Divine Dialogue: Embracing Spiritual Renewal through the Holy Scriptur
The role of the Holy Scripture is that it becomes for the believer an inexhaustible source of divine wisdom and spiritual inspiration, guiding one in the pursuit of perfection through prayer and repentance. Reading the Holy Word is seen as a living dialogue with Christ himself, through which new truths are revealed that foster the purification of the soul and continuous spiritual growth. In this process, prayer helps to establish a close connection with God, and repentance serves as a means of rejecting the former, “decayed” state, enabling the emergence of a new self, renewed by the grace of God.Spiritual strength is also drawn from reading the Word of God. When we pray, we converse with God, and when we read the sacred Gospel, the Lord Jesus Christ himself speaks with us, showing us how to live and be saved. From this Holy Book, we can continually draw, as if from an inexhaustible source, quenching the thirst of our soul by uncovering ever new truths that aid us in the pursuit of spiritual perfection. Every Orthodox Christian must understand that to achieve the spiritual perfection to which Christ himself calls us—“Be perfect, just as your Father is perfect”—one must work continuously and diligently upon oneself. In this endeavor, we are assisted by the grace of the Holy Spirit, which we must gather, as if attracting its influence, through fasting, prayer, repentance, Holy Communion, and through the ability to forgive and love everyone with pure Christian love. (source: link txt)