War

Today the USA announced its bombing of three locations in Iran, including Iran’s main nuclear enrichment site, located under a mountain in Fordow. How far will things go?

Here is the only way I know of to have peace: live every day as if tomorrow you will face death, where it will be too late for repentance, too late for a change of heart. As St. Isaac the Syrian says^[1]:

Take hold of your life before your light grows dark and you seek help and do not find it. This life has been given to you for repentance; do not waste it in vain pursuits.

Woe to us! We neither realize just how valuable our soul is, nor comprehend the type of life we have been called to lead. We place great significance on this present life, on illnesses, on the state of society, and on the sorrows, evils, and comforts of this world.

However, blessed is the person, O Lord Jesus Christ, who receives help from You. You, O Lord, are the only powerful One. Turn our faces away from the desire for this world so that we may covet You alone. Grant us, O Lord, understanding, so that we may comprehend just how deceitful this present world is, and so that we do not believe in this shadow as if it were the truth.

Seek the Lord, and be strengthened through hope. Seek His face through repentance, and you will be sanctified and cleansed from your sins, on account of the sanctity of His face. Hasten to the Lord, all of you who are guilty of sins, for He is able to forgive sins and overlook mistakes. For He made an oath and declared thus: “I live, says the Lord. I do not desire the death of the sinner until he repents from his evil way and lives” (Ez. 13:23).

May we not be tested beyond what we can bear, and may we have indestructible peace that is not of this world.