The main task for us people is prayer. We were made to praise God. That’s the task to which we’re best suited. It’s the only thing that explains our spiritual hypostasis. It’s the only thing that justifies our preeminent role in creation. We were made to worship God and to share in his goodness and blessedness. Saint Nektarios of Pentapolis
Some people who don’t keep the commandments think they believe correctly. Others keep the commandments and expect the Kingdom as a reward owed to them by God. Both of them are far from the truth. Saint Mark the Ascetic
Take care to guard the joy of the Holy Spirit in your heart and not to allow the evil one to pour out his poison. Take care! Be careful, lest the paradise which is within you be transformed into hell. Saint Nektarios of Pentapolis
Sitting at ease in comfortable rooms, talking about ascetic accomplishments and the gifts of the elders, but at the same time insisting on retaining your own will is a waste of time. Wanting to wander off here, there and everywhere probably leads to greater confusion and vacillation. Elder Moisis the Athonite
Those people for whom sin’s an everyday need and who live in wickedness aren’t bothered by the evil spirits, because they belong to them anyway, since they live carelessly and pay no heed to the salvation of their soul. But if they recognize and confess their sin and turn to God, that’s when war breaks out and its merciless and relentless. Saint John Kronstadtskij
There are many times when we don’t receive what we want from God. This is to keep us close to him, for our faith and endurance to be tested, so that we’ll appreciate what we’re given. God doesn’t act as we want him to, but as he wants to. And his guiding principle is always our best interests. Dimitrios Panagopoulos
We have to learn that our relationship with God isn’t one of sinlessness. In other words, it’s not that, from the outset we’re going to be sinless beings and perfect moral personalities, so that, out of this will emerge joy, though this will be based on egotism and pride. Our relationship with God is one of love, a relationship of children with their father. To put it in Patristic terminology, it’s a relationship of repentance. In the Orthodox Church there’s no sinlessness; there’s repentance. Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol
Don’t look at the sins of other people, just watch out for your own wickedness. Because you won’t have to answer for other people, only for yourself. There’s no need to pay attention to other people, how they live and what sins they commit. Look to yourself: are you pleasing to God? Is your life like that of the saints? Are you following the same path in your life as they did in theirs? Are your works satisfactory to God? Saint Dimitri of Rostov
When do we celebrate the feast of the Ascension this year? The feast of the Ascension of our Lord, is an important day in the Orthodox Christian calendar, as it marks the completion of Jesus’ mission on Earth. Naturally, icons of the feast are a great blessing for every household. The feast is celebrated on the 40th day after the Resurrection of Christ. This year it falls on 10th June. On this day, we also celebrate the female name Analipsis (Ascension, in Greek). The event of the Ascension of Christ is described by the Evangelists Mark (6, 19), Luke (24, 50-52) and John (6, 62 and 20,17), as well as in the book of the Acts of the Apostles (1, 2-9), in the ...
We shouldn’t despair when we’re not as we should be. Of course it’s bad to sin. But why do you disrespect God and, in your ignorance, think him weak? Is he who made this great world for you unable to save your soul? And if you say, ‘That’s probably a condemnation of me, as is his acceptance’, repent and your repentance will be accepted, as was that of the Prodigal (Luke 15, 20) and the Harlot (Luke 7, 47-48). If you can’t even do this, but continue to sin when you don’t want to, have the humility of the Tax-Collector (Luke 18, 13) and that’s enough for your salvation. Because those who sin without repentance, but also without despair, necessarily place themselves ...
‘In his private thoughts, the man blind from birth said to himself: Was I then born without eyes for the sin of my parents? Was I then born as a sign for the unbelief of the pagans? I am unable to ask whether it is day or night. My legs do not support me against the rocks they strike. I have not seen the sun shining, nor, in image, him who created me. But I entreat you, Christ God, look upon me and have mercy upon me’ (verse at Vespers on the Sunday of the Blind Man). ‘The miracle of the cure of the man blind from birth is the third successive wonder to be associated with water. The first was ...
On another occasion, there was a monk from one of the neighboring ‘Wallachian’ kellia who had taken ill and had found some relief from eating little, slightly bitter cucumbers. Winter came and he began to feel the same pains, from the same illness, so he went down to Saint Paul’s in the hope that he might find even some pickled cucumbers in the monastery to alleviate his pains. Unfortunately, there were none to be had. So, troubled and in pain, he started out on the climb from the skete of Saint Ann to Stavros. Even though it was winter and there weren’t even any pickled cucumbers anywhere, Father Daniil suddenly appeared before him and handed him six or seven fresh little ...
(Sunday of the Blind Man) The sixth Sunday after Easter and in today’s Gospel reading we hear how our Lord, Jesus Christ, cured a man who’d been blind from birth. This healing of the blind man was a severe rebuke to the Pharisees who were most unwilling to accept the words of Christ. The act of healing became the starting-point for his salvation, as this is expressed at the end of the excerpt in his confession of faith. The reading, from the Gospel according to Saint John, tells how, when he was in Jerusalem, Jesus met a man blind from birth. Feeling pity for his creation, he made clay by spitting on the earth. This he rubbed on the man’s eyes and ...
(Epistle for the Sunday of the Blind Man) Acts, 16, 25-40 ‘And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone’s bands were loosed’. What is the equal of these souls? These men had been scourged; had been badly hurt; had been cursed; were in peril of their lives; were put in the stocks ; and were thrust into the innermost prison. But they were unable to sleep and sang hymns all night long. Do you see what a blessing tribulation is? We, in our soft beds, with no-one to be afraid of, pass the whole night in ...
Is marriage a path to sanctity and holiness? Upon seeing an article with a title containing the word “holiness,” one would think that the article discusses monastery life, or a life devoted to the Lord Jesus Christ and the service of His Church. However, in the Orthodox Church, marital life is also a holy life, as marriage is a sacrament (mysterion); it carries the sanctifying and purifying grace of the Holy Spirit. Marital life is a grace-filled experience of God’s Kingdom, an experience that begins with the priest’s announcement at the Wedding service: “Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” The late blessed Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra Monastery in Mount Athos vividly summarizes ...
‘Not everyone can attain perfection, either because they lack the zeal or because they do not have the strength’ (Saint John of the Ladder) A common cause of depression and phobias is perfectionism. Perfectionists are never satisfied. They don’t enjoy the good they achieve or encounter in their lives, because they’re thinking about the next step. Or that it’ll be difficult to retain their success. Perfectionists are never satisfied with themselves. They believe they have greater potential than what is apparent. And they aren’t pleased with other people, either. They look at everything from the point of view of criticism and condemnation. Other people don’t pay them what they consider to be their due. Other people don’t meet their expectations. If ...
When you go to the Holy Mountain and see the humble monks, you might think that they live a lazy life, without purpose. It may seem like this if you see things from the outside, because not many people are able to understand the terrible, unceasing warfare that’s conducted in the souls of the monks. This warfare is almost supernatural, invisible and is conducted not only against the demonic powers of the princes of darkness, but, for beginners, also against the flesh, that is against carnal passions and desires. In his writings, Father Silouan describes how this warfare brought him to despair, and almost to suicide. Our Lady the Mother of God appeared to him and encouraged him so that he could ...
We owe greater honour to the other, as Christ rendered to the Church In the middle of Great Lent, the Church instituted the veneration of the Holy Cross, so that it may increase our inspiration and strengthen us in our struggle to prepare our souls to enter in the quickening presence of the Risen Lord. Similarly, in the middle of the period of the Pentecostarion, we celebrate Mid-Pentecost which renews our thirst for the Light of the Comforter, and in this way strengthens us to continue in prayer with ever-increasing desire ‘until we are clothed with power from on high’. For if the Holy Spirit does not come to unite us eternally with Christ, we cannot ‘walk in the newness of ...
The Church isn’t against the human body. This is why the fathers were so careful not to damage their body in the course of their ascetic struggles. They tried to subject it to the Holy Spirit and to God’s commandments, to prevent it engaging in carnal enjoyments and trespasses, but never accepted doing active harm to the body. Patristic literature expressly states that ‘we don’t slay the body; we slay the passions’. They slay sin and the passions, but not the body, which is the temple of God. If the fathers sometimes seem to be merciless and to live in great hardship, again they didn’t do so to slay the body but to slay sin and their passions. And they ...
A human being is a temple of the living God. This is an apostolic teaching of our Church which means that, just as the grace of God, the grace of the Holy Spirit, dwells in a temple, by the same token the grace of God abides in us and we become temples of the living God. God is called living because he isn’t shut away in heaven and we simply believe in him and accept him, but because he lives within us and we are temples of the living God. Of course, Saint Paul didn’t mean that a specific part of our being is a temple of God, but that the whole person is designed to be a temple of ...
