Advice for the Married Life

Fr. Ambrose gave the following advice to a couple about to be married and begin family life: "You must always remember that our lives will only pass peacefully and happily if we do not forget ourselves or God, our Creator and Redeemer, the Giver of everything good—temporal and eternal. Not forgetting Him means trying to live according to His divine and life-giving commandments; and when we break them because of our infirmity, to sincerely repent and to set about straightway to correct our mistakes and departures from those commandments."

"If spouses always shared equally in a Christian manner the burden of their lives," the Elder wrote in another letter, "then life would be good for people even on earth. But since spouses are often slack, one or both of them, our earthly happiness is not enduring."

- Fr. Ambrose of Optina

Reference: http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/47530.htm 

Expect Temptation

"This is the great work of a person: always to take the blame for one's own sins before God and expect temptation to one's last breath."

- Abba Antony

Reference: Chryssavgis, John, and Kallistos Ware. In the Heart of the Desert: The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers. World Wisdom Books, 2008. Print. 

Atheism and Rebelliousness

To a mother who grieved over her son's atheism and rebelliousness, Fr. Ambrose wrote: "You wrote that you were disturbed when the beggar to whom you gave alms, asking him to pray for your son, prayed for the repose of his soul. Do not be disturbed at this. Nothing could have happened or is happening to your son because of a beggar's mistake and misunderstanding. And there is nothing greater or better to wish for someone than that they be made worthy in their time of the heavenly kingdom. If in your sorrow over your son you have sometimes thought that it would be better that he were dead than living as he does, then you should reproach yourself for it and give yourself and your son over in complete faith to the will of the all-good and all-wise God. If the Lord extends one's days, then He is bestowing benefactions; if He should cut short one's days, then He bestows just the same. In general, according to the sayings of the holy Church, the Lord in the depths of His wisdom dost provide all things out of love for mankind, and grantest unto all that which is profitable.[1] Therefore, there is nothing better or more profitable for mankind than devotion to God's will, and the ways of God are unfathomable. You know that we ourselves are in many ways guilty in that we did not know how to raise our son as we should have. Self-reproach is profitable, but you must be aware of your guilt, humble yourself and repent, and not be distressed and in despair. Neither should you be over-troubled by the thought that you exclusively are the involuntary cause of your son's present condition. This is not altogether true—every person is endowed with free will and must answer for himself before God.

"You ask if you should not write to your son in Moscow, and how you should write to him in order to touch his heart. Write briefly to him at first just to find out where he is. When you find him, you can write him in more detail. Then you can tell him that now he has learned through his own experience what atheism and rebellion leads to; that, in craving unbridled freedom he forgot that from sin, especially in defiance of one's parents, came slavery itself, which had not existed before on earth, and so on. Having prayed to God, write as the Lord puts it in your heart to do.... In general you should not be concerned now so much with enlightening him as with praying for him, so that the Lord Himself, through ways known only to Him, would enlighten him. Great is the power of a mother's prayer. Remember how Blessed Augustine's pious mother's prayers drew her son out of such a depth of evil. And as you pray for your son pray also for yourself, that the Lord would forgive you for whatever sins you may have unknowingly committed."

[1]From the Pannikhida, or Requiem service.-Ed.

- Elder Ambrose of Optina

Reference: http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/47530.htm 

The Serpent

"...there is a serpent by the wayside watching those who pass by:  beware lest he bite thee with unbelief.  He sees so many receiving salvation, and is seeking whom he may devour."

- Saint Cyril of Jerusalem

Sorrows and Torments

"I know that you have many sorrows and much domestic unpleasantness. But tell yourself, enlighten yourself with the remembrance that in hell it is much worse, more wearying and doleful, and there is no hope of deliverance from it. If a person endures sorrows with submission to God's will, confessing his sins, then he will, through this, be delivered from eternal torments. Therefore we had better endure troubles here, no matter how difficult they are, turning our grief over to God and praying to Him with humility that He deliver us from faintheartedness and despair, which are the worst of all sins."

- Elder Ambrose of Optina

Reference: http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/47530.htm

The Storm

“This present age is a storm; and it is only through many trials and temptations that we can obtain an inheritance in the kingdom of heaven.”   

- Amma Theodora

Reference: Chryssavgis, John, and Kallistos Ware. In the Heart of the Desert: The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers. World Wisdom Books, 2008. Print. 

Suffering

To another mother who grieved over her daughter's illness, the Elder wrote: "I have heard that you are grieving beyond measure, seeing your sick daughter's suffering. Truly, it is humanly impossible for a mother not to grieve when she sees her little one in such pain and suffering day and night. In spite of that, you should remember that you are a Christian who believes in the future life and the future blessed reward not only for labors, but also for voluntary and involuntary suffering. Therefore, you must not become unreasonably faint­hearted and sorrowful beyond measure, like the pagans or unbelievers who believe in neither eternal blessedness nor eternal punishment. No matter how great are the involuntary sufferings of your little child S., they cannot after all be compared to the voluntary sufferings of the martyrs; and if they do compare, then she is equal to them and will receive a blessed state in the paradisal abodes. By the way, you must not forget also about our twisted times, in which even little children's souls are damaged by what they see and hear, and therefore require cleansing, which cannot occur without suffering. The cleansing of the soul happens most often through physical suffering. Let us suppose that there was no damage to the soul. Even so, you must know that paradisal blessedness is not given to anyone who has not first suffered. Do even the tiniest infants pass into the future life without sickness or suffering? By the way, I do not write this way because I wish that the suffering child S. would die, but I write particularly for your consolation, enlightenment, and true persuasion, not to grieve unreasonably and beyond measure. No matter how much you love your daughter, you must know that our all-good God, Who uses any means for our salvation, loves her more than you do. He Himself bears witness in the Holy Scripture as to His love for every believer, saying: Can a woman forget her suckling child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee (Is. 49:15). Therefore try to calm your sorrowing over your sick daughter, turning this sorrow over to God: Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself(Eph. 1:9). I advise you to commune your daughter following a confession. Ask the confessor to question her wisely and carefully during the confession."

- Elder Ambrose of Optina

Reference: http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/47530.htm