My dear Mother Valentina!
First of all, seek the Kingdom of God and His truth. Aren’t people able to provide for themselves? If you are able to work physically for the sake of your body, you will likewise be able to work for the sake of your soul. Sure, your heart needs no less care that your vegetable garden does. If man pays his laborers for their work, will the Lord leave those working for him without reward? And you all know how to work for Him. You should just pray and carefully watch yourself, counteract intriguing, do not quarrel over truffles, cede to each other, even if this might be to the disadvantage of your work (ultimately you will gain much more), hurry up to make peace with one another, unveil plots and designs, take the Holy Communion as often as possible, and so on.
Is it possible to combine all these tasks with our daily duties? Not all – because of our weakness- by quite a few are still possible for us to do. When doing nothing, we should at least be regretful and distressed and try to work up a humble spirit, but we should never try to justify our idleness, because self-justification deprives us of spiritual growth. If we do not do what we should and do not tolerate abuses and sorrows and because of that do not feel sorry and do not become humble, then I don’t know what to say. What, in this case, will make us better than non-believers? This is why I beg you all: endure insults and reproaches, injustice done to you by other people, carry burdens of one another, if only just to fill in the lack of spiritual work. First of all we should realize that the insults that we get, that all the griefs that happen to befall us are well deserved. The reward is tally with our deeds.
As you will know, in the last days, salvation will be achieved through desolation. Are we an exception from this law? It was not without reason that the Holy Fathers advised us to think as often as possible about death, about the Judgement Day and about the inevitable account that we will have to give to the Lord for our every deed, for every word, for our every innermost desire, for our slyness and attachment to the ways of the world, for vanity and for all things that we would prefer to conceal, but which are known to God and to our conscience. You should think about this more often.
God bless you all.
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