5.3

Therefore take care, my children, lest Paul’s saying be fulfilled in you: “Having a form of godliness, but denying its power.” Let each of us, then, rend his own heart, weeping before Him and saying, “What shall I give back to the Lord for all the good He has given me?” Again I fear, my children, lest this saying be fulfilled in you: “What profit is there in my blood when I go down into corruption?”

Truly, my children, I speak to you as to wise people so that you may understand what I say to you. Only when each of you has stripped off all the dust of this material nature, renounced it and all its activity with the whole heart, and stretched the hands of the heart upward to the Father of all—and when He Himself is moved with compassion by that person’s labor, gives him the invisible fire that burns every impurity away from him, and purifies the principal spirit itself—does He then make His Holy Spirit dwell with us, so that we may dwell with the Father as we ought. For as long as we give way to material nature, we stand as enemies of the angels of God and of His saints.