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“Let God be all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28). The Lord, as the Creator and Spirit, all-filling, infinite, wants to be all in all (all in all): light, and strength, and grace, and wisdom, and beauty, and extreme desire, and all-powerful desire, and the devil, fallen by pride and disobedience, also wants to be all in all fallen spirits of the same mind with him: the darkness of hell and the power of evil, all the vices and desire for everything evil. From here comes a constant struggle against evil in people, and a Christian man, who has been given all the strength for life and piety, must emerge victorious by the grace of God from this stubborn and cruel struggle, sometimes to the point of death, as was the case with the martyrs. The runners on the lists all run, but one receives the reward. So run, you Christians, to receive (1 Cor. 9:24). For our fight against sin for the sake of the eternal life, God has allowed the will of disembodied enemies to deceive us, so that by fighting them we can regain that state of fidelity, obedience and devotion that we lost in paradise, and through the fight against sin, illness and various misfortunes (as Job strengthened his soul in virtue) to be worthy of our Lord, to whom we turned out to be unfaithful and traitors in paradise. “He tested them and found them worthy of Him... and accepted them as an all-perfect sacrifice” (Wis. 3:5, 6) (3). You never know what kind of evil is in your soul, but “not everything that is in the oven comes to the table.” Let it be known to God alone, who knows everything secret and hidden, and do not show people all your impurities, do not infect them with the breath of the evil hidden in you, close the stove: let the smoke of evil die in you. Tell God your sadness, that your soul is full of evil and your life is close to hell, and show people a bright, gentle face. What do they care about your madness? Or declare your illness to your confessor or friend, so that they can enlighten you, instruct you, and hold you back (6). “And a weapon will pierce your own soul, so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:35). This happened with the Mother of God in all the power of the spoken words, it also happens with other people, kind and God-fearing, and their heart is pierced by weapons in order for the heartfelt thoughts of the people touched by them to be revealed, that is, the Lord sometimes puts them in such a relationship with people who hide a lot of evil in their souls, but do not reveal it, that they involuntarily speak out from the excess of internal evil, their lips begin to speak, and this evil is like an unclean stream or like a whole river flows from their lips. Then they begin to do things that are not worthy of the human name, and only then do people learn what these people, who were previously considered smart, educated and respectable, were like in themselves (6). Every person who does any evil, satisfies any passion, is sufficiently punished by the evil he commits, by the passion with which he works, and most importantly, by the fact that he departs from God and God departs from him; therefore, to harbor evil towards this person would be extremely insane and extremely inhuman; this means drowning a person who is already drowning, pushing into the fire someone who is already being consumed by flames. To such a person, as if he were perishing, one must show deep love and fervently pray to God for him, and not condemn him, not gloat about his misfortune (6). Where would there be a place for struggle, for exploits, for virtue, if we were not harmed by our neighbors, if we were not offended? Where would there be a place for tolerance of insults, meekness and humility? You see that we need to experience many different evils in order to demonstrate our virtue and receive crowns (6). Every person on earth is sick with sinful fever, sinful blindness, possessed by the rage of sin; and since sin primarily consists of anger and pride, then every person, as suffering from the disease of sin, must be treated with meek love - an important truth that we often forget; we often, very often act contrary to it: we add anger to anger with our embitterment, and we rebuff pride with pride. This is how evil grows with us, and does not decrease; does not get treated, but becomes more infected. Lord, have mercy on us, have mercy on humanity! (7) Remind yourself more often that evil is in you, and not in people. With such a completely true conviction, you will protect yourself from many sins and passions. Our trouble is often that we attribute our evil to others (7). It is a great thing not to resist evil with evil, not to give room to any evil in your soul, not even for one minute, but to constantly overcome evil with good and every sin with corresponding repentance and prayer; for it is reckless and disastrous to strengthen evil with evil and, so to speak, to add fuel to the fire and make a flame out of a small fire. Evil or any sin is the greatest disaster, misfortune, misfortune of the human race, which must be bitterly regretted and which must be eradicated, if possible, with goodness, love, prayer, exhortation, charity or righteous punishment (8). You might be interested in: