943bd3a1839c834784ecaa16bce.jpg","views":{"total":117,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1767825458},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paPyw9-7A6","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29146"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29148,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29146\/revisions\/29148"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}