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“You know how it happens sometimes… A person does everything so that no one will love him. As if that weren’t enough—he does it in such a way that, when he dies, no one can even say anything good about him. But God is so abundantly merciful that He brings his loved ones to Him, His grace touches and warms their hearts in such a way that they yearn to pray for those who have warped their whole life. And it is comforting for all concerned—both the offended and their offenders. Because 
Resentment Towards Parents—Who is to Blame? (+ Video)Does a Christian have the right to take offense at his parents? Why do so many elderly parents find themselves alone nowadays? Are the children of “bad” parents exempt from any obligation to honor and care for them? How can parents and children develop a proper relationship?
“>resentment is the captivity of the soul. Whereas forgiveness is its freedom.
Resentment enslaves the soul. Forgiveness frees it
Father Evgeniy, a priest from the Donbas, once shared this story.
A certain family was suffering from major tensions between the children and their mother. Well, in other words, they had strained relations. But then the son, who came to faith as an adult, was able to get his dying mother to confess to a priest and receive Holy Communion before her death. They asked forgiveness from one another, and thus she peacefully departed this life.
When that woman had a church funeral, everyone present felt such joy in their hearts, as if their souls had finally escaped from captivity and rejoiced, singing hymns to freedom.
Touched by God
“It often happens that family members encounter all kinds of contradictions, small and large, that get in the way of living in peace. Basically, just to live,” batiushka told me at the time. “Apparently these people could even share love (and some of them did!), but all those quarrels, conflicts, and scandals were simply too big of an obstacle on the way of love. So, when one of them dies, it seems to be huge grief (yet some don’t see it that way!), but the most amazing thing here is that nothing really stands in the way of love. Every obstacle to love disappears along with earthly life. Now love can truly triumph! And it is time for peace and joy to reign.
Batiushka told his parishioners this story about the mother, the son and a triumph of love after death. Without sharing any names, of course.
“So, it turns out that the Lord arranges it all ever-so-wisely,” he told me, “and the events in the lives of some people don’t end exclusively with them, but they deliver certain spiritual benefit to others, complete strangers, unknown to them. Yes, everything has a reason in this world… Everything…”
Suddenly, another story came to my mind in this regard. I had heard it from someone before…
Once, a man on crutches came to see a priest:
“Batiushka, my life has hit a terrible rough patch. My parents died one after another, followed by my aunt. Then, my best friend died. My child ended up in the hospital, and then my wife, too. I had a car accident and broke my leg. What should I do?”
“This is the Lord calling you to Himself.”
“What? Am I responsible for all those deaths and illnesses?!”
“No, of course not. Each man has his own path in life and his own time to go, to get sick and to recover. But the Lord arranges it so that it wouldn’t pass in vain, without meaning and benefit for man. So He will put together the circumstances in such a way that each of us feels His touch. These are the touches of God…”
I was really impressed with it at the time. Touches…
Only good people attend church
“I shared this story about a son and his deceased mother with one man,” Father Evgeniy continued. “He had a father who died a long time ago. But when he was still alive, he always made a public nuisance of himself. He’d get drunk, commit adultery, and mess around. He’d beat his wife and his son.
His father has died, but it didn’t become any easier. He was gone, but the hatred stayed
So, his son grew up, he had his own family, but just as he hated his father in childhood so he continued to hate him after his death. He couldn’t forgive him for his mother’s tears, the bruises on her face, or how he himself would hide in the corner, whimpering and shaking with fear. How he would be afraid to go home and envied all the happy families around him. As a How to Speak to TeenagersYou can tell an adult who is feeling terrible that you have no strength to help him. But you can’t say the same to your child, because he depends on you.
“>teenager, the only thought he cherished was killing or poisoning his father with his own hands, taking revenge for all those torments. But he neither killed nor poisoned him, because his father died of natural causes. But that never made it any easier. The man was gone, but the hatred remained.”
“Then, not long before his father died, he put on the cross he had never worn before,” said Father Evgeniy. “Apparently he sensed his imminent death and saw the worthlessness of his life. And so, he reached out to God. It often happens this way. However, when he put on the cross, his relatives treated him as some sort of beast. “You torment us here and behave like a moron, like a vampire drinking our blood. And then you start wearing a cross?!” That’s what they thought of it. It would seem that they would have been glad, because the man had turned away from darkness to the light. But none of them were churchgoers at that time. To them it was pure hypocrisy.
Let me digress… I also come from a non-religious family. But I was baptized by my maternal grandfather. I was twelve at the time. He gathered all of his grandchildren in the summer (we all came to Krasnodar) and took them to church. Basically, my church life stopped there for many long years.
At that time, my grandfather was only taking his first steps as a Christian himself. I don’t know how deep his faith was, as he never took me to church services. But he tried to make me How to Read, Understand and Fulfill the Holy ScripturesWith the considerable influence of the internet, where any heresy has weight, and where the number of “theologians” with their “opinions” is multiplying, it is vital for us to discover the true interpretation of not just a particular passage, but of the entirety of Holy Scripture.
“>read the Bible, which I resisted as hard as I could. I only remember well how the adults—my parents, uncles and aunts—laughed at the fact that someone like my grandfather “had become so keen on religion.”
Only later when I was older, from conversations in our family I learned that he had always been a very complex and difficult man. He was quite a tyrant to his loved ones. I never experienced it myself, though. And so I was quite surprised. But when I became a churchgoing Christian, I remembered with gratitude that it was him who baptized me. I also couldn’t understand why everyone was so disgruntled when he turned to the faith. If he had such bad temper, this should have made everyone glad. A man has repented. Or, at least he stepped on the path to repentance.
But, apparently, this is how it all looks to non-religious people—hypocrisy and a desecration of the cross. Because “only the good ones go to church.”
“That no-gooder has ruined your life, and you have nothing else left”
“As for the man who put on the cross, he once tore it off in drunken stupor and threw it away,” said Father Evgeniy. “But once he sobered up, he picked it up, kissed it and put it back on. And he died soon afterwards. But his son held a grudge against him all his life. He hated his parent for ten more years after his death. Then he came to the faith. Ten more years have passed. He’s been going to church for ten years. But nevertheless, he couldn’t forgive his father. Then I told him the story of the mother and her children who were at odds with her. And how after her death all differences disappeared. I also told him how death could become the triumph of love instead of grief. I didn’t do this on purpose, I didn’t even think intentionally about it. It just happened. And at that moment, his face changed, it as if smoothed out somehow. He later said that, at that moment, he looked at his past and his father’s death in a completely different way. Not with hatred, but pity. His heart softened up and he found himself longing to pray for his parent. He realized that the way he lived was so awful, simply disastrous. There is nothing worse than the poverty of spirit that his father had, not knowing God, having nothing. And then suddenly, a yet faint glimmer of joy… The son remembered how his father had once picked up the cross he had thrown away before, kissed it and put it around his neck. Sure, he died without having Confession and Communion. But maybe the Lord granted mercy to him only because of this impulse! Despite the twenty years that passed after his father’s death, his son began to pray for him. And everyone felt relief.”
Father Evgeniy finished his story, but the next day he called me again. And he spoke about time and eternity… How we live in time and sin in time. And how our life is a temporary thing. Our wrongs were committed over time, just as were our evil memories. So, if a man thinks that all he has is merely this temporary, material life, then all these offenders and offenses have spoiled nothing but his own life. So, you’ve got nothing else!
“And that’s it, your offender is your worst enemy, as he distorted everything you had,” batiushka said. “This is truly a great tragedy. Without spiritual attitude, it brings a lot of pain and it’s really hard. It is also impossible to comprehend, for example, how Christ said as He was nailed to a cross: Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. Man can’t even perceive such thing. How can you say this in such a situation!
If such things were committed against you or your loved ones, you would have been saying and doing something completely different. But this is precisely because man is fixated on time and this life of ours. As if it’s the only wealth has. He never extends his gaze beyond that, to eternity. And this is it, the end…”
“A little taste of what it will
be like in the Kingdom of Heaven”
I was listening to Fr. Evgeniy and thinking, but this actually has to do with everything! If we consider temporary life to be our key asset, where eternity is something above and beyond our values, it will break us. For example, you have a disabled child and you think it’s the end of everything. Your career didn’t work out as you imagined—it’s the end of the game, just as when your loved one dies. A serious illness—horror and panic.
It is obvious that we are fleshly people and we have fleshly feelings, so it is normal for us to feel pain and fear. But if we knew but, most importantly, if we believed with our heart and our soul that this is not the end, it would make us feel better. And we wouldn’t do many of those things we typically do. We will perceive everything differently.
Someone wrote to me recently:
“Not every woman is capable of raising a child with the Down syndrome. That’s why it’s her choice, whether to have an abortion or not.”
And this is exactly how people think when their life is limited to their earthly time. Because, they say, we are supposed to spend this time in comfort and joy. “We only have one life! Unwind!” But when eternity is looming and you cannot cancel it or avoid it, you look at things quite differently…
“When man discovers faith, goes to church, and prays, it turns out that the Lord relieves him from all these things that bind him in earthly life,” continued Father Evgeniy. “It liberates him. And this freedom brings peace and silence to his soul. It comes from God, not from man. It’s because we can’t overcome our passions by ourselves. It comes with God, as He bestows it upon us. Not right away, of course… That son had been going to church for ten years, yet he still couldn’t do anything with himself. Or that’s what he thought. However, he was able to gradually reconsider his own life. First in his mind, and later, prayer cleansed his heart bit by bit. Over time, as the grace of God was acting, working inside him… And then the man begins to notice his weaknesses. That’s when he begins stop judging others’ weaknesses.
You know how this happens. As a child, you thought: “I will never treat my children the way my mother treats me.” And then, once you have your own kids, you may act just the same with them. You could yell or hurt them. Or even worse… Not because you are a bad person, but simply because you are weak. And then the Lord suddenly grants you a revelation through some situation in your life. Twenty years later this man suddenly longs to pray for those who had offended him. His desire is sincere—with pity and compassion. So he begins to pray. Through this prayer comes comfort to him who was offended, but now he also lets go of the offenses of him who gave offense. Yes, precisely so! But all this can be made possible through repentance. With repentance comes the mercy of God. And God gives us an understanding of what it is like, to experience the same event with and without Him. With Him comes grace, inner silence, desire to do good to everyone, and encompassing spiritual joy. When there is grace, you feel how a disease gradually disappears. But, in the absence of grace—there is nothing else but pain, offenses, and passions. It is like a prison. But if the Lord in His mercy, bestows upon us a drop of His grace, we can feel, at least for a moment, what it will be like in the Kingdom of Heaven. Where there is no place for passions, evil, or illnesses…
“It’s no use to do things that are evil in nature”
I was just finishing writing this story when Father Evgeniy called again. Probably, all of that got him thinking about those things. “I’m in a philosophical mood right now,” he wrote to me later, clearly embarrassed.
Revenge will never bring satisfaction to a man
“You know, many people say: “There is a wonderful dish called revenge,” or “revenge is a dish that should be served cold,” and other sayings about this feeling. But, in truth, revenge will never satisfy a man. Even if he avenges his offense, nothing good will ever happen in his soul. Where there is revenge, there is no grace. That’s why the Lord says, Vengeance is mine: I will repay! I will judge, but you keep out of this… Because it will do you no good.” You know, I also thought about my father… I was five when he was put in jail. My dad was a really kind soul, but he’d been drinking since his teens. He hit someone while drunk, and that guy went and called the police, leaving his suitcase at the scene of the crime. So, it was interpreted as a “mugging.” My father was sentenced to eight years, but he served six. He got out of prison and was gone six years later. However, during his time in prison, he missed his family terribly and reconsidered a lot of things in life. He wanted to have a normal life and tried his best. He worked and took care of our upbringing—he baptized us. Not everyone in our family was baptized. He was the first in our family who spoke with a priest and brought a prayer book into our house. Sadly, he never received the Holy Communion… His soul was drawn to God, but he couldn’t give up drinking. He tried to fight it, but this plague would invariably prevail over him. His drinking spree could last for two weeks at a time. And during this time, there were always enormous scandals in our house. I resented him and felt angry. Everyone else just took it as a given, but we were forever in a mess. Ultimately, all these scandals were useless. Now I understand that we shouldn’t have fought all the time, but should have risen to the task as a family. We should have supported him so that he wouldn’t fall into sin again, taken pity on him, and prayed. Even if it didn’t change anything, we would have lived those six years without arguments.
What did those arguments change? Nothing.
He was already feeling down. As for me, I am feeling down now. I feel even more guilt towards him than he did towards me. So, you look at this temporary life of ours and realize that there’s no use doing things that are inherently evil. To seek revenge, feel resentment or hate someone…
Interestingly, I was writing this article in a cafe. I took my Masha to the kindergarten and got down to writing. I also listened to batiushka’s voice messages while there. Through the speaker. At a table not far from me sat a young man, drinking coffee. I guess he overheard those messages, because when he was about to leave, he said to me, “I’m going to call my father today. It’s been twelve years since he abandoned us. He tried to speak to me afterwards, but I didn’t want to. I resented him. Thank you!”
Why thank me? “The Lord arranges ever-so-wisely that the events in the lives of some people don’t end with them, but deliver certain spiritual benefit to others, complete strangers unknown to them.” How about that?
Source: Orthodox Christianity
