Dear Brother Christopher,

Greetings in our Lord Jesus Christ.

We were glad to hear that you are somehow surviving and struggling a little. May God be your help!

Do not be afraid to confess the fleshly sins. Do you think that you are so holy? God allows you to fall in order to humble you. Get up and walk in fear and trembling. Struggle against them, but do not despair, no matter what happens. Strength in Orthodox firmness comes very gradually; what you do every day helps build it up; and if you fall, humility and self-awareness build it up.

Thomas Reszke lives right at the cathedral on North Kedzie (in the basement, 1 think). He didn’t seem to find what he was looking for with us.

We’ll probably be having a few summer laborers, including a catechumen or two. We have three fawns already, although they haven’t been officially “presented” to us yet—we saw them by accident, but Slim and Afosya haven’t brought them into the monastery yet.

Please pray for us especially on the day of Archbishop John’s repose, June 19/July 2. We need his help to keep going in the true path in the darkening atmosphere.

Keep in contact. The struggles of each of us may seem lonely, but if we share them a little, we begin to feel the warmth and love of God’s Kingdom already on earth. Even a taste of that can keep us going.

With love Christ our Saviour,
Seraphim, monk