A monk complained to Saint Arsenios that while reading Holy Scripture he did not feel, neither the power of the words read, nor gentleness in his heart. To that the great saint replied to him…
‘My child, just read!
I heard that the sorcerers of serpents, when they cast a spell upon the serpents, the sorcerers are uttering the words, which they themselves do not understand, but the serpents hearing the spoken words sense their power and become tamed. And so, with us, when we continually hold in our mouths the words of Holy Scripture, but even though we do not feel the power of the words, evil spirits tremble and flee, for they are unable to endure the words of the Holy Spirit.’
‘My child, just read!’ The Holy Spirit Who, through inspired men, wrote these divine words, will hear, will understand, and will hasten to your assistance; and the demons will understand, will sense, and will flee from you. That is, He Whom you invoke for assistance will understand, and those whom you wish to drive away from yourself will understand. And both goals will be achieved.
[Originally posted on May 8, 2009.]
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Today I had a most discouraging conversation with my little sister. I believe she is deeply mentally ill. She is 42 and living in a near homeless state. She called me today, in despair because she felt she was supposed to be praying for a family whose members make it difficult to even like them. One of the daughters sent her obscenities on my sister's facebook, and poor Jenny just said, God wants me to pray intercessory prayers for them, but she has no drive or desire.
I told her that I understood. Sometimes the hardest people to pray for are the people who don't make it easy to love them. I thought I was encouraging her when I said, "Very often, you just have to work through the lack of desire. Let God know that you don't have any desire to pray for them. He will listen to your prayers, even if you don't feel the love or desire. Love isn't a feeling."
She ripped me a new one, to say the least. She believes that God intentionally took away her desire to pray for them because one of the members in her Pentecostal Church prophesied about it and she believes the words of this woman over the words of Christ when he said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you."
I asked if she thought God was evil or capricious. She began to scream that I've never suffered like her, I don't know what she's going through, and the whole nine yards.
I fear I didn't handle it well and ended up hanging up on her.
I will just pray for her, even though right now, I haven't much desire.
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