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Stephentlig
Guest
could someone here please give me at least somewhat accurate definition of a person who is experiencing spiritual delusion?
Pax
Stephen
Pax
Stephen
- Status
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joandarc2008
Guest
You may have more luck on the Spirituality forum.
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SunshineZA
Guest
Would this answer your question?
To interweave truth with error, replace sound doctrine with error.
The abuse of God’s long-suffering, and a wilful mistake of his character and the intention of his gospel.
To interweave truth with error, replace sound doctrine with error.
The abuse of God’s long-suffering, and a wilful mistake of his character and the intention of his gospel.
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dvdjs
Guest
Spiritual Delusion - Prelest
Keep your eyes open. How often do we see caution or compunction versus certitude and self righteousness?
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Stephentlig
Guest
thank you all so far for your wonderful replies.
Pax
Stephen
p.s it may be that I should post it in the spirituality forum, but I shall leave it for now to the moderator to decide whether he/she should move it.
Pax
Stephen
p.s it may be that I should post it in the spirituality forum, but I shall leave it for now to the moderator to decide whether he/she should move it.
J
joandarc2008
Guest
I just wanted to give you another option in case you did not get the answers you needed but I am glad you did. Pax et Bonum.
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Stephentlig
Guest
Thank you Joan. I would not want to create another thread and thus offend the moderators or anything like that. Therefore that was my reason for just keeping this open. I would of liked more answers but you cant have everything you ask for straight away.I just wanted to give you another option in case you did not get the answers you needed but I am glad you did. Pax et Bonum.
Pax
Stephen
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prodromos
Guest
I believe you are already well acquanted with a classic case of spiritual delusion, judging by the “tlig” at the end of your name.
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dvdjs
Guest
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Stephentlig
Guest
I just happen to be a fan of tlig messages. I do not see myself as ‘‘aquanted’’ with them in the sense that I see myself as Gods elect who receives messages also. Such a position would certainly be delusion and deception of the enemy. I am a simple lay Catholic who was converted through the messages and likes the messages and the purpose of putting ‘‘tlig’’ at the end of my name is to help promote such a great work of God.
Pax
Stephentlig
p.s St.Seraphim of Sarov, great saint. Is that quote from the little russian philokalia by any chance?
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Gregory_I
Guest
ok, here’s a red hot one: WHat would the traditional consensus of the eastern churches be in the teachings of st. francis xavier and the whole jesuit school of spirituality? I know the teaching of St. Symeon the New Theologian, and it seems to be in stark contrast with all this cataphatic spirituality…what are we to make of this?
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GaryTaylor
Guest
The area of Jesuit teaching and education is “not” a real good or clear example of Spiritual Delusion. What happens here is that the belief and education of the Jesuits became a problem because of the unwillingness to believe others had a realitive Theology in thinking. The Jesuits believe there stance and thinking was superior and refused to budge. So in essense being unable to open one’s minds to another train of throught and understanding became an obstacle which in itself was denial. The Jesuits believe there stance on modern sexual issues regarding the catholic church was/is superior. And at a point back in the late 80’s early 90’s began to teach in conflict with the church doctrine while holding a Catholic Teaching Position. I can’t remember the name of the Prof. in the USA who came into question. I could find it if need be. But he wound up resigning leaving the Catholic Faith. I know he’s teaching at a Baptist College now. Southern Baptist I believe. I can’t remember his name. …Anyway this incident in particular sparked a chain reaction with Jesuits and thus created an issue for the CC.
I believe the actual issue confronted constantly by the Jesuits was the Catholic Church’s unwillingness to reduce the sexual moral standards of the Church. Which in essense the Jesuits felt that in regards to modern society this needed to be re-visited. The Catholic Church refused to change or even debate their stance on sexual morality in regards to any area of Church Doctrine. This was the original falling away of Jesuits in the catholic Church. What happened in the past decade I am not aware of. But this issue came into play with Pope John Paul II and at that point Cardinal Ratzinger {Pope Benedict} was head of the CDF for the Vatican.
Anyway,
IMHO when Spiritual delusion is referred to, what happens is an individual has a dream
For example, The Divine Mercy of my Soul, The Diary of Saint Faustina, was believed to be exactly this. It was placed a on the Banned List for over 40-years by the Vatican. Research began with Pope John Paul II who like Saint Faustina was also Polish in ethinic background. Both having spent a great deal of time in Krakow, Poland.
John Paul II read the Diary and realized that what was initially thought to be heretical was in fact incorrect interpretation of the Polish {slavic} language. In retrospect the book was then realized to be inline with the Bible, teaching of Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church. John Paul realized he was dealing with a Mystic of great importance and began the process to canonize Saint Faustina. Her Diarys were then taken off the banned list and published. And the Chaplet of Divine Mercy is widely recited today. The Painting Saint Faustina originally painted of Jesus Christ also is in many Catholic Churchs today. Matter of fact there is copy of this painting in my parish. This apparently was the desire of Christ which was relayed to Saint Faustina thus the Faith, as far as the painting being in all his Churchs. The Promise of Christ through recitation of the Devine Chaplet is similiar to the Holy Rosary.
BTW She passed away in 1938 at an early age from Tuberculosis and initially her sickness was also thought to be cause of illusions.
Anyway hope this helps. And as I mentioned, the Jesuit situation may have changed greatly in the past decade. My thinking here goes back to the 90’s with John Paul II and Father Malichi Martin who was a Jesuit and had a facinating mind of Theology.
I may be off a bit here, simply due to working off memory. But I do believe I’m in the house, maybe not the right room, but definatly in the house
God Bless, GT
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Stephentlig
Guest
thank you Gary 
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Gregory_I
Guest
But what is the eastern Catholic view of this spirituality and praxis held by St. Francis Xavier and Francis de Sales, etc?
It heavily emphasizes active visualization which all the Fathers worth their salt taught us to flee out of humility, and to AVOID spiritual delusions. How then can the two even complement each other when the underlying principles are in conflict with the spirituality of the first millenium?
For example, St. Symeon the New THeologian Taught, in his “Three Ways of Prayer”
[The first way of attention and prayer.]
"The features of the first way are these: one stands to pray by raising his hands towards the sky together with his eyes and mind. He imagines divine concepts, the good things of Heaven, the armies of the holy angels, the residences of the saints and, in short, he gathers in his mind all that he has heard from the Holy Scriptures. He recalls them in the time of his prayer looking at the sky, and he exhorts his soul to what seems to be love and eros of God. Sometimes he even has tears and cries. In this way his soul gradually becomes proud without realising it, thinking that what he does is by the grace of God’s compassion for him. Hence he pleads God to always grant him worthy of such deeds*** which are, however, signs of error***.
A good thing ceases to be good, when it is carried out in the wrong way or at the wrong time. To such an extent this is the case here that, if this person finds perfect solitude, it will be impossible for him not to lose his mind. Should this not happen, it will still be impossible for him to acquire any virtues or detachment from the earthly. By this method are misled all those who see the Light with their bodily eyes, sense perfumes with their sense of smell, hear voices with their ears and so on. Some of them have been possessed, moving senselessly from one place to the other. Others have been misled by accepting the Devil who was transformed and appeared to them as an angel of light, and they have remained uncorrected until the very end, without wanting to hear any advice from their brothers. Some of them were even incited by the Devil and committed suicide, whilst others were crumbled and others became insane. Who can describe the various illusions of the Devil by which he misleads them!
Every reasonable person can understand the kind of damage that comes from this first way of attention and prayer. If it happens that someone by being accompanied by brothers (since these evils usually happen to those who are on their own) does not suffer any of the things we described, he nevertheless spends all his life with no spiritual improvement."
Sounds like Salesian spirituality to me, so what do we do?
One of the Church Fathers tells us that we know we are making real spiritual progress when we see more and more of our sins, since we are then beginning to see ourselves with the eyes of Christ, and we can have some hope that we are actually growing and being healed.
It heavily emphasizes active visualization which all the Fathers worth their salt taught us to flee out of humility, and to AVOID spiritual delusions. How then can the two even complement each other when the underlying principles are in conflict with the spirituality of the first millenium?
For example, St. Symeon the New THeologian Taught, in his “Three Ways of Prayer”
[The first way of attention and prayer.]
"The features of the first way are these: one stands to pray by raising his hands towards the sky together with his eyes and mind. He imagines divine concepts, the good things of Heaven, the armies of the holy angels, the residences of the saints and, in short, he gathers in his mind all that he has heard from the Holy Scriptures. He recalls them in the time of his prayer looking at the sky, and he exhorts his soul to what seems to be love and eros of God. Sometimes he even has tears and cries. In this way his soul gradually becomes proud without realising it, thinking that what he does is by the grace of God’s compassion for him. Hence he pleads God to always grant him worthy of such deeds*** which are, however, signs of error***.
A good thing ceases to be good, when it is carried out in the wrong way or at the wrong time. To such an extent this is the case here that, if this person finds perfect solitude, it will be impossible for him not to lose his mind. Should this not happen, it will still be impossible for him to acquire any virtues or detachment from the earthly. By this method are misled all those who see the Light with their bodily eyes, sense perfumes with their sense of smell, hear voices with their ears and so on. Some of them have been possessed, moving senselessly from one place to the other. Others have been misled by accepting the Devil who was transformed and appeared to them as an angel of light, and they have remained uncorrected until the very end, without wanting to hear any advice from their brothers. Some of them were even incited by the Devil and committed suicide, whilst others were crumbled and others became insane. Who can describe the various illusions of the Devil by which he misleads them!
Every reasonable person can understand the kind of damage that comes from this first way of attention and prayer. If it happens that someone by being accompanied by brothers (since these evils usually happen to those who are on their own) does not suffer any of the things we described, he nevertheless spends all his life with no spiritual improvement."
Sounds like Salesian spirituality to me, so what do we do?
One of the Church Fathers tells us that we know we are making real spiritual progress when we see more and more of our sins, since we are then beginning to see ourselves with the eyes of Christ, and we can have some hope that we are actually growing and being healed.
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Stephentlig
Guest
Gregory, what should one do if they fall into this trap that Symeon speaks of?
Pax
Stephen
Pax
Stephen
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Gregory_I
Guest
Subject himself to a spiritual Father and live under obedience.
AS the Holy Saint says:
"But you, my friend, if you seek your salvation you should start in this way: after the perfect obedience which we said you should have to your spiritual father, you should then conduct all your deeds with a clear conscience, as if you had God in front of you, for conscience can never be clear without obedience. You should keep your conscience clear towards these things: God, spiritual father, other people and earthly things. Towards God, it is an obligation to keep your conscience clear by avoiding the things you are aware that He neither likes nor give Him any joy. Towards your spiritual father you should do the things he orders you to do, doing nothing more and nothing less, living according to his plan and wish. As for the other people, you should keep your conscience clear by not doing to them any of the things you hate and do not wish them to do to you. Towards the earthly it is your obligation to restrain yourself from abuses, using them all appropriately, food as well as drinking and clothes. In short, you should do everything as if you had God in front of you, making sure that your conscience does not restrain nor condemn you for not doing something right. This is the beginning of the true and firm route of the third way of attention and prayer.
The third way of attention and prayer is then this: the mind should guard the heart in the time of prayer and always stay inside it. From there, from the depths of the heart, it should then lift up the prayers to God. For once it tries inside the heart and tastes and is soothed–as the Lord is good!–then the mind will never want to leave the place of the heart. It will there repeat the words of Peter the apostle: “It is wonderful for us to be here!” [Mt 17:4, Mk 9:5, Lk 9:33] Then it will always wish to look inside the heart, remaining there and pushing aside and expelling all the concepts which are planted by the Devil. To those who have not realised this work of salvation and remain unaware of it, this will most of the times seem very hard and unpleasant. But those who have tasted its sweetness and enjoyed the pleasure inside the depths of their hearts, they all cry together with Paul: “What could ever come between us and the love of God?” [Rm 8:38-39]
Our holy fathers have listened the Lord who said that from the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, perjury, slander [Mt 15:19] and how these are the things that make a man unclean. [Mt 15:20] Further, they have listened to the part of the gospel where we are ordered to clean the inside of cup and dish first so that the outside may become clean as well. [Mt 23:26] They therefore left aside any other spiritual work and concentrated exclusively on guarding the heart, being confident that through this they would easily achieve all other virtues, whilst without it no virtue can be preserved. This practice was called by some fathers ‘serenity of the heart’, whilst others named it ‘attention’, others ‘sobriety’ and ‘detainment’, others ‘examination of the thoughts’ and ‘guarding of the mind’; for they were all absorbed in this, and by this they were found worthy to accept the divine virtues."
What’s so hard about that??
lol.
AS the Holy Saint says:
"But you, my friend, if you seek your salvation you should start in this way: after the perfect obedience which we said you should have to your spiritual father, you should then conduct all your deeds with a clear conscience, as if you had God in front of you, for conscience can never be clear without obedience. You should keep your conscience clear towards these things: God, spiritual father, other people and earthly things. Towards God, it is an obligation to keep your conscience clear by avoiding the things you are aware that He neither likes nor give Him any joy. Towards your spiritual father you should do the things he orders you to do, doing nothing more and nothing less, living according to his plan and wish. As for the other people, you should keep your conscience clear by not doing to them any of the things you hate and do not wish them to do to you. Towards the earthly it is your obligation to restrain yourself from abuses, using them all appropriately, food as well as drinking and clothes. In short, you should do everything as if you had God in front of you, making sure that your conscience does not restrain nor condemn you for not doing something right. This is the beginning of the true and firm route of the third way of attention and prayer.
The third way of attention and prayer is then this: the mind should guard the heart in the time of prayer and always stay inside it. From there, from the depths of the heart, it should then lift up the prayers to God. For once it tries inside the heart and tastes and is soothed–as the Lord is good!–then the mind will never want to leave the place of the heart. It will there repeat the words of Peter the apostle: “It is wonderful for us to be here!” [Mt 17:4, Mk 9:5, Lk 9:33] Then it will always wish to look inside the heart, remaining there and pushing aside and expelling all the concepts which are planted by the Devil. To those who have not realised this work of salvation and remain unaware of it, this will most of the times seem very hard and unpleasant. But those who have tasted its sweetness and enjoyed the pleasure inside the depths of their hearts, they all cry together with Paul: “What could ever come between us and the love of God?” [Rm 8:38-39]
Our holy fathers have listened the Lord who said that from the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, perjury, slander [Mt 15:19] and how these are the things that make a man unclean. [Mt 15:20] Further, they have listened to the part of the gospel where we are ordered to clean the inside of cup and dish first so that the outside may become clean as well. [Mt 23:26] They therefore left aside any other spiritual work and concentrated exclusively on guarding the heart, being confident that through this they would easily achieve all other virtues, whilst without it no virtue can be preserved. This practice was called by some fathers ‘serenity of the heart’, whilst others named it ‘attention’, others ‘sobriety’ and ‘detainment’, others ‘examination of the thoughts’ and ‘guarding of the mind’; for they were all absorbed in this, and by this they were found worthy to accept the divine virtues."
What’s so hard about that??
lol.
S
Stephentlig
Guest
Gregory what if a person could not find a spiritual father? what then?
thanks to Jesus for your posts so far.
Pax
Stephen
thanks to Jesus for your posts so far.
Pax
Stephen
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Gregory_I
Guest
WE are to study the writings of the Holy Scriptures, especially the Psalms and Gospels and the writings of the Holy Fathers, if we do not have recourse to a spiritual Father.
But we must always be prepared to take one as soon as we can. Further, we must pray that God will “lead us not into temptation” but deliver us from the designs of Satan. The main point here is that we have no business being ignorant, we are to be aware of these things and guard them, and always seek out the ideal. A man can do no more than this.
St. Hesychius of Jerusalem says:
“The one whose prayer is not free of all thoughts, does not have weapons for battle. I speak of the kind of prayer that acts unceasingly in the innermost secret place of the soul and battles and scorches the enemy and his secret onslaughts by calling on the Lord Jesus Christ.”
As St. Gregory of Sinai (1260 ad) says:
“When you undertake this excercise of prayer, it is appropriate for you to read only books on teachings about the interior life…namely, by John of the Ladder, Isaac the Syrian, the ascetical works of Maximus the Confessor,Simeon the New Theologion, Hesychios, Philotheus of Sinai, and other similar works. For a time, set aside books on any other subject, not because they are bad, but because it is inappropriate for you to read them while you are involved in this pursuit, and because they can distract your mind from prayer.
…Do not abandon prayer books. Some people strictly adhere to many rules of prayer; some completely abandon prayer books and pray to the Lord only with the prayer of the mind. You, however, should find a middle ground.”
But we must always be prepared to take one as soon as we can. Further, we must pray that God will “lead us not into temptation” but deliver us from the designs of Satan. The main point here is that we have no business being ignorant, we are to be aware of these things and guard them, and always seek out the ideal. A man can do no more than this.
St. Hesychius of Jerusalem says:
“The one whose prayer is not free of all thoughts, does not have weapons for battle. I speak of the kind of prayer that acts unceasingly in the innermost secret place of the soul and battles and scorches the enemy and his secret onslaughts by calling on the Lord Jesus Christ.”
As St. Gregory of Sinai (1260 ad) says:
“When you undertake this excercise of prayer, it is appropriate for you to read only books on teachings about the interior life…namely, by John of the Ladder, Isaac the Syrian, the ascetical works of Maximus the Confessor,Simeon the New Theologion, Hesychios, Philotheus of Sinai, and other similar works. For a time, set aside books on any other subject, not because they are bad, but because it is inappropriate for you to read them while you are involved in this pursuit, and because they can distract your mind from prayer.
…Do not abandon prayer books. Some people strictly adhere to many rules of prayer; some completely abandon prayer books and pray to the Lord only with the prayer of the mind. You, however, should find a middle ground.”
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Zooey
Guest
So is this what sometimes happens with folks who keep seeking out “[emotional] experiences”? It is so easy to be caught up in the feelings of the moment, & with no prayer book to “ground” them, as it were, they can begin to assume that when they “feel good”, that they are growing in spirituality?
(I ask because this is one of the criticisms that I hear about my use of prayer books–that I am somehow cutting myslef off from “experiences”).
G
Gregory_I
Guest
YES, YES, YES, and it is why I am so critical of ROMAN catholic spirituality, because it is totally taken up with an almost romantic relationship with God, especially as set forth in the imitation of Christ.
In fact, there is a story that an Orthodox woman was reading the imitation of Christ, and her Bishop saw her, and took away the book, saying: “Stop playing a romance with God.”
I admit that there are spiritual Giants, like John of the Cross, but there really are not that many like him…maybe the author of the cloud of unknowing…
It’s not that love for God has no role to play, it’s the idea **that our imagination can conjure up a relationship that does not exist. *****That is the WHOLE of spiritual delusion: Conjuring up a non-existant relationship with God. ***can anything really be more terrifying? And then we take our IMAGININGS for INSPIRATION and we deepen this spiral.
THE FATHERS SAY NO!
The road to hell is paved with Visions of Christ. Ask St. Anthony.
"Dear Trudy,
Christ is in our midst.
Prelest is the word in Slavonic for ‘spiritual delusion’; in Greek it is ‘plani’. The glossary at the end of the Philokalia Vol 1 says: “wandering astray, deflection from the right path; hence error, beguilement, the acceptance of a mirage mistaken for truth.”
Sin & sinful passions cause us to live in our own warped version of reality. As Christ said, ‘seeing they do not see, hearing they do not hear,…’ I read something last week that went something like, ‘to turn away from God is to turn away from reality’. This is literally true. The more we repent and struggle against what is sinful in ourselves, thru Christ, we actually ‘see’ things differently from before. It is like coming out of a haze.
In general use (some may not agree with me here)the word ‘prelest’ is usually only used for a very serious fall into sinful delusion, usually caused by persistant refusal to follow the spiritual advice of others who know better; from this we can see that the most dangerous state for us is on-going pride and no repentance (confession). There are some ‘classic’ lives of monks (Kiev Paterikon) which give true accounts of monks who went from pride to worshipping demons they believed to be angels or Christ and from here to madness. Often tho falls into prelest are less ‘dramatic’ even if very harmful.
Nowadays it seems one of the most common forms of attack of the evil one is to get someone to fall away from the Church of Christ thru pride: either from ‘the left’ (self-indulgence, indifference) or from ‘the right’ (zeal not according to righteousness). This tragic path we have all been witneeses to (sadly) so I only mention it so we put on our ‘thinking caps’. First comes refusal to humble oneself (you know better than the priest or other faithful); then comes increasing isolation; this in turn increases how offended the person feels towards others; finally in a high state of haughty prelest and disdain for others the person leaves the Church.“Who could ever stay around such people?”
The warning for us is to turn the ship around- struggle & endure; and oh yes- learn to trust the advice of others
In Christ - Fr R "
THis is from Father Raphael Vereschack on monachos.net/forum/showthread.php?1450-Prelest
In fact, there is a story that an Orthodox woman was reading the imitation of Christ, and her Bishop saw her, and took away the book, saying: “Stop playing a romance with God.”
I admit that there are spiritual Giants, like John of the Cross, but there really are not that many like him…maybe the author of the cloud of unknowing…
It’s not that love for God has no role to play, it’s the idea **that our imagination can conjure up a relationship that does not exist. *****That is the WHOLE of spiritual delusion: Conjuring up a non-existant relationship with God. ***can anything really be more terrifying? And then we take our IMAGININGS for INSPIRATION and we deepen this spiral.
THE FATHERS SAY NO!
The road to hell is paved with Visions of Christ. Ask St. Anthony.
"Dear Trudy,
Christ is in our midst.
Prelest is the word in Slavonic for ‘spiritual delusion’; in Greek it is ‘plani’. The glossary at the end of the Philokalia Vol 1 says: “wandering astray, deflection from the right path; hence error, beguilement, the acceptance of a mirage mistaken for truth.”
Sin & sinful passions cause us to live in our own warped version of reality. As Christ said, ‘seeing they do not see, hearing they do not hear,…’ I read something last week that went something like, ‘to turn away from God is to turn away from reality’. This is literally true. The more we repent and struggle against what is sinful in ourselves, thru Christ, we actually ‘see’ things differently from before. It is like coming out of a haze.
In general use (some may not agree with me here)the word ‘prelest’ is usually only used for a very serious fall into sinful delusion, usually caused by persistant refusal to follow the spiritual advice of others who know better; from this we can see that the most dangerous state for us is on-going pride and no repentance (confession). There are some ‘classic’ lives of monks (Kiev Paterikon) which give true accounts of monks who went from pride to worshipping demons they believed to be angels or Christ and from here to madness. Often tho falls into prelest are less ‘dramatic’ even if very harmful.
Nowadays it seems one of the most common forms of attack of the evil one is to get someone to fall away from the Church of Christ thru pride: either from ‘the left’ (self-indulgence, indifference) or from ‘the right’ (zeal not according to righteousness). This tragic path we have all been witneeses to (sadly) so I only mention it so we put on our ‘thinking caps’. First comes refusal to humble oneself (you know better than the priest or other faithful); then comes increasing isolation; this in turn increases how offended the person feels towards others; finally in a high state of haughty prelest and disdain for others the person leaves the Church.“Who could ever stay around such people?”
The warning for us is to turn the ship around- struggle & endure; and oh yes- learn to trust the advice of others
In Christ - Fr R "
THis is from Father Raphael Vereschack on monachos.net/forum/showthread.php?1450-Prelest
- Status