We cannot allow ourselves to keep evil thoughts to anyone. My relationship to the other is my relationship towards God. There is always ascetic love and gracious love. We are created by the image of God - He sealed His love upon us. Since God is love, it is natural for our human nature to love. That’s gracious love. However, since we are burdened by the fall of Adam, we are also capable of not loving. This is our weakness and we should always remember it. We should by all means remember that we should love in any circumstances whatsoever. That is the ascetic love.

Whenever I experience bad feelings toward someone that hurt me, I should be aware that he has not hurt ME, but he hurt my vanity and my passions. It is necessary to make a distinction between these two, as they are altogether different. Whenever someone hurts us and we feel wounded, it means that we are captives of pride and have not been cleansed from our passions. This is because of the fallen human nature. Evil does not exist. God did not create evil, so it does not possess any existence. Evil was fabricated by the devil, and that is why he is the father of sin. It is us that make evil existent. It is offered to us by a thought. If we accept the thought, we give existence to evil. Otherwise, it appears and disappears.

Pain is the quality and the consequence of sin and a state after the fall. The cleaner we are the lesser we suffer, and vice versa. Love is an absolutely positive feeling. The saints were interpenetrated by Divine Grace - even their bodies became spiritual so that when they were set to tortures, instead of pain they felt joy.

If we have love, we will forgive anyone and we will pray for them. But, being proud and self-centred, our ego gets hurt, our heart becomes cold and hard, and we darken and suffer in our soul. All sins originate from pride. Those people who are clean i.e. those who have cleansed their hearts from their passions love in an unconditioned manner, no matter what we do to them. The greatest example was given to us by our Lord, Who, though sinless, did not condemn those who offended, beat, spat and ridiculed Him on the cross, but He forgave them: “Forgive them, Lord, for they know not what they do”. The same example of love we can see in the life of the first martyr Stephen. Or in the life of the saint, who hosted the soldiers who came to kill him - although he knew why they had come, he was first hospitable as all Christians should be, gave them food and rest, and in the end he revealed who he was and told them to do what they had been sent for. Jesus washed the feet of His traitor.

This world does not give us any certainty, God is our certainty. If we feel in our hearts that we do not love someone, it means we are not Christians, we do not have Christ in us and we will not gain the Kingdom of Heaven. We should pray for such people. In Christianity there is no defeat. On the contrary, just when we think we are vanquished, God is with us and we become the strongest. Our Lord went even to the cross. With each of those struggles we are being crowned with unfading glory in heaven. Each struggle is a gain. That is why our Lord says that He will give a hundred times more to those who follow Him.

All that matters is the struggle between pride and humility within us. All we should do is to be humble, remain silent and have the thought that it was our fault, and God will reside within us through His Grace. But if we remain proud, we will never find rest and peace for our souls. “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls”(Matthew, 11;29) In case we are not humble and do not forgive, we will remember it throughout our lives and it will burden our soul and our conscience. If we have love in us, we will also have peace, rest, calmness, grace… and all that interferes with this gracious state we should ignore, even the tiniest thought.

If I say that I love you, and you do me harm, and I do not forgive you, then by means of which I show that I love you? On the other hand, if I forgive you I humble myself. If I do not envy you but love you, I will ignore each thought as strange and hostile. It is important how we do this in our hearts. The toughest cardboard can be made into finest napkins, and gold may as well be turned into bullets. That is why it is necessary to have a practiced guide (an experienced spiritual father) to whom we would confess and whose each piece of advice we should accept without questioning, thus making a struggle in love. It is no use to go to Church if we do not have love. Each gracious gift depends on us. God wants to give it to us, but we need to open ourselves and prepare to take it and keep it.

We need to be simple and plain. We are complicated and complex, insincere towards God and ourselves, and here lies our problem. If I admit that I have thoughts toward someone and confess them, they will go away. But if I do not admit and do not confess them, they will be embodied into deeds. If we are proud, we close our hearts, and if we are humble we open them. We should have love towards everyone. It says in the Gospel that it is easy to love someone when we are loved, but the trial of our love is whether we would love those who do not love us. We hurt each other because we are proud, because we want to show ourselves as better then other people.

It is worthwhile to struggle in love and to inherit the blessing of the Holy Apostle Paul: The love of God the Father, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with us all.