A Discourse

In one of our morning prayers to God the Creator we read: “Save us and lead us into Your eternal kingdom, for You are my Creator and the Provider and Giver of all good.” Today during morning prayer I turned special attention to these words. They contain important, very instructive, and consoling thoughts.

We are all sinful, do not have freedom from sins; we are all like all things and beings in the world, and our bodies are corruptible and fleeting, passing, perishable; meanwhile our soul is eternal and longs for eternal existence and strives to perpetuate itself somehow. Believing and pious souls have a longing for eternal life and regard this life as a fleeting dream and reverie. We, Christians, are taught from the Gospel, which is the Word of eternal and unchanging truth, to believe in eternal life, and we say every day to ourselves: “I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.” Christ our God is resurrection and life. He has granted us eternal life. “Christ is risen from the dead, by death conquering death, and to those in the tombs granting life.” So, dear brothers and sisters, there is a kingdom of eternal light, eternal life, eternal love, eternal righteousness, eternal peace, eternal beauty, eternal, endless, and unimaginable blessedness for those who have prepared themselves for the age to come. This is inviolable truth. But it is also undeniable truth that for this kingdom of peace, righteousness, and love we must prepare ourselves here. The Gospel teaches us this preparation; the Church teaches us this. We must educate ourselves here in true faith and in all Christian virtues: love, simplicity of heart, gentleness, humility, goodness and mercy, forgetfulness of wrongs, temperance, and the beginning and end of all virtue—constant prayer. Without prayer a Christian, like a fish without water, cannot live.

Let us then, dear brothers and sisters, prepare for the eternal kingdom through faith, prayer, and virtue. Amen.

Glory to God!