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Friday, June 13, 2008

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 11:09:17 GMT

Glory to Thee, Lord.
What shall I give Thee, Lord, in return for all Thy kindness?
Glory to Thee for Thy love.
Glory to Thee for Thy mercy.
Glory to Thee for Thy patience.
Glory to Thee for forgiving us all our sins.
Glory to Thee for coming to save our souls.
Glory to Thee for Thine incarnation in the Virgin's womb.
Glory to Thee for Thy bonds.
Glory to Thee for receiving the cut of the lash.
Glory to Thee for accepting mockery.
Glory to Thee for Thy crucifixion.
Glory to Thee for Thy burial.
Glory to Thee for Thy resurrection.
Glory to Thee who were preached to men and women.
Glory to Thee in whom they believed.
Glory to Thee who were taken up into Heaven.
Glory to Thee who sit in great glory at the Father's right hand.
Glory to Thee whose will it is that the sinner should be saved
through Thy great mercy and compassion.

St Ephraim the Syrian
4th century

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 00:23:58 GMT

On Love and Forgiveness towards the Brethren

You write, my child, about someone who kept grieving you, and you cursed him, etc. No, my child, do not curse anyone, no matter how he has harmed you. Our Christ tells us to love our enemies, so how can we speak evil? Seek forgiveness from God, and henceforth love him as your brother, regardless of whether or not you agree with him. Didn't Christ on the Cross forgive his crucifiers? Then how can we do otherwise? Yes, my child, we must love everyone, regardless of whether they love us or not---that is their business.

Selected from Counsels from the Holy Mountain from the Letters and Homilies of Elder Ephraim

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Sat, 17 May 2008 19:18:42 GMT

God loves not only saints but all people, without exception, including sinners, people in hell, and even the devil. And He desires to save and heal every one of them. He wants to heal them all, but He cannot, because they do not all want to be healed. We know this - that God is love and that He desires to heal everyone and loves everyone - because it has been verified and continues to be verified by the experience of those who have attained to theosis, in which God is seen and they have seen God. Nevertheless, God cannot heal everyone, because He does not violate the human will. God holds man in high regard and loves him. He cannot, however, heal someone by force. He heals only those who want to be healed and who request that He heal them.

~Dr. John Romanides~

Saturday, May 03, 2008

Sat, 03 May 2008 19:31:18 GMT

Sayings of Elder Porphyrios

On Divine Eros

He who loves little, gives little. He who loves more, gives more. And he who loves beyond measure, what has he to give? He gives himself!

Christ is our love, our desire

Christ is joy, the true light, happiness. Christ is our hope. Our relation to Christ is love, eros, passion, enthusiasm, longing for the divine. Christ is everything. He is our love. He is the object of our desire. This passionate longing for Christ is a love that cannot be taken away. This is where joy flows from.

Christ himself is joy. He is a joy that transforms you into a different person. It is a spiritual madness, but in Christ. This spiritual wine inebriates you like pure unadulterated wine. As David says, You have anointed my head with oil and your cup intoxicates me most mightily [Ps.22:5]. Spiritual wine is unmixed, unadulterated, exceedingly strong, and when you drink it, it makes you drunk. This divine intoxication is a gift of God that is given to the pure in heart [Matt.5:8].

Fast as much as you can, make as many prostrations as you can, attend as many vigils as you like, but be joyful. Have Christ's joy. It is the joy that lasts forever, that brings eternal happiness. It is the joy of our Lord that gives assured serenity, serene delight and full happiness. All-joyful joy that surpasses every joy. Christ desires and delights in scattering joy, in enriching his faithful with joy. I pray that your joy may be full. [John16:24&1John1:4]

This is what our religion is. This is the direction we must take. Christ is Paradise, my children. What is Paradise? It is Christ. Paradise begins here and now. It is exactly the same: those who experience Christ here on earth, experience Paradise. That's the way it is, just as I tell you. This is right, it's true, believe me! Our task is to attempt to find a way to enter into the light of Christ. The point is not to observe all the outward forms. The essence of the matter is for us to be with Christ; for our soul to wake up and love Christ and become holy. To abandon herself to divine eros. Thus He too will love us. Then the joy will be inalienable. That is what Christ wants most of all, to fill us with joy, because He is the well-spring of joy. This joy is a gift of Christ. In this joy we will come to know Christ. We cannot come to know Him unless He first comes to know us. How does David put it? Unless the Lord builds the house, they labour in vain that build it; unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. [Ps.126:1]

These are the things our soul desires to acquire. If we prepare ourselves appropriately, grace will bestow them on us. It's not difficult. If we acquire grace, everything is easy, joyful and a blessing from God. Divine grace is constantly knocking at the door of our soul and waiting for us to open so that it can enter our thirsty heart and fill it. The fullness is Christ, our Holy Lady, the Holy Trinity. What marvelous things!

If you are in love, you can live amid the hustle and bustle of the city centre and not be aware that you are in the city centre. You see neither cars nor people nor anything else. Within yourself you are with the person you love. You experience her, you take delight in her, she inspires you. Are these things not true? Imagine that the person you love is Christ. Christ is in your mind. Christ is in your heart. Christ is in your whole being, Christ is everywhere.

Christ is life, the source of life, the source of joy, the source of true light, everything. Whoever loves Christ and other people truly lives life. Life without Christ is death; it is hell, not life. That is what hell is -- the absence of love. Life is Christ. Love is the life of Christ. Either you will be in life or in death. It's up to you to decide.

One thing is our aim -- love for Christ, for the Church, for our neighbor. Love, worship of, and craving for God, the union with Christ and with the Church is Paradise on earth. Love towards Christ and towards one's neighbor, towards everyone, including enemies. The Christian feels for everyone, he wants all to be saved, all to taste the Kingdom of God. That is Christianity: through love for our brother to arrive at love for God. To the extent that we desire it, to the extent that we wish it, to the extent that we are worthy, divine grace comes through our brother. When we love our brother we love the Church and therefore Christ. And we too are within the Church. Therefore when we love the Church we love ourselves.

There is one thing, O Christ, that I want, one thing I desire, one thing I ask for, and that is to be with You.

Let us love Christ and let our only hope and care be for Him. Let us love Christ for His own sake only. Never for our sake. Let Him put us wherever He likes. Let Him give us whatever He wishes. Don't let's love Him for His gifts. It's egotistical for us to say: 'Christ will place me in a fine mansion which He has prepared, just as the Gospel says: In my Father's house there are many mansions...so that where I am you may be also [John14:2-3]. What we should say rather is: 'My Christ, whatever Your love dictates; it is sufficient for me to live within Your love.'

As for myself, poor soul...what can I say...I'm very weak. I haven't managed to love Christ so very fervently and for my soul to long for Him. I feel that I have a very long way to go. I haven't arrived at where I want to be; I don't experience this love. But I'm not discouraged. I trust in the love o God. I say to Christ: 'I know I'm not worthy. Send me wherever Your love wishes. That's what I desire, that's what I want. During my life I always worshiped you.

When I was seriously ill and on the point of leaving this life, I didn't want to think about my sins. I wanted to think about the love of my Lord, my Christ, and about eternal life. I didn't want to feel fear. I wanted to go to the Lord and to think about His goodness, His love. And now that my life is nearing its end, I don't feel anxiety or apprehension, but I think that when I appear at the Second Coming and Christ says to me: Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment? [Matt.22:12] I will bow my head and I will say to Him: 'Whatever you want, my Lord, whatever your love desires. I know I am not worthy. Send me wherever your love wishes. I am fit for hell. And place me in hell, as long as I am with you. There is one thing I want, one thing I desire, one thing I ask for, and that is to be with You, wherever and however You wish.'

I try to give myself over entirely to the love and worship of God. I have consciousness of my sinfulness, but I live with hope. It is bad to despair, because someone who despairs becomes embittered and loses his willingness and strength. Someone who has hope, on the contrary, advances forward. Because he feels that he is poor, he tries to enrich himself. What does a poor man do? If he is smart, he tries to find a way to become rich.

And so in spite of the fact that I feel weak and that I haven't achieved what I desire, I nevertheless do not fall into despair. It is a consolation to me, as I've told you, that I don't cease to try continually. Yet I don't do what I want to. Pray for me. The point is that I cannot love Christ absolutely without His grace. Christ does not allow His love to show itself if my soul has not done something to attract Him to me.

And perhaps that's what I'm lacking. And so I entreat God and say, 'I'm very weak, O Christ. Only You with Your grace will be able to allow me to say along with Saint Paul the Apostle, It is no longer I who live; Christ lives in me [Gal.2:20]

That is what preoccupies me. I try to find ways to love Christ. This love is never sated. However much you love Christ, you always think that you don't love Him and you long all the more to love him. And without being aware of it, you go higher and higher!

When Christ enters your heart, your life changes

When you find Christ, you are satisfied, you desire nothing else, you find peace. You become a different person. You live everywhere, wherever Christ is. You live in the stars, in infinity, in heaven with the angels, with the saints, on earth with people, with plants, with animals, with everyone and everything. When there is love for Christ, loneliness disappears. You are peaceable, joyous, full. Neither melancholy, nor illness, nor pressure, nor anxiety, nor depression, nor hell.

Christ is in all your thoughts, in all your actions. You have grace and you can endure everything for Christ. You can even suffer unjustly. You can endure injustices for Christ, and indeed with joy. Just as He suffered, so you too can suffer unjustly. Did you choose Christ in order to avoid suffering? What does Saint Paul say? I rejoice in my sufferings. [Col.1:24] This is our religion: for our soul to awake and love Christ and become holy, to give herself over to divine eros. And so He, too, will love her.

When Christ enters your heart, your life changes. Christ is everything. Whoever experiences Christ within himself, experiences ineffable things – holy and sacred things. He lives in exultation. These things are true. People have experienced them – hermits on the Holy Mountain. Continually and with longing they whisper the prayer: 'Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'

When Christ enters your heart, your passions disappear. You are unable to swear, or hate, or seek revenge or anything. Howe could there be hatreds, dislikes, censures, egotisms, anxieties, depressions? What holds sway is Christ – and longing for the unsetting light. This longing makes you feel that death is a bridge that you will cross in an instant in order to continue the life of Christ. Here on earth you have an impediment and so you need faith. This impediment is the body. After death, however, faith is abolished and you see Christ as you see the sun. In eternity, of course, you will experience everything more intensely.

Thursday, May 01, 2008

Thu, 01 May 2008 22:01:23 GMT

"I pray O Lord that the whole world may come to know Thee by Thy Holy Spirit"

St. Silouan the Athonite (+1938)

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 13:15:37 GMT

Sayings of Mother Gavrilla

Never ask:"Why has this happened to me" 'When you see somebody suffering from gangrene or cancer or blindness, never say: "Why has this happened to him"' Instead, pray God to grant you the vision of the other shore... Then, like the Angels, you will be able to see things as they really are: Everything in God's plan. EVERYTHING.

When thoughts of passing judgement on another person cross your mind, pray God to take them away at once, so that you may love this person as He does. Then God will help you see your own faults. If Christ were visible, could you have such thoughts?

Through the invocation of the name of Christ, we batter our Ego.

Better a prayer of the lips than no prayer at all

God loves your enemies as much as He loves you.

A Christian must have reverence for the Mystery of Existence in everyone and everything

Never identify a person with the wrong way in which he is treating you, but see Christ in his heart.

To reach the state of non-existence, love and love and love until you identify yourself completely with the Other One, whoever this may be at the time. Then, at the end of the day you may ask yourself: Is there anything I want? No. Is there anything I wish 'No. Is there anything I lack' No... So, that's it!

The spiritually advanced person is the one who has reached a state of "non-existence" and has deeply understood that whatever happens to him is either because God Wills it or because God Permits it.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 01:04:04 GMT

Now why does God allow this unpleasant sort of solution? You will say, “Isn’t God capable of finding an easier method?” This is a great temptation for many Christians: “Why isn’t God able to intervene?” However, if He intervenes, my brother, you will tell Him that He is controlling you! He is binding your freedom! Why does God choose this seemingly worse solution? It is because God loves and He wants to show His love. He offers His Son to be crucified! He could have used another method to save the world but He wants to save the world with love; and salvation moved by love is a deep mystery. It constitutes a mere fold of the love of God. St. Isaac the Syrian reveals this for us. When I first read it, I was not all that impressed. I am afraid you may feel this way initially as well. Now, I am totally satisfied with it. Let’s look at his 81st homily, “In the final analysis of all these things, Our God and Lord, due to His strong love for His creation," …and this is the key: strong, great love, burning love. The Greek word is pathos. "He gave His Son to a death on the cross." For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son to suffer death for it. (John 3:16) This was not because God could not save us in a different way, but because this was the way that God found to show and teach us His immense love. Our mind cannot grasp this! He touched us; He drew near to us through the death of His Son to show us how much He loves us! He loves us exceedingly and if He had something even more precious than this He would have given it to us. All this was accomplished so our human race could find its way back to Him, to draw near Him. And because of His great love, He did not wish to bind our freedom. Even though He could do this, He chooses to let us come to Him in the spirit of love. All these things my friends express the mystery behind those things that “must” take place. With this solution the love of God is made obvious. At the same time, the freedom of the individual is preserved! God is truly Wonderful!

Fr. Athanasios Mitilinaios

Thursday, April 03, 2008

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 21:28:59 GMT

On Love (I need to hear it b/c I don't get it)

'But I say to you,' says the Lord, 'love your enemies...do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you' (Matt. 5:44). Why did he command this? To free you from hatred, grief, anger and resentment, and to make you worthy of the supreme gift of love. And you cannot attain such love if you do not imitate God and love all men equally. For God loves all men equally and wishes them 'to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth' (I Tim. 2:4)

-St. Maximos-

In the life of the holy Apostle John the Theologian it was said, among other things, that when he had grown so old that he couldn't come to a meeting of the faithful, his disciples carried him there in their arms. And he, not being in a condition to preach an extensive sermon, repeated only his favorite words, which contain the essential foundation of Christianity: "My children, love one another!" I also repeat to you, I repeat even a hundred times: love, love all without exception, both those who love you and those who do not.

-Abbess Thaisia-

Friday, February 22, 2008

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 22:35:06 GMT

The Life of St. Polycarp the Bishop of Smyrna (the Disciple of St. John who was the Disciple of Christ)

Saint Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, who was "fruitful in every good work" (Col. 1:10), was born in the first century, and lived in Smyrna in Asia Minor. He was orphaned at an early age, but at the direction of an angel, he was raised by the pious widow Kallista. After the death of his adoptive mother, Polycarp gave away his possessions and began to lead a chaste life, caring for the sick and the infirm. He was very fond of and close to St Bucolus, Bishop of Smyrna (February 6). He ordained Polycarp as deacon, entrusting to him to preach the Word of God in church. He also ordained him to the holy priesthood.

The holy Apostle John the Theologian was still alive at this time. St Polycarp was especially close to St John, and sometimes accompanied him on his apostolic journeys.

Shortly before his death, St Bucolus expressed his wish that Polycarp be made Bishop of Smyrna. When St Polycarp was consecrated as a bishop, the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to him. St Polycarp guided his flock with apostolic zeal, and he was also greatly loved by the clergy. St Ignatius the God-Bearer of Antioch (December 20) also had a high regard for him. Setting out for Rome where execution awaited him, he wrote to St Polycarp, "This age is in need of you if it is to reach God, just as pilots need winds, and as a storm-tossed sailor needs a port."

The emperor Marcus Aurelius (161-180) came to the Roman throne and started up a most fierce persecution against Christians. The pagans demanded that the judge search for St Polycarp, "the father of all the Christians" and "the seducer of all Asia."

During this time St Polycarp, at the persistent urging of his flock, stayed in a small village not far from Smyrna. When the soldiers came for him, he went out to them and invited them in to eat. He asked for time to pray, in order to prepare himself for martyrdom. His suffering and death are recorded in the "Epistle of the Christians of the Church of Smyrna to the Other Churches," one of the most ancient memorials of Christian literature.

Having been brought to trial, St Polycarp firmly confessed his faith in Christ, and was condemned to be burned alive. The executioners wanted to nail him to a post, but he declared that God would give him the strength to endure the flames, so they could merely tie him with ropes. The flames encircled the saint but did not touch him, coming together over his head in the shape of a vault. Seeing that the fire did him no harm, the pagans stabbed him with a dagger. So much blood flowed from this wound that it extinguished the flames. The body of the hieromartyr Polycarp was then cremated. The Christians of Smyrna reverently gathered up what remained of his holy relics, and each year they celebrated the day of his martyrdom.

A story has been preserved about St Polycarp by his disciple, St Irenaeus of Lyons, which Eusebius cites in his ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY (V, 20):

"I was still very young when I saw you in Asia Minor at Polycarp's," writes St Irenaeus to his friend Florinus, "but I would still be able to point out the place where Blessed Polycarp sat and conversed, and be able to depict his walk, his mannerisms in life, his outward appearance, his speaking to people, his companionable wandering with John, and how he himself related, together with other eyewitnesses of the Lord, those things that he remembered from the words of others. He also told what he heard from them about the Lord, His teachings and miracles....

Through the mercy of God to me, I then already listened attentively to Polycarp and wrote down his words, not on tablets, but in the depths of my heart. Therefore, I am able to bear witness before God, that if this blessed and apostolic Elder heard something similar to your fallacy, he would immediately stop up his ears and express his indignation with his usual phrase: 'Good God! That Thou hast permitted me to be alive at such a time!'"

During his life the holy bishop wrote several Epistles to the flock and letters to various individuals. The only one that has survived to the present day is his Epistle to the Philippians which, St Jerome testifies, was read in the churches of Asia Minor at divine services. It was written by the saint in response to the request of the Philippians to send them some letters of the hieromartyr Ignatius (December 20) which St Polycarp had in his possession.

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.iv.ii.html (The epistle of St. Polycarp to the church at Philippi -2nd century writing)

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.iv.iv.html (The martyrdom of St. Polycarp - 2nd century writing)

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 01:09:39 GMT

From St. Maximos the Confessor

"When the intellect begins to advance in its love for God, the demon of blasphemy starts to tempt it, suggesting thoughts such as no man but only the devil, their father, could invent. He does this out of envy, so that the man of God, in his despair at thinking such thoughts, no longer dares to soar up to God in his accustomed prayer. But the demon does not further his own ends by this means. On the contrary, he makes us more steadfast. For through his attacks and our retaliation we grow more experienced and genuine in our love for God. May his sword enter his own heart and may his bows be broken (cf. Ps. 37:15)."

"God, Who is by nature good and dispassionate, loves all men equally as His handiwork. But He glorifies the virtuous man because in his will he is united to God. At the same time, in His goodness He is merciful to the sinner and by chastening him in this life brings him back to the path of virtue. Similarly, a man of good and dispassionate judgment also loves all men equally."