If you aspire to the divine and venerable priesthood, you must first sacrifice yourself through the mortification of your passions and pleasures, and thus dare to perform the life-giving and terrible sacrifice, lest you burn like unburned material in the divine fire. For if Seraphim did not dare to touch the divine coal without tongs, how can you dare to touch Him? And your tongue will be sanctified, and your lips will be clean, and you will keep your soul and body pure, and even your hands will be brighter than gold, since they will minister the supernal fire and sacrifice “the Body and Blood of Christ .”
He fully understood the power of what was said, that every day you have before your eyes on that sacred altar “the Savior of God,” which when the elder Simeon saw, he was dazzled and prayed to depart from this life. And if you have not been informed by the Holy Spirit that you are accepted to become a mediator between God and men, like the angels, do not dare to recklessly perform the terrible and utterly pure ritual of the divine Mystery of the divine Eucharist, which even the angels respect and many of the saints fear to perform out of great reverence.
Take care of yourself so that even if you have some past sin, or if you commit one due to human weakness, you will not be consumed by divine fire when you bring the Holy Gifts first for the forgiveness of your own sins. For then, as a vessel of choice, useful and pure and worthy of this sacrifice, you will be able to transform other vessels of the faithful from wooden to silver and gold, if, that is, your boldness will win you God’s mercy. For where God is willing to give His mercy, there is no obstacle to transforming these into those.
Be careful, because like the angels, you too have been honored, and make sure you stay pure in the priesthood you’ve been called to with every virtue and spiritual purity. For you know from what height of greatness to what depths of the dark abyss the devil fell because of his pride. Make sure that you do not suffer the same fate, imagining yourself to be great, but consider yourself to be dust and ashes, unworthy and insignificant, and mourn unceasingly for this claim that God has made on you out of inexpressible charity and goodness, inviting you into divine communion and kinship through the celebration of the holy Mysteries.
The priest must be free from all passions, especially prostitution and resentment, and must also be free from mere imagination. For if he does not care for spiritual purity, he will be hated and despised, like someone who is mutilated or disfigured in the face, who touches the body of Christ the King.
After your tears have made you whiter than snow, having thus purified your conscience with the purity of your soul, touch the Holy Things as a holy person, revealing the inner beauty of your soul through the angelic whiteness of your outer garment. Be careful, during the ritual of the Holy Mysteries, not to be satisfied only with the truths about the celebration of the mystery, which are handed down by people, but also have divine Grace to teach you secretly and mysteriously the highest truths.
Desiring incorruptibility and immortality, he approached the life-giving and incorruptible mysteries with respect, reverence, and faith, even longing to depart from this life, since he had already fulfilled his faith. But if you fear death, you have not yet become one with Christ through love, with Him whom you have been deemed worthy to sacrifice with your own hands and to partake of His Body. Otherwise, you would desire to die like the elder Simeon, and you would no longer care about your body.
Having become a partaker of the Body of God and a communicant through divine communion, you have a duty to unite yourself with Him in a death like His, living no longer for yourself, but for Him who was crucified and died for your salvation, as the Apostle Paul notes. But if you live a carnal, worldly life immersed in passions, prepare yourself to find immortal punishment after your death, unless you stop before your death and perform the bloodless sacrifice of your own free will. Keep in mind that many others who served unworthily in this life, after being seized by sudden death, were sent to the just punishments of the next life.
Because a monk who was renowned for his piety and considered by many to be venerable due to his outward appearance was internally infected with the passion of lust. Once, while performing the divine and sacred worship, and the moment of the cherubic hymn arrived, and he bowed his head toward the Holy Table, as usual, reading the prayer “no one is worthy…,” he suddenly found himself dead, his soul departing in that posture of bowing.
Speech of Saint Theognostos
The speech is from the book by EVANGELOS G. KARAKOVOUNIS. “MIKRI FILOKALIA”
APOSTOLIC MINISTRY PUBLICATIONS
