Saturday, but does knowing the day of the week make any difference?

Good day my brothers and sisters. To lots of humans it does. Many will have worked - lots spending their time occupied doing that which they only would do in payment of money. As I am typing this its approaching 7.30 am and be and Buster have already been over Popes meadow. So a little physical exercise for me and more for him. Now I am back I have been in a little prayer. Many people believe its only humans that can be in prayer to God. No, that's both arrogant and limiting Gods power in our understanding. The whole of creation can praise the creator. Yet actually its many humans which deny and have no great link with God. Many of the higher mammals live in synchronisation with the Holy Spirit and often experience pure bliss in their lives. Mankind though, how wretched can our lives be at time and what cruelty we can wreak. World wars and genocide. Torturing people and the burning to death of many of our brother and sister saints. Still we must be like Jesus and pray out loud, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do."



  A time for suffering and ascetic effort

 However just and pure a man may be, there is always and element of sin in
 him which cannot enter the Kingdom of God and which must be burned up.
 Our sins are burned up by our sufferings.
   Our love of God is measured by our willingness to accept sufferings and
 misfortunes and to see in them the hand of God. We can find support in the
 fact that these sufferings are also the measure of the love that God bears us.
  Sweat, tears, blood . . . If sweat is accompanied by inner rebellion, anger,
 murmuring;  if tears are caused by pain,  offence,  rage;  if blood is shed
 without faith - the soul will not obtain any benefit. But if all this is accomp-
lished in a spirit of obedience, contrition and faith, it purifies and elevates us.
  
    The world is crooked and God straightens it. That is why Christ suffered
 (and still suffers), as well as all the martyres, confessors and saints - and we
 who love Christ cannot but suffer as well.
    Illness has taught me a great deal. (as it did me. My wife taking her life
 and leaving me with a brain injury. Peter G Kimble) It has confirmed me
 even more deeply in the conviction that if a man is with Christ, then he is
 with suffering, and that there is not other way for the Christian than the way
 of pain, inward and outward. And as I thought of the innocent suffering in
 the world, I said to myself that through such undeserved, innocent suffering
 the invisable Kingdom of God is built up, his suffering Body - the Church of
 God - is created and gatered together into unity.
                                                       FATHER ALEXANDER ELCHANINOV

 I dont know if I have mentioned to you. I find when reading that which I believe to be knowledgable for me learn, it can be absorbed into a deeper level of ourseves when copied down by us! I dont think that the only reason monks copied out spiritual texts, such as the bible, was because printing presses hadnt been invented.

Okay, I must go now, leaving one son punching away on the punchbag. Ironic, slightly that I now say, peace and love to you. Your brother Peter.