We have to go to Liturgy, even if we stand there like stumps. Some will say: “I’m not how I should be. I don’t understand any of it. My mind can’t concentrate there.” But go, no matter what. One elder said: “When you stop into a perfume store, your clothes smell fragrant after you leave, even if you didn’t buy anything.” This is what happens, he says, when you go to Liturgy.
Maybe you won’t be able to do anything spiritual, but even the fact that you went, that you stood there like a stump—that’s already something. So tell yourself: “I’ll go as I am an unhewn log. After all, God knows how to hone down the unhewn log.” And if you don’t go because you say, “I can’t, I can’t concentrate,” then everything will get worse and worse, and you’ll never get better.
Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol
