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Elder Philimon: When a Person Feels Like Nothing, God Works Through Him
What the video says
The speaker says that when a person is emptied and feels like nothing, then God works through him. Today, he says, we live in pretense: we call ourselves Christians, but a real Christian feels he is nothing, like an upside-down cockroach in a bathtub, a nobody, a piece of trash. He contrasts this with our actual state: we swell up and deflate, and we cannot even bear being judged by a simple child.
Key moments
- When a person is emptied and feels like nothing, God works in him.
- Today we are Christians only in pretense, says the speaker.
- A true Christian feels he is nothing, like an upside-down cockroach in a bathtub, a nobody, a piece of trash.
- We swell up and deflate, and we cannot tolerate being judged even by a simple child.
Elder Philimon, a elder of the Holy Koinobiotic Skete of the Prophet Elijah on Mount Athos, speaks about the emptiness of the self and the Grace of God. He says that when a person is emptied and feels like nothing, then God works through him. He contrasts this with the present state of Christians: today, he says, we live in pretense and call ourselves Christians, but a real Christian feels he is nothing.
He uses stark images to describe this inner state: a real Christian feels like an upside-down cockroach in a bathtub, a nobody, a piece of trash. Against this, he sets our actual condition: we swell up and deflate, and we cannot even bear being judged by a simple child. The talk is presented under the title about the nihilism of our ego and the Grace of God, and the themes are marked with the tags kenosis, egoism, the Grace of God, faith, Christianity and Orthodoxy.
The full video is available on the Pemptousia website of the Holy Skete. The discussion the talk opens concerns how the self must be emptied, in the sense of kenosis, so that divine Grace can act in a person, and how far our everyday Christian self-image stands from this humility. The elder's words place the measure of true Christianity not in outward identity but in the inner feeling of one's own nothingness before God.
Main points
- Elder Philimon of the Holy Skete of the Prophet Elijah on Mount Athos says that when a person is emptied and feels like nothing, God works in him.
- Today we are Christians only in pretense, he says.
- A true Christian feels he is nothing, like an upside-down cockroach in a bathtub, a nobody, a piece of trash.
- We swell up and deflate, and we cannot tolerate being judged even by a simple child.
- The full video is available on the Pemptousia website.