Bishop Nichifor Horia: Turn From Evil and Do Good
"But fear by itself has a good role in my life - just like suffering and pain. Pain, in reality, shows me that something in me needs healing."
Bishop Nichifor Horia - Turn from evil and do good
Selection from the Q&A section of a conference titled “Turn from evil and do good” held in Cluj, Romania on March 23, 2020
Translated by Grig Gheorghiu
Question:
Can the sins of the parents be inherited by their children, from generation to generation? Can this be a continuation of evil?
Bishop Nichifor:
We know that the Old Testament says initially that “The parents eat sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge” (Ezekiel 18:2). But God then says that it will not be like this anymore.
In fact, we are born from this “leaven” - just as we inherit physical traits or a hereditary illness, so do we inherit certain dispositions of the soul. But you should know that when God chooses someone to bear a cross of atonement for their family and ancestors - even if there are three children in the family, or five, or seven, or nine - the good child, the purest child from that family will always be chosen. Always! You should know that people who have to carry the suffering of their families and ancestors - be it illness or pain - those people always have a special kind of joy.
God never sets His calling into a soul without showing His power - and so we can’t entirely understand these things. In all His commandments, God gave us directions, He didn’t go into tiresome details. Directions that, if we follow them and if we deepen them in our concrete lives, will lead us to God and a better understanding.
There are mysteries in some of these inherited dispositions that we can’t fully comprehend. Such a family heritage can affect us - at least when we are referring to very serious sins, when we are referring to difficult things that happened in that family. However, the one who is to carry such a burden will always also have a special joy and a renewal of the soul - because through that person flows the fresh sap that makes the family tree whole again.
In principle, the answer is “Yes, it is possible”. But it is not necessary nor mandatory. On the contrary, we see in the Old Testament that God said this will not happen anymore. But in practice, such things can happen today too.
Question:
How can we enlarge our hearts at our jobs, when our colleagues often behave badly toward us?
Bishop Nichifor:
Often we only need patience - because these things wear us down. It’s one thing for me to pray and bear the malice of someone who teased me once, and whom I met maybe for the first and last time - and it’s another thing for me to bear repeated vexations from an upstairs neighbor who keeps flooding my apartment, or who hammers nails into the wall at night. This is very hard to bear because it literally wears you down, and it’s hard to assume this thing - especially if you already tried to explain your annoyance to him and reason with him.
In these situations, you simply need patience and prayer - and God will give you strength. God will not make us insensitive, but He will find a solution. But we’ll need to go through a time of patience. Patience has its purpose. The Holy Apostle James also talks about patience which brings trials.
Question:
Do we need a certain measure when doing good?
Bishop Nichifor:
We need to ask God for inspiration in anything we do. Of course, I am thinking now of “with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (Matthew 7:2) - and if we think this way, then of course we will increase our measure when it comes to both almsgiving and forgiveness. At the moment, maybe we think that the measure of our forgiveness is disproportionate to the hurt that someone caused us, or maybe the gift we offer seems disproportionate to someone’s needs, or someone’s gift to me.
But if we set all this in the context of God’s word: “with the measure you use, it will be measured to you”, then we might become more generous in our measure.
Question (from someone named Andrei):
You told us at some point that you have known God’s love. How? Where?
Bishop Nichifor:
Andrei…(laughter in the audience)...God’s love is made known to all of us. Now, of course, I haven’t known God’s love like St. Silouan knew it, who said “God, don’t give me any more grace, because I can’t bear any more!” But each of us, to our measure, is called to know His love and to pray for it.
Each day is proof of God’s love, but each of us, in particular, can discover it in our actual life.
Andrei:
Was there a crucial moment?
Bishop Nichifor:
When we start getting close to God, then every moment of our lives, even moments when we don’t feel anything, all have a purpose. I can learn something through each moment.
The Psalmist was astonished when he said: “I was a brute beast before you, yet I am always with you” (Psalm 73: 22-23), and then “To this I will appeal: the years when the Most High stretched out his right hand.” (Psalm 77:10).
The Psalmist was astonished, as we all are in our times of crisis: “How is it possible, Lord? These people are rich, these people - unfaithful, dishonest - are always wealthy, always honored, with no suffering, no troubles, they don’t feel pain in their toil, they are always proud.” “And now” - he said - “I will abandon the gathering of Your chosen ones, because life is too difficult - look at how good those people’s lives are, and how hard my life is…”
Then he said: “Ah, I’ve started to understand. This is when the Most High stretched out His right hand.” Even in a seeming absence, in moments when we seemingly don’t feel anything - even then there is a purpose there, there is a growth there. At the same time, we need to pay attention and not allow ourselves to get into states where we don’t feel anything, because they can be dangerous.
Question:
Should we expect temptations after we do good? Can temptations follow after we do something good?
Bishop Nichifor:
Of course, temptations can follow after we do something good. Just as they can follow after we do something evil. After all, what do I fear? “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10) - that is to say, it is the fear of weakening in my relationship with the Lord.
When I don’t do good because I fear a temptation, a confrontation with the demon, then there is a betrayal there already, a convenience, a giving up of the fight. And this thought is very dangerous. Fr. Nicolae Steinhardt had this saying: “God forgives us many weaknesses, many half-hearted actions - many sins, I would paraphrase - but the demon doesn’t forgive us any good deed.” And so we can expect temptations and trials - but you should know that they can come even without us doing anything good.
The idea here is that in everything I do, the most important thing is the intention I had when doing it. If I did it for God, then even if a temptation follows, and I fall in that temptation, that is an exam which sooner or later I would have had to take - and I will keep going. Every good deed I have done sets me on a new path.
We grow constantly in our lives, like a child who goes to school. Of course, when I finish fifth grade, I will not stop there - my goal is to go to college. Of course, it will be harder, and harder, and harder - but in this “harder” there is already an understanding of certain strengths I have, there is a certain practice, there are certain confirmations that God is giving me signs that He is by my side. Whereas, if I am always looking for conveniences, if I always avoid temptations and hardships - I will become a weakling.
In fact, the most important thing for me is not a hardship that might come, but God’s will. Any trial that will come my way will extract something good from me - even if I run the risk of not giving an answer appropriate to the measure of that trial. I will take the exam again. You can retake an exam, you know…
Question:
How can we help people who rebel against God because of sorrows and temptations, and they are looking for reasons from us so they can continue to believe in God? People who say - “All our lives we have prayed and God sent us only sorrows and temptations.”
What can we do for these people, can we help them?
Bishop Nichifor:
In our day-to-day lives, we see many nuances - not everything is black and white. We should try to do what we can, with willingness. Sometimes it can be very easy, other times there can be a blockage, because in reality there is not only pain there - that person got used to being a victim, got used to being pitied, he lives as if stuck into a mechanism, he doesn’t want to try something else, he doesn’t want to fight anymore.
This is the same nuance as when someone asks: “If I do good, wouldn’t I suffer temptations? Wouldn’t it be better not to do good anymore? If I have been a believer and I have suffered hardships, wouldn’t it be easier not to believe anymore?” It is as if a small child said: “If I am born and it hurts, and I cry - wouldn’t it be better for me to die?” I think you understand this pattern.
Question:
What should we do to banish our pride after doing good? Some people have said: “Let’s not do good so that we don’t feel proud afterward.”
Bishop Nichifor:
Of course, this is a demonic temptation. It is good to fear pride, but not to be obsessed with it. Every obsession, every obstinacy carries the mark of the demon. The Lord and the angel of the Lord never lead us into obsessions. Every time we talk about God - it’s not about a strong wind or about an earthquake, but about gladsome light. The voice of the angel is not persuasive like a hammer hitting an anvil. Only the voice of the demon is obsessive and constantly engaging the lever of fear.
“Lord, I don’t want to be proud!” I try to behave like this all my life, in everything I do. Will pride come? Then, little by little, the Lord Himself will give me the strength to behave like this. I won’t stop cooking because I am afraid I will burn my dinner to a crisp. I will eat it if it burns to a crisp too!
And if I don’t do good, it doesn’t mean I am exempt from pride! On the contrary. Only by knowing myself in this intimate sphere, by confronting myself, do I begin to sift these impulses of my heart. By reaching a threshold and trying to jump over it, I notice that the height I can jump over is bigger and bigger.
Pride has different layers in us - and little by little, we come to know them. The hardest thing will be when we’ll understand that not all our thoughts come from ourselves. They can be demonic inspirations, wholly foreign to what we believe in, and we don’t need to blame ourselves so much for them. And we must get over these thoughts of pride much quicker as well. The important thing is for us not to feed these thoughts, not to pretend we are someone we are not just to draw someone’s attention to us.
But when I do a good deed, even if I am weak afterward and tell someone else what I did, I repent for talking about it, but not for doing it. The good deed remains.
Question:
You talked about fears. Are fears from the devil - such as the fear of a new beginning, of a new choice?
Bishop Nichifor:
Fear, like pain, has a role in our lives. There is a fear of being unfulfilled - when we say that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”. There is also a fear of not making mistakes, and there is a good fear as well. When these fears become obsessive, when they paralyze me, then I need to look more at their causes.
After all, I need to take seriously even the fear of falling from heights, I need to not defy certain dangers, not take on certain trials with carelessness and immature enthusiasm. In this sense, fear can be legitimate. But not fear which paralyzes my every action.
But fear by itself has a good role in my life - just like suffering and pain. Pain, in reality, shows me that something in me needs healing. My tooth hurts because there is an infection there, and I need to eliminate the infection, and not the pain - I need to eliminate the cause of the pain.