Geronta, you once told us that with love, a person grows and matures.
—It’s not enough for someone to simply love another; he must love him more than he loves himself. A mother loves her children more than herself. She fasts so as to feed her children, yet she experiences more gratitude than they. The little children are fed bodily and the mother spiritually. They experience the pleasure of taste, while she spiritual rejoicing.
A young girl before marrying is able to sleep till ten in the morning and even asks her mother to get her milk. She is lazy about doing even the slightest chore. She wants everything ready-made; everyone to take care of her. Her mother calls for her, her father calls for her, but she only wants to whittle the day away. Although love exists within her nature, it does not develop because she continually accepts help and favors from her mother, her father and her siblings. However, from the moment she becomes a mother, she resembles a little engine which works as much as it is forced to, because love constantly works within her. Before, she would have hated touching anything dirty and immediately would have found aromatic soap to wash with. But after, when the child becomes dirty and she needs to wash him, she takes him and says…my sweetheart! She is not repulsed by it anymore. In the beginning, if you wake her, she yells, because she doesn’t want to be disturbed. But after, when the child cries, she stays up all night without difficulty. She cares for the baby and rejoices. Why? Because she is no longer a child. She has become a mother and with it has come sacrifice and love. Read more →
Choosing a Profession
—Geronta, some parents try to steer their children towards their own professions, and often get very pushy at it.
—No, they don’t manage well. Parents shouldn’t pressure their children unwillingly to do that which they enjoy themselves. I knew one young man who wanted to study theology and become a priest, but his mother wouldn’t let him; she forced him to go into medicine. The young man had studied Byzantine music and chanted; had made his own musical instrument; had learned the tones on his own; and knew the music by heart. He had a gift. He wrote troparia and services. As soon as he finished high school he took the entrance exams and got into Theological School. His mother suffered nervous shock from her anxiety. She would come to me later and beg me: “Pray for me to get well, Father, and I’ll let my child do whatever he wants.” When she got well she again refused to let him do what he wanted. Later he abandoned it all and finally wasted away. Read more →