THE ROAD TO HAPPINESS

THE ROAD TO HAPPINESS

Saint Nektarios

Nothing is greater than a clean heart, because such a heart becomes the throne of God. And what’s more glorious than the throne of God? Nothing, of course. Regarding those who have a clean heart, God says: ‘I will live with them and walk among them; and I will be God to them and they will be a people to me’ (2 Cor. 6, 16). So who can be happier than these people? What good thing can they possibly lack? Don’t they find all the good things and gifts of the Holy Spirit within their blessed souls. What more do they need? Nothing. In truth, nothing. Because they have the greatest good in their heart: God himself.

How deceived people are who seek happiness outside themselves, in foreign countries and travels, in riches and fame, in great possessions and enjoyments, in pleasures and all the luxuries and vanities which, in the end, are temporary and can leave a bitter taste. If you construct a tower of happiness outside your heart, you’re building on ground that’s shaken by continuous earthquakes. Such a structure will quickly collapse.

My brothers and sisters, happiness lies within our own self and blessed are they who realize this. Examine your heart and look at its spiritual state. Have you lost the boldness to address God? Is your conscience troubled because you haven’t kept his commandments? Perhaps it condemns you for being critical, telling lies or neglecting your duties to God and your neighbor? Look and see if wickedness and passions haven’t filled your heart. Perhaps it’s slipped onto a tortuous and rocky path.

Unfortunately, those who’ve neglected their heart have been deprived of all good things and have fallen into a multitude of evils. They’ve expelled joy and have been filled with bitterness, sorrow and worry. They’ve expelled peace and acquired anxiety, turmoil and fear. They’ve expelled love and welcomed hate. Finally, they’ve expelled all the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit which they received at baptism and have adopted all those evils which make people miserable and thoroughly wretched.

My brothers and sisters, our most merciful God wants us all to be happy, both in this life and the next. This is why he founded his holy Church: to cleanse us from sin, to sanctify us, to reconcile us with him and to grant us the blessings of heaven. The Church has opened its arms to us in welcome. If our conscience is burdened, let us hasten to the Church. If we do so, it’s prepared to lift our heavy burden, to give us the boldness to address God and to fill our heart with happiness and bliss.

HOLY BAPTISM

‘Those who have been baptized in Christ have put on Christ’ (Gal. 3, 27). What a great truth Saint Paul points out to us with these words. Baptized Christians don’t wear the old person, with its passions and sinful desires, but are clad in a new person; they’ve been clothed by Christ himself, who now dwells within their hearts. And the word ‘clad’ doesn’t refer to some ordinary, external garment, but to something more profound, something of the essence, something inalienable.

With our faith in Christ and with our baptism, we’re clothed in Christ himself and become children of God, dwelling-places of the All-Holy Spirit, temples of God, holy and perfect, gods by grace. We’ve cast off perishability and have been robed in imperishability. We’ve put aside the person of sin and put on the person of righteousness and grace. We’ve rid ourselves of death and clothed ourselves in immortality.

We’ve also pondered the great obligations towards God which we’ve undertaken with our baptism. We now realize that we have a duty to act as children of God and brothers and sisters to our Lord; that we have an obligation to align our will with that of God; that, as his children we must remain free of sin; that we should love him with all our strength, from the depths of our soul and heart; that we ought to worship him and long to be united to him forever.

Have we really considered that our heart should be inundated with love so that this love overflows onto our neighbor? Do we have a sense that we ought to become holy and perfect and images of God, children of God and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven? For all these reasons, we must strive not to be unworthy of the calling from God, lest we be rebuked. Indeed, my brothers and sisters, let us struggle with zeal and self-denial in order to triumph. Let none of us lose courage, let us not neglect our duties, let us not be craven, let us not quake before the pitfalls of the spiritual life. Because we have God as our aid and he will fortify us on the difficult path of virtue.

LOVE

Purse love. Seek love daily from God. Together with love comes all the multitude of goods and virtues. You love so that you also are loved by others. Give to God all of your heart, so that you remain in love: “He who remains in love remains in God and God remains in it.” (1 John 4:16).

You ought to have much attention in your relationships with one another and to respect one another as sacred persons, as images of God. Don’t ever look towards the body or to his beauty, but the soul.

Be careful of the feeling of love, because when the heart is not warmed by pure prayer, love is in danger of becoming fleshly and unnatural. It is in danger of darkening the intellect and burning up the heart. We must daily examine in case our love does not proceed from the association of our common bond with Christ.

He who keeps vigil to keep love pure, will be safeguarded from the traps of the devil who tries slowly - slowly to alter Christian love into common and emotional love.

CHRISTIAN PERFECTION

Christians have a duty, according to the Lord’s command, to become holy and perfect: Perfection and holiness are carved first deeply in the heart of the Christian, and from there it is imprinted in his thoughts also, his desires, his words, his deeds. Thus, God’s grace which exists in the soul is poured out also to all the external character.

The Christian ought to be courteous towards everyone: His words and words should breathe the grace of the Holy Spirit which dwells in his soul, so that his Christian lifestyle is witnessed and the name of God is glorified.

He who is measured in words, is also measured in works: He who examines the words he is about to say, also examines the deeds he is about to perform, and never will exceed the boundaries of good and virtuous behavior.

The graceful words of a Christian are characterized by refinement and courteousness. These are which give birth to love, bring peace and joy. On the contrary, vain talking gives birth to hatred, enmities, afflictions, arguments, disturbances and battles.

So let us be courteous. Let an evil word never come out of our mouth, a word which is not salted with the grace of God, but always graceful, good words, words which witness courteousness in Christ and the development of our soul.

GLORIFICATION

The Christian ought to glorify God both with his body and with his spirit: Furthermore, both belong to God, and consequently, he doesn’t have the authority to dishonor or corrupt them, but as they are holy and sacred he should use them with much gratitude.

Whoever remembers that his body and his spirit belong to God, has a piety and a secret fear for these, and this aids in him keeping them pure and clean of every stain, in ceaseless communication with Him from whom they are sanctified and strengthened.

Man glorifies God with his body and with his spirit, first, when he remembers that he was sanctified by God and was united with Him, and afterwards when he unites his will with God’s will so that he always performs His good and pleasing and perfect will.

Such a person does not live for his own self, but for God. He works for God’s kingdom on earth. He glorifies God in everything, with words and with deeds.

His actions, which are done for the good of his fellow humans, give cause for glorifying the divine name. His life, illumined by divine light, shines like a strong light. Thus his life becomes a guide towards God for those who did not yet come to know Him.

DISCRETION

I urge you to have discretion and prudence in everything. Avoid the extremes. Strictnesses go along with the measures of virtue: He who does not have great virtues and struggles along with the perfect ones, wishing to live with strictness like the holy ascetics, he is in danger of becoming prideful and falling.

For this reason proceed with discretion and do not exhaust the body with toils beyond measure. Remember that asceticism of the body simply aids the soul to reach perfection. Perfection is achieved mainly with the struggle of the soul.

Don’t stretch the cord out more than the measure. Know that God cannot be forced into giving His gifts. He gives, when He wants. Whatever we get, we get freely out of divine mercy. Don’t seek to reach high up with great asceticism without having virtues, because you are in danger of falling into delusion for the haughtiness and the daring.

Whoever seeks divine gifts and high contemplations while he is yet burdened with passions, he like a senseless and prideful one is deluded. First of all he ought to struggle for his purification: Divine grace sends the gifts as a reward to those who have been purified of the passions. It comes down to them without noise and at a time they don’t know.

PEACE

Peace is a divine gift which is granted richly to those who reconcile themselves with God and perform His divine commands. Peace is light and it leaves sin which is darkness. A sinner never is peaceful. Struggle against sin and do not let the uprising of the passions disturb you. If in your battle against them you win, the uprising of the passions became for you a cause of new joy and peace.

If you are defeated - may this not happen - then affliction and disturbance is born. If again, after a harsh battle, sin prevails for the moment, but you insist in the struggle, then you win and peace comes again. “Pursue peace with everyone, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14).

Peace and sanctification are the two necessary presuppositions for him who seeks with longing to see God’s face. Peace is the foundation on which sanctification is supported. Sanctification cannot remain in a disturbed and angry heart: Anger when it lingers in our soul, creates enmity and hate against one’s neighbor. For this reason the quick reconciliation with our brother is necessary so that we not be deprived of God’s grace which sanctifies our heart. He who is peaceful with his own self, is also peaceful with his neighbor, and peaceful with God. Such a person is full of sanctification because God Himself dwells inside him.

TEMPTATIONS

Temptations are allowed by God so that the hidden passions are revealed and can be fought and thus the soul can be healed. They also are a sign of divine mercy. For this reason trust in God and ask His help, so that He strengthens you in your struggle. Hope in God never leads to despair.

Temptations bring humble mindedness: God knows the forbearance of each of us and allows the temptations according to the measure of our powers. Let’s strive however to be vigilant and careful, so that we not put our own self into temptation on our own.

Trust in the Good, Strong, Living God, and He will guide you to comfort: After trials spiritual joy follows. The Lord observes those who forbear the trials and the afflictions for His own love. So don’t get fainthearted and don’t cower.

I don’t want you to grieve and be confused for everything that happens contrary to your will. No matter how just it is. Such an affliction witnesses the existence of egotism: Be careful of the egotism which is hidden beneath the form of one’s right. Be careful also of the untimely sadness which is created after a just censure. Excessive grief for all these things are of the temptation.

One is the true grief: That which is created when we know well the wretched state which exists in our soul. All other grieves don’t have any relationship with the grace of God. Strive to guard in your heart the joy of the Holy Spirit and don’t allow the wicked one to shed his bitterness. Be careful! Be careful, that the Paradise which exists inside you not be altered into hell.

PRAYER

The main work of man is prayer. Man was created to hymn God. That is the work which suits him. This alone explains his spiritual essence. This alone justifies his exceptional place in creation. Man was created to worship God and to partake in His divine goodness and blessedness.

Being in the image of God, he longs for God and hastens with longing to be elevated towards Him. With prayer and hymnody man rejoices. His spirit rejoices and his heart leaps for joy.

The more he prays, the more his soul is denuded of secular desires and he is filled with heavenly goods. And the more he departs from earthly things and the pleasures of life, the more he enjoys heavenly gladsomeness. Trial and experience assure us of this truth.

God is pleased in those prayers which are offered in the proper way: That is with consciousness of our imperfection and unworthiness. For such a feeling to exist however, complete rejection of our evil own self and submission to God’s commandments are necessary. Humility and ceaseless spiritual work are necessary.

Place all your cares on God. He provides for you. Don’t become fainthearted and don’t be shook up. He who examines the secret depths of men’s souls, knows your own desires also and has the power to fulfil them as He knows.

You seek from God and don’t lose your courage: Don’t think that because your longing is holy, you have the right to complain when your prayers are not heard. God fulfils your longings in a way you don’t know. So be peaceful and call upon God.

Prayers and petitions on their own don’t lead us to perfection. The Lord leads to perfection Who comes and dwells in us, when we perform His commands. And one of the first commands is that the will not of ourselves, but of God be done. And it should be done with the exactness in which it is done in heaven by the angels. For us to also be able to say: “Lord, not as I want, but as You want”, “let Thy will be done, as in heaven as upon earth”.