There is a place deep within the heart of a person into which Satan cannot see, neither penetrate (for, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God). And there, the troubled soul can find a peace which passes all understanding; there the wounds from the arrows of the evil-one can find balm and healing, and the arrows cannot penetrate there to wound one again. Here, one does not pray with words or even with actions, but one weeps and the teardrops themselves are prayer and confession and rejoicing and hope fulfilled. Here, there is already a communication between God and the soul which is outside the realm of the laws of nature. Here, every thought is known and every movement of the heart is incense rising up up to the Creator. Here, one finds the Holy Spirit and understands something of the potential of the soul which longs to cooperate with God’s Grace, and perceives that only its sins form a barricade to that complete cooperation which it so earnestly desires. Here, one cannot remain, no matter how one longs to – longs even to die if, by that, it could remain in this deep place in the heart, being “this day in paradise with Me”. And this, of course, is only a shadow of what is yet to come for those who persevere to the end.
Archbishop Lazar Puhalo