115- Tragedy in the Honey

Once, a young man asked me, "Why doesn’t God permit the thoughts which give us sexual pleasure? They don’t hurt anyone. I can’t sleep without having such thoughts, even for few minutes. What is wrong in sexual thoughts as long as they don’t lead to wrong practices?"

To such young man, I tell the following story which I inducted from some phrases by St. Augustine.

In the spring, we see the trees blooming and enjoy nice smells from the fields. A bee spread its wings and was flying to the next field from one flower to the other with great freedom.

The scene was very beautiful and the smell compelling, while the bee was working hard to collect the juice and carry it to the honey cells, and come back to collect more.

The bee remained many days collecting the juice with great joy until the amount of honey was great.

One day, the bee found some honey in a container. It stopped to meditate over it and said,

 "How sweet is the honey that I collected! Why do I fly any more to collect more of it? Why don’t I enjoy this honey and live in it?"

The bee threw itself in the honey and at once became unable neither to get out of it nor to fly between the flowers. Soon it died in the honey.

This is not fiction; it is the story of many people. Instead of carrying the free thought, which sails by the Spirit to collect pure juice, they fall under the pleasure of desires. Then the thought loses its freedom, its balance and its superiority and gets stuck in the desires, which kill the soul.

God gave you mind in order to elevate you and raise you to heavenly joy, not to sink in the honey of desires which destroys it and the life which is inside you.

I thank You Lord, You, Who granted me the gift of thinking,

And presented me a spirit with two wings by which my thoughts fly.

I rise to You and throw myself in Your bosom.

Grant me that my thoughts collect pure juice.

Do not permit that I sink in the honey like the bee.

My Lord grant me to control my thoughts,

Not my thoughts control me.

Purify my will in You,

Then it will direct my thoughts towards You by Your grace.

Let not my thoughts destroy my will,

Making me a slave to corrupting lusts.

Do not remove from my memory the scene of the bee, which perished in the honey.

→ English translation of the story here at St-Takla.org: مأساة في عسل النحل!

WHEN DOES MY BEING AND NOT MY TONGUE

SAY THE "LORD’S PRAYER"?

I confess to You Lord that I lie to You when I pray the "Lord’s Prayer" with my mouth and not by my whole being:

* Grant me that I do not live for myself only and that my inside cries out with the voice of the group, "Our Father...”

* I do not carry the icon of Your Son yet, how can I then call You as a son and say, "Father?"

* I have not yet transferred my treasures to heaven, so why do I say, "Who art in heaven?"

* Let my inside cry, "Yes, come...Lord Jesus, "Thy kingdom come."

* Grant me to listen to the Divine Word, doing Your will: "Thy Will be done."

* Remove any pleasure inside me, and then I ask for the heavenly bread: "Give us this Day Our daily Bread."

* Woe to me, as I carry hateful thoughts, why then I lie when I say, "As we Forgive those who trespassed against us?"

* I often do not care about my salvation, how can I cry, "Lead us not into temptation?"

* Grant me to have the perfect weapon of God so I can truly say, "Deliver us from Evil."

* May You be the King of my soul, then it rejoices in You saying, "Thine is the Kingdom."

* Take away from me every human glory so that I sing, "Thine is the Glory."

* Save me from the dust of this earth then I praise You, "For Ever. Amen."

It Doesn’t Love me

Short Stories (Stories for the Youth) Books by Father Tadros Yacoub Malaty

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