With Pain and Love for Contemporary Man: The Spiritual Counsels of St. Paisios the Athonite - Volume 1

The New Generation - Part 11 of 18

“If freedom is not put to good use, it is worth nothing. All it brings is disaster. This is why the country is headed in the wrong direction. Can today’s people make good use of the freedom given to them? When freedom does not serve the cause of true progress, the result is catastrophe. Combined with secular progress, this sinful freedom has given rise to spiritual slavery. True spiritual freedom is spiritual obedience to the will of God. But you see, whereas it is obedience that will give us true freedom, the tempter, out of malice, presents it as enslavement. And so our youth today, who have been poisoned by the spirit of rebellion, reject obedience. … Have you any idea [of the severe emotional, financial and personal hardships] that we [soldiers] experienced when we were discharged from the army [when the Guerrilla War (against the communists) ended in 1950]? … If today’s youth were in our place, they would have burned Larisa, Thessalonike and the entire province of Macedonia to the ground. Although they face nothing compared to what we had to go through, they still do takeovers, destroy property… I cannot help comparing today’s youth with the young men I knew then … Look how the world has changed [The Saint offered this teaching more than 30 years ago. What would he say about the young adults in Greece and the USA today?].”