St. Dimitri Klepinine on the free will that accomplishes the will of God…

Saint Dmitri Klepinine:  Notebook entry 4 September 1926.  St. Dmitri was glorified by the Church in Constantinople together with Mother Maria Skobtsova and others in 2004.

The cell of our spiritual deepening is not a closed cave where we cut ourselves off from the world, but it is a temple with transparent walls built upon a hill from where we [from inside] see better that which is around us than when we were outside the temple.  The more we penetrate into the sanctuary of this temple, the more we remove ourselves from the world, the more we free ourselves from our blindness and of all presumptions regarding our vision of the world; our pitiable and vain intelligence becomes, in the process of becoming humble, a spirit of God. In sacrificing our self love, we acquire the free will of one who accomplishes the will of God.  In effect, the one who accomplishes the will of God is not left to be tormented by such questions as ‘what to do?- to pray and fast or to serve one’s neighbor?’ [Rather] he follows the injunctions of the Holy Spirit who invisibly touches the conscience.

 

(Translated from the French by Father Robert M. Arida.  Quotations taken from Et La Vie Sera Amour: Destin et letters du Pere Dimitri Klepinine par Helene Arjakovsky-Klepinine, pp. 70 et 76)