{"id":5973,"date":"2019-01-13T12:04:08","date_gmt":"2019-01-13T17:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/?p=5973"},"modified":"2019-01-05T09:06:45","modified_gmt":"2019-01-05T14:06:45","slug":"elder-joseph-of-vatopaidi-on-rewards-of-struggle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/?p=5973","title":{"rendered":"Elder Joseph of Vatopaidi+ on Rewards of Struggle"},"content":{"rendered":"<div data-contents=\"true\">\n<div class=\"\" data-block=\"true\" data-editor=\"a4ufm\" data-offset-key=\"6ib86-0-0\">\n<div class=\"_1mf _1mj\" data-offset-key=\"6ib86-0-0\">\u201cOur Lord promises to those who wish to follow Him with the appropriate self denial, a hundredfold reward in this life and His eternal kingdom in the afterlife. By \u2018hundredfold\u2019 reward He does not mean the physical goods or peoples\u2019 appreciation, but the spiritual gifts which freshen the soul, and the supernatural contemplations which render us capable of communicating with the divine mysteries. Since \u201cthe kingdom of God is within us\u201d ( Luke 17, 21) it does not hide its mysteries from the one who heeds its precepts, but responds to the silent exhalations of his heart in a motherly way, and reveals to him what is in store in the future for him. It also shows him those who lived before him and how they are now participating in the divine glory to the measure of their adequacy. The fruits of the Holy Spirit, the divine gifts which are the strength of the Church, are shared amongst the god-loving and hard-working fighters. It is in this way that those who live insignificant and despised lives during the period of their struggle become honest and respected later because they offer support and comfort to the faithful since they have been \u201cinstructed by God\u201d and \u201cbring out of their storeroom new treasures as well as old\u201d ( Matthew 13, 52).&#8221;<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"\" data-block=\"true\" data-editor=\"a4ufm\" data-offset-key=\"5op6f-0-0\">\n<div class=\"_1mf _1mj\" data-offset-key=\"5op6f-0-0\"><span data-offset-key=\"5op6f-0-0\">~\u2018Practical Repentance and its Fruits\u2019<\/span><\/div>\n<div data-offset-key=\"5op6f-0-0\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-5974\" src=\"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/1200px-Mount_Athos_7698222302-300x215.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"215\" srcset=\"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/1200px-Mount_Athos_7698222302-300x215.jpg 300w, https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/1200px-Mount_Athos_7698222302-768x551.jpg 768w, https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/1200px-Mount_Athos_7698222302-1024x735.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/1200px-Mount_Athos_7698222302.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cOur Lord promises to those who wish to follow Him with the appropriate self denial, a hundredfold reward in this life and His eternal kingdom in the afterlife. By \u2018hundredfold\u2019 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-modern-orthodox-elders","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5973"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5975,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5973\/revisions\/5975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}