Wisdom from: My Life in Christ, St. John of Kronstadt

A Re-sharing: Wisdom from: My Life in Christ, St. John of Kronstadt    Inbox

Dan Everiss <oregdan@hotmail.com> Mon, Nov 14, 2016 at 1:32 PM Reply | Reply to all | Forward | Print | Delete | Show original   "Why does the Lord allow people to be poor? For the same reason, amongst others, that He does not make you righteous all at once according to your wish. God might have made all men well off, even rich; but then a great forgetfulness of God would have arisen, and pride, envy, etc., would have increased. And you would have thought too highly of yourself had the Lord made you soon righteous. But as sin humbles you, showing you your great infirmity, impurity, and constant need of God and His grace, so likewise the poor man is humbled by poverty and his need of other people. If the poor were to be enriched, many of them would forget God and their benefactors, would ruin their souls in the luxury of this world. So destructive are riches, and so do they blind the spiritual vision! They make the heart gross and ungrateful!" (My Life in Christ, St. John of Kronstadt, page 151) "(Thoughts in the street, during a walk, at the sight of the rising moon.): I gratify you in everything, says the Lord: I have created you after Mine own image and likeness; I have made the sun, the moon, and the stars shine for you; I have created the earth with all its fruits for you; I have diffused the air for you to breathe; I have given you fire to light and warm you, and to cook your food; I have given you various kinds of sweet food and drink; I have taught you how to make many and various tissues for your clothing, and have given you materials for this purpose; I have given you gold, silver, copper, and other metals in the bosom of the earth, for money and other objects; I have gathered you together in well-organised communities; I have given you a sovereign after Mine own heart, Mine anointed, My likeness upon earth; lastly, I have given you Mine only Begotten Son - I have given Him to die for you; I have given Him, by His own will, to you for food and drink. I have founded the Church upon the earth under His supremacy; and what have you done and what are you doing for Me? How do you recompense Me for all of My goodness?:  By forgetting Me, by ingratitude towards Me, by denying Me, and  by despising My laws! “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you?”" [Matthew 17:17] (My Life in Christ, St. John of Kronstadt, pages 151, 152)