Once again, we repeat: God does not punish for every transgression of the Law immediately (otherwise no flesh would be saved! There would be no freedom)! Yes, for all crimes you will have to answer (for every idle word!) – at God’s Judgment, God’s Love Judgment! And now God is patient, waiting (Being Love) and not desiring the death of a sinner, wants everyone to repent and turn to Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit to know the Father! Let us not deceive ourselves, seeing that sulfur and fire from heaven do not fall, that the earth does not open under those who sin heavily! God is Love! We have become complacent, thinking that everything is fine, that God is with us, we are pleasing to God – as the Old Testament rich (Pharisees, high priests, scribes) thought: we are rich, our temple business is going well, millions of pilgrims… – continuous God’s grace and blessing!? Jews say: rich, healthy, successful – blessed by God; righteous, poor, sick, crippled, unhappy – cursed by God, sinner!? And God says: woe to you rich, full, who laugh and rejoice (relying on your own righteousness, on your merits, good deeds)… “it is impossible for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God”!
“Righteous,” “Christians,” “Orthodox” crucified God, killed the Son of God! Let us watch! Watch: have we received the Holy Spirit, are we Christians? If not, then while there is time – let us begin the repentance-catechumenate!
“Take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly. For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. Therefore watch and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man” (see Luke 21:5-36). “But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. For when they say, ‘Peace and safety!’ then sudden destruction comes upon them… and they shall not escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief… Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober” (see 1 Thessalonians 5:1-8). Are these God’s words (and other warnings-cautions in the Scripture) jokes, humor?! Or the most serious, full of Love and tender care for us, God’s Word?! Watch how we listen! How we trust Christ!
An Orthodox catechumen knows that hell is within him, and outside is only Good, Love! Trying to Love-Thank (= doing God’s will, God’s Commandments) – he knows, experiences his hell, humbles himself and… What next? – What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what no pagan or catechumen has conceived (see 1 Corinthians 2:9-11). So do not ask me, “what next?” (this is known only by the Holy Spirit), but become catechumens, strive, prepare to “plunder” the Kingdom of God with godly humility – taste and see by the Holy Spirit, how Mercifully Loving the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Heavenly Father is!
When a catechumen understands, comprehends, experiences that no one owes him anything, but on the contrary – he owes everything to everyone, he is an infinite debtor (Love can never be repaid: loved – repaid – and forgot (this is a transactional “love,” this is fornication, adultery, Sodom and Gomorrah); Love – is forever – an unpayable debt, which can never be repaid, an eternal debt)! (By the way: if you have debtors (and do not try to forgive them “debts”) – you still owe someone – what catechumenate can be discussed! I am silent about Christianity!). What has the catechumen owed? Himself – he is a slave to all, he is a servant to all good (remember: thank = serve with goodness)! And here arises a problem! What? And there is nothing to repay the debts with!!! I am nothing – in me only darkness and bottomless emptiness – hell! And then begins the needy plea for mercy (see the parable of the debtor who owed ten thousand talents) – from the depths of hell, “poverty of Spirit-Love,” hellish-emptiness-darkness, selfishness-self-emptying! And God humbles (the poor, who have nothing of their own, who forgave everyone, and owe nothing to anyone) forgives the debt, gives the catechumen, the humble the Kingdom of God, gives him Love, so that he can repay the debts both to God (Love God with all the being full of the Holy Spirit), and to the neighbor (Love the neighbor with the Holy Spirit as Christ)! Glory, Lord, to Your Mercy! Lord, Glory to You!
The poor, “poor in Spirit” slave asks the Lord to have mercy on him – to give him Love (the Holy Spirit), so that he can repay the eternal debt to the Master (= Love for God) and to his neighbors (= Love for neighbors)!
The catechumenate of the Church consists of the following: to help a person become an ontological debtor to God and neighbors – to every person (and every angel: light and dark, demon, devil). And the debt is Love (Mercy)! And the catechumen, who in the process of catechumenate (knowing oneself) knows his hell, his hell (emptiness and darkness, his nothingness and at the same time his unpayable debt; no one will get out of hell until he repays the debt – to the last penny – until he loves! And he has no Love – Love is only in God, Love is a Gift from God! He can only hope, rely on God, on God’s Mercy-Love, on Mercy!), – keeps his mind in hell (patiently waits for God’s mercy, knowing his nothingness, emptiness and darkness, in which he is according to his deeds, knowing that he deserves worse), but does not despair, but taught by the Church (Christians who have gone through and know this path of salvation from hell), bravely endures-accepts his hell, and hopes in God, asks for Mercy from God (Who Wisely, Loving us unspeakably, does not rush to pull us out of this hellish furnace, so that we become well-baked bread – fit for the Eucharist, for Deification), Who in Christ has forgiven us our sins (debts) and given us the Holy Spirit, and in the Holy Spirit the power to Love, to be Children of God!!!