Why Your Anxiety Is a Foretaste of Hell in This Life

This homily draws on the famous conversation between St. Seraphim of Sarov and his disciple Motovilov, which Motovilov wrote down and left in his attic where it was discovered only after his death. When Motovilov asked about the aim of the Christian life, St. Seraphim explained that prayer, fasting, and vigils, however good they may be, do not constitute the aim of our Christian life, though they serve as the indispensable means of reaching it. The true aim of the Christian life is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit of God. The Holy Fathers describe three ways people live the Christian life. There are slaves of God who are Christian just to avoid hell, who want fire insurance and go to church twice a year so God will not punish them, but who do not really want to know God or be united to Him. There are servants of God who do good things and are religious but do everything with the goal of getting something from God in return, wanting health and good jobs and good marriages. And there are sons and daughters of God who seek genuine union with Him. It is very easy to slip into the category of servant because you may take your faith seriously but you are constantly thinking about how your faith should make your life better and more convenient. You treat God like a vending machine where you hit E6 but got E7 and think God does not understand what you wanted. You treat Him like a genie whose lamp you rub, hoping He will mysteriously cause your coworker to get in a car accident so they stop bothering you. Your prayers become all about asking God to show up and change things so you do not have to bear your cross. The minute someone martyrs you in your life through a difficult coworker or circumstance, you ask the Lord to martyr them instead of asking why you are being crucified. But the purpose of life is not to establish your own little kingdom, to own a house and pay off your loans and lock down your 401k. None of that constitutes the meaning and depth of life. The meaning of life is found only in knowing God. The Holy Fathers say to look at your spiritual state in this life. If someone wants only to avoid hell but is full of anxiety and fear and depression, emotionally unstable and not doing well, they are experiencing a little hell in this life. If your soul is in turmoil because you are not properly united to Christ, that is indicative not of someone experiencing the deifying power of the Holy Spirit but of someone suffering the foretaste of hell. If you are existing in hell in this life, what will the next life be? Father John Romanides wrote that many church fathers never even thought about heaven and hell because their whole mind was focused on becoming like Christ. They understood that when Christ became a man He opened up human flesh so that it could receive the Holy Spirit, and the great nobility of mankind was that we could be deified like Christ. They knew this would cost them everything, that it was a crucifixion, but they knew they would be united to Christ in that indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The only relationship that makes sense is waking up daily and saying you desire to be united to Christ in being crucified, picking up your cross and following after Him, because you want to know Him and be with Him, and the only way to be with Christ is in that suffering.