Glory and Praise be to our GOD and to HIS son Jesus Christ our Savior! Matthew 5:6 King James Bible Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. St Peter of Damaskos A Treasury of Divine Knowledge The Seven Commandments ***Thus the person who has been granted the grace of keeping the third commandment, and so has acquired full discrimination, will no longer be deceived either wittingly or unwittingly. Instead, having received the grace of humility, he will regard himself as nothing. For gentleness is the substance of humility, and humility is the door leading to dispassion. Through dispassion a man enters into perfect unfaltering love; for he understands his own nature - what it was before birth and what it will be after death. For mortal man is nothing but a slight, short-lived stench, baser than any other created being. For no created being, animate or inanimate, has ever subverted the will of God except man who, although loaded with blessings, endlessly angers God. ***That is why man has been given the fourth commandment, that is, longing to acquire the virtues: ‘Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness’ (Matt. 5:6). He becomes as one who hungers and thirsts for all righteousness, that is, both for bodily virtue and for the moral virtue of the soul. He who has not tasted something,says Basil the Great, does not know what he is missing; but once he has tasted it, he is filled with longing. Thus he who has tasted the sweetness of the commandments, and realizes that they lead him gradually towards the imitation of Christ, longs to acquire them all, with the result that he often disdains even death for their sake. Glimpsing the mysteries of God hidden in the Holy Scriptures, he thirsts to grasp them fully; and the more knowledge he gains, the more he thirsts, burning as though drinking flames. And because the Divine cannot be grasped fully by anyone, he continues to thirst for ever.
Posted on: Fri, 18 Jul 2014 13:46:08 +0000
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