Should I persevere in the struggle to please God?
St Arsenius lived between the 4th and 5th centuries. He was a dignitary of very high rank in the Roman Empire. On one occasion, while he was praying to God to help him live a holy life, he heard a mystical voice telling him: "Get rid of your sinful attachments and you will be saved".
He did so and entered a monastery. But after he had become a monk, the voice told him: "Arsenius, be silent and pray in the silence of the chapel." So he did.
The monk grew in holiness, and the faithful travelled from far and wide just to listen to his teachings or some helpful advice. All this wisdom came to him from God.
St Arsenius once again heard the mystical voice commanding him: "Persevere in the struggle. Come, I want you to see what many people are doing". The obedient monk came and saw three scenes.
In the first scene, he saw a man chopping wood, tying it up in a heavy bundle, and trying to carry it on his back without success. Strangely enough, this prompted him to cut more wood and add it to the first bundle, only to try to carry it again without success. This action was repeated again and again.
He then spotted another individual drawing water from a well and pouring it into a nearby water tank. The tank had a hole in the bottom that connected to the well, so all the water immediately returned to the well, the source.
Later he saw two men on horseback trying to get a huge beam through the door of a church, sideways, in such a way that it would never fit. Nevertheless, the men insisted and insisted.
Later, the voice explained to St. Arsenius: "The man chopping wood is the example of those sinners who, instead of lessening the burden of their sins through prayer and penance, increase it, falling back into them and adding sin to sin.”
Then, he described to him that the subject who wanted to fill water in the tank with a hole symbolized “lukewarm people who do good deeds and bad deeds, without realizing that the merit they obtain every time they do something good is distorted and annulled and replaced by the loss of merit they incur when they do something bad.”
“Finally, these knights of the beam represent those who presume to be just and upright despite being inwardly full of pride, of being unforgiving, and of never yielding to anything or anyone.
“Those who behave in this way, as long as they do not change their attitude, will be condemned to remain outside the kingdom of God.”
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