From the Prologue of Ochrid, for June 29th, according to the Church Calendar, celebrating the Apostles Peter and Paul
Pass the time of your sojourning here in fear (I Peter 1:17).
These are the words of the great Apostle Peter, words that have a dual foundation: heavenly inspiration and personal experience. By divine inspiration, the simple fisherman Peter became a teacher of the people, a pillar of the Faith and a powerful miracle-worker. Through his own experience, he learned that all of his wisdom and power was of God and that one should thus possess the fear of God: no other fear but the fear of God. The fool becomes frightened only when lightning flashes and thunder cracks, but the wise man fears God every day and every hour. The Creator of lightning and thunder is more awesome than both of them, and He does not appear before you from time to time as do lightning and thunder, but He is continually before you and does not leave you.
That is why it is not enough to have fear of God from time to time, but one must breathe the fear of God. The fear of God is the fresh ozone in the suffocating atmosphere of our soul. This ozone brings purity, lightness, sweet fragrance and health. Until he had become strengthened in the fear of God, Peter was only Peter and not an apostle, a hero, a teacher of the people, and a miracle-worker.
O my brethren, let us not rejoice before the harvest. This life of ours is not the harvest, but a time of sowing and labor and sweat and fear. The sower lives in fear until he has gathered the fruits from the field. Let us also delay our rejoicing until the day of harvest, for now is the time for labor and fear. Will I be saved? This question should torment every one of us in the same way that the sower is tormented by the question: Will I reap the fruit of my labor in the field? The sower labors and fears every day. Let us also labor and fear “all the time of our sojourning” on earth.
O awesome and powerful Lord, sustain us in Thy fear. To Thee be glory and praise forever. Amen.
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