If you pray in the morning as you should, your whole day will be blessed. Don’t be downcast over efforts that seem fruitless. Remember how you learned to knit, or read and write. What efforts you made then… Now you can do all of these things easily. The same will be true of your spiritual development. For the moment, it seems difficult to defeat bad thoughts. But it’ll become easier over time.
The feasts of the Mother of God are a matter of joy for the whole Church. Our Lady, who is honoured at these, is the person who glorified the whole of the human race when she answered God’s invitation to participate in His incarnation, thus ushering in the dawn of the time of our salvation. The feast of the Entry of the Mother of God reminds us that Our Lady is the most important person in the task of our salvation. Without her presence, our return to paradise would have been nigh impossible. This feast was established in the 6th century, in Jerusalem, on the basis of the ancient tradition of the Church and is also mentioned in texts by Saint Sofronios ...
Some people say, and believe they’re right in doing so, that we should ‘get along well with everybody’, meaning our behaviour shouldn’t cause people not to like us and that we should be friends with everybody. But do Christians who wish to have Christ in their lives really have this as their aim? Saint Paul advises: ‘If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all’. (Romans 12, 18), hinting that it isn’t actually possible to have peaceful relations with everyone, even though that’s what we would prefer. In another Epistle (2 Cor. 13, 11), Saint Paul urges us to ‘agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with ...
We have weaknesses, passions and faults deeply rooted within us, many of which are also inherited. These can’t be cut off by any spasmodic effort, nor by worrying or stressing about them, but only by patience and persistence, by endurance, by care and attention. Excessive sorrow conceals pride. This is why it’s harmful and dangerous. It’s often exacerbated by the devil to throw us off course.
In this selection from the Apostle Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, he compares the spiritual state of a person who follows the Mosaic Law with the higher spiritual state a person rises to when they believe in Christ. Because from a spiritual point of view, we are babies who need to be taught until we reach a mature spiritual age. This “tutoring” was done by the Mosaic Law. Its purpose was to prepare the people for the coming of Christ in the world, so that they would be able to believe in Him. Now those who have known the Messiah Christ, have no need to live narrowly behind walls, abiding by the formal provisions of the Law. We are free ...
The case of the prominent Jew who had observed all the commandments of Mosaic Law from the time of his youth is one we can easily relate to. He asks Jesus what remains for him to do in order to gain eternal life. Jesus knows what it is that usually binds people to earth, so He answers: ‘You’re missing one thing: sell everything you’ve got and give the money to the poor and, in that way, you’ll have treasure in heaven. Then come and follow me on the difficult path of the cross’. There’s no doubt that this prominent Jew was a devout person, since he’d observed the Law and had within himself the desire for perfection. But the Law of ...
Many people talk about glorification in the abstract. What’s important is that we should keep Christ’s commandments and in this way we’ll arrive at deification and the light. We’re no longer susceptible to the passions after comes into our soul and body.
Apart from its profound theological significance, the great feast of the Entry of the Mother of God has also been a source of inspiration and poetry for Holy Tradition. This is why it has been embellished with one of the most beautiful services in the annual cycle. High points of the service, which have become etched on soul and memory of the faithful who attend, are the hymns from the canon for Christmas, which are part of Matins for this feast of the Mother of God. Hieromonk Maximos Vatopaidinos sings the first stanzas of the first and ninth odes- ‘Christ is born, glorify…’- in the slow mode setting by Matthaios Vatopaidinos. Your browser does not support the audio element.
We must constantly renew our determination to live by Christ’s commandments, we must pray for His help, we must humble ourselves when we stray, we must accept the fact that we are weak and not become exasperated with ourselves. We are incapable of conquering, so why demand of ourselves that which the Lord alone can give? Why bemoan the fact that we are unable to rise above ourselves? Such demands for spiritual perfection reveal our pride. Let us wait for all things from the One Lord and use our failures and sinfulness to fervently humble ourselves.
One of the most important problems facing us over recent years has been the ecological crisis and environmental problems which are afflicting our planet. Ecological changes have always existed and are the result either of natural disasters and changes in the environment, often resulting in new ecological balances in nature, or people’s careless exploitation of the natural environment in order to satisfy their needs, without any consideration of the damage they’re causing. The present ecological crisis has been caused by a break in the relationship between people and nature, a rupture which made its appearance with the anthropocentric perspective on life, where people view nature as a natural tool-shed which they can use at will. From ancient times, people gradually began ...
Our thoughts are bad and this is why we don’t bring in a good harvest. We have to change. Each one of us needs to change, but it’s a pity we don’t have examples to guide us, either in our families or in society at large.
Were one to attempt to describe in a single sentence the role and aim of the Church, one might say that ‘The aim of the Church is to manifest God to the world’. In order to achieve this aim, the Church uses theology, which expresses the faith of the Church in two ways: either with words or images. But the potential of both words and deeds to make God manifest is necessarily very limited, which is why, if we’re going to understand their content properly, any approach to them needs to be made with great care and with due appreciation of the requirements involved. A typical example of the use of images to express the faith of the Church is ...
What can be more wonderful and pleasant than love for your neighbour? To be able to love is bliss, to hate is torture. Love for your neighbour is the path that leads to God, because Christ, the true God, was pleased to be mystically embodied in each of our neighbours.
Father Gheorghe Calciu (November 23, 1925 – November 21, 2006) I spoke of Your testimonies before kings, and I was not ashamed (Psalm 118:46). Father Gheorghe Calciu was born in the Danube Delta, in Mahmudia, where the propitious blend between the land’s richness and the sky’s beauty reflected into the pious hearts of the countrymen. That blessed place, which Father loved tenderly until the end of his life, fostered the love for God and nation in his soul —a love which later brought him as far as the confession of martyrdom. Since the time he was in school and while yet a student at the Spiru Haret High School in Tulcea, Father chose to serve the suffering; exceptionally gifted in literature, famous among ...
It seems thousands of years removed from us, but it was not so very long ago that life was marked out by religious feasts. Although everyone went to church, not everyone, of course, knew the exact contents of each celebration. For many, perhaps even the majority, the feast was above all an opportunity to get a good sleep, eat well, drink and relax. And nevertheless, I think that each person felt, if not fully consciously, that something transcendent and radiant broke into life with each feast, bringing an encounter with a world of different realities, a reminder of something forgotten, of something drowned out by the routine, emptiness and weariness of daily life. Consider the very names of the feasts: Entrance ...
Slander is the most disgusting form of hatred and wickedness and the most painful wound for those who suffer it. Slander’s the defensive weapon of inferiority. Because it can’t conceal its nakedness and meanness of spirit, it attempts to blacken those who are superior, in order to vindicate itself- or so it thinks. Since it’s a false and unjust plot, it’s the worst wound for those who suffer it.
If you need to go through a thick forest or a reed-bed, you have to use your hands to push aside the twigs, branches, bushes, all the impediments in order to forge a path and make your way forward. This is what should happen in our soul, as well, with sinful thoughts: we should push them aside and move on.
1. I mentioned to you on another occasion, my Christian friends, that our Church, like the caring mother it is, uses this period of winter- when living conditions have always been difficult- to present us with Sunday Gospel readings that sharpen our awareness of our brothers and sisters who are suffering. So, last Sunday we heard about the Good Samaritan and today about the foolish rich man, which is a parable similar in content to the former. 2. Listen. The rich man in the parable didn’t become rich from the goods he acquired that year; he was already rich from previous years. So he had no worries about how he was going to get through the next year. He could easily ...
Don’t confuse people, who are images of God, with the wickedness they bear inside therm. This evil is merely incidental, it’s their misfortune, their sickness, the devil’s deceit. Their real being, the image of God, is always there inside them.
Today’s passage from the Apostle Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians emphasizes the unity of the One Holy Church of Christ. This unity is needed for the baptized members of the Church among themselves, and with the body of the Church. The unity that the Apostle Paul speaks of is supported by the fact that: First, there is One Faith in the Church. The right faith, as Christ has taught, and the Apostles of Christ have shared. This faith we have received from our Fathers, should in our present day be passed on to those who come after us, free of misinterpretations and alterations. Unity among Christians with different dogmatic beliefs cannot exist. We see it in the heterodox, who interpret the Gospel ...
