For a
long time I did not clearly understand how necessary it is that our soul should be
strengthened by the Holy Ghost. But
now
the Most Gracious Lord has granted to me to know how indispensable this is.
Yes, it is necessary every moment of our life, just as breathing is ; it is
necessary during prayer and throughout the whole of our life. Unless He
strengthens our soul, it is constantly inclined to every sin, and, therefore,
to spiritual death; it becomes enfeebled, loses all power, through the evil that
enters into the heart, and incapable of any good. Without the strengthening of
the Holy Ghost, one feels how the heart is undermined by various evils, and is
ready to sink every moment into their abyss. Then it is that our heart must
stand firm as upon a rock. And this rock is—the Holy Ghost. He strengthens our
power's; and when a man prays, He strengthens his heart by faith and by the
hope of receiving that which he prays for. He inflames the soul with love to
God; He fills the soul with bright, good thoughts, strengthening the mind and
heart. If the man has any work to accomplish, He strengthens his heart by the
conviction of the importance and the necessity of his labour, and by an
invincible patience which overcomes all difficulties. He inspires in the man,
in his intercourse with people of various positions and both sexes, a respect
for the human person, who is made after God's image—whoever it may be—and is
redeemed by the Blood of Christ the Lord ; and makes him disregard the
sometimes very unsightly outer appearance of another man's body and dress, as
well as his roughness of speech and manners. It is the Holy Ghost who unites us
all through love, as the children of the same Heavenly Father, and in Jesus
Christ teaches us to pray : " Our Father which art in Heaven .
. ."
St.John of
Kronstadt
My Life In Christ
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