Thursday, June 29, 2006

The guarantee of the word

Our every word comes before the assembly of the angels of God. Hades receives our every evil word and retains it as a guarantee of our eternal death and Paradise receives every good word and retains it as a guarantee of our eternal life. Truly, does the Old Testament sage wisely speaks and promptly reminds us with the words that: 'Death and life are in the power of the tongue.'
St. Nikolaj (Velimirovic)

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

On the "branch theory"

…the godless system of the heresies is a road with many branches, and whenever a man has strayed from the one straight way, then he falls down precipices again and again.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem

Friday, June 23, 2006

Spiritual swimming

One should nourish the soul with the word of God: for the word of God, as St. Gregory the Theologian says, is angelic bread, by which are nourished souls that hunger for God. Most of all one should occupy oneself with reading the New Testament and the Psalter, which one should do standing up. From this there occurs an enlightenment in the mind, which is changed by a Divine change.
One should habituate oneself in this way so that the mind might as it were swim in the Lord’s law; it is under the guidance of this law that one should direct one’s life.
St. Seraphim of Sarov

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Seeming rage

It was grand to see how the wind awoke, and bent the trees, and drove the rain before it like a cloud of smoke; and to hear the solemn thunder, and to see the lightning; and, while thinking with awe of the tremendous powers by which our little lives are encompassed, to consider how beneficent they are, and how upon the smallest flower and leaf there was already a freshness poured from all this seeming rage, which seemed to make creation new again.
Charles Dickens - Bleak House

Monday, June 19, 2006

Behold!

...the bolsheviks have destroyed the monastery; they destroyed the cemetery, too. Behold twentieth century civilization!
Archimandrite Gerasim (Schmaltz)

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Apropos to the feast of St. Abba Dorotheos of Gaza

Do you realise the enormity of his pride? Do you see his obstinacy? Do you see his insubordination? Therefore, when He saw his impudence God said: 'He is a fool, he does not know how to be happy. If he does not have a hard time, he will be totally lost. If he does not learn what sorrow is, he will not learn what rest is. Then He gave him that what he deserved and expelled him from paradise'. Thus, Man was given up to self-love and to his own desires which would crush his bones, so as to learn not to trust himself but the commandment of God.
Abba Dorotheos

Friday, June 16, 2006

Only death

He who does not love God, not only does he not love God but does not love anything that is from God, i.e., neither the beauty of the stars nor the order of the seas and mountains nor the living power that is in animals and plant life. He who does not love God, removes and distances God from nature. What else then is left? Only dead, formless, dark, dust only death. Even that dust is created by God. And that dust, the blasphemer of God must return to God and that, which is left over, he can love. What is there left over? Only that which does not touch God, i.e., death, sin and the devil. He who does not love God he, in essence, loves death, sin and the devil. Every blasphemer of God is a toy of the devil, the fruit of sin and a pawn of death.
St. Nikolaj (Velimirovich)

Thursday, June 15, 2006

The Catholic Church

But since the word Ecclesia is applied to different things (as also it is written of the multitude in the theatre of the Ephesians, And when he had thus spoken, he dismissed the Assembly ), and since one might properly and truly say that there is a Church of evil doers, I mean the meetings of the heretics, the Marcionists and Manichees, and the rest, for this cause the Faith has securely delivered to thee now the Article, 'And in one Holy Catholic Church;' that thou mayest avoid their wretched meetings, and ever abide with the Holy Church Catholic in which thou wast regenerated. And if ever thou art sojourning in cities, inquire not simply where the Lord's House is (for the other sects of the profane also attempt to call their own dens houses of the Lord), nor merely where the Church is, but where is the Catholic Church. For this is the peculiar name of this Holy Church, the mother of us all, which is the spouse of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Only-begotten Son of God (for it is written, As Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself for it, and all the rest,) and is a figure and copy of Jerusalem which is above, which is free, and the mother of us all; which before was barren, but now has many children.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

The corners of the (Western) heart

Western people fragment their lives into separate aspirations; and though they then unite them into a coherent plan by means of rationalistic understanding, at each moment of life the individual is like a different person. One corner of the heart shelters the Western person’s religious feeling, which is called upon on occasions of ritual observance; another, quite separate, harbors the faculties of reason and the capacity for worldly activity; a third corner contains the person’s sensual desires; a fourth, a sense of morality and family; a fifth, self-interest; a sixth, the desire for aesthetic pleasure. And each of these separate strivings is subdivided into further aspects, each accompanied by a special state of mind, each manifesting itself separately from the others, all bound together only by an abstract, rationalistic recollection. Westen people can easily pray in the morning with fervent, intense, amazing zeal and then rest from that zeal, forgetting prayer and exercising other faculties in their wok. They then rest from their work, not just physically but morally, forgetting its dull routine in laughter and the sound of drinking songs, They then forget the rest of the day—indeed, their whole life—in dreamy enjoyment of an artificial spectacle. Next day it will be easy for them to begin again turning the wheel of their outwardly correct lives.
Ivan Kireevskii

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

The lesson of the firefly

The holy Fathers, speaking of the glory of the saints in the Kingdom of Heaven, make divinely inspired analyses. St. Gregory the Theologian says: 'with those who have stood and not fallen we shall be small lights going round the great light'. St. Cyril of Jerusalem says that because God foresaw men’s faithlessness, He put light into the small insects which fly in summer, so that from what was seen, that which was awaited would be believable. The God who made one part can also provide the whole. He Who made the worm (the firefly) shine, 'much more can illuminate a righteous man'. Macarios of Egypt explains that the Kingdom of the Light, Jesus Christ, is now mystically illuminating the soul and reigning in the souls of the saints, hidden from the eyes of men, until the day of the resurrection, 'when the body itself will also be covered and glorified by the light of the Lord', which henceforth is in the souls of men, so that it too may reign with the soul.
Met. Hierotheos (Vlachos)

Monday, June 12, 2006

The enemy of the Son

…many of those who are falsely called Christians, and wrongfully addressed by the sweet name of Christ, have ere now impiously dared to banish God from His own creation. I mean the brood of heretics, those most ungodly men of evil name, pretending to be friends of Christ but utterly hating Him. For he who blasphemes the Father of the Christ is an enemy of the Son.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem

Thursday, June 08, 2006

The Social Gospel

The Panagia did the work of greatest social benefit to mankind. It is not a matter of a superficial and temporary deed, but of the eternal salvation of man, of the fact that she brought life into the world. 'For she performed a miracle of miracles on earth and a public benefit greater than any in history...'.
Met. Heirotheos (Vlachos)

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Church consciousness

If we see a decline of piety, a failure to understand the Divine services, the reason for this lies outside the Church: it is in the decline of faith in the masses, in the decline of morality, in the loss of church consciousness.
Fr. Michael Pomazansky

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Mercy and love

‘Let’s see what she’ll ask of me today.’ …
‘I don’t want anything, papouli. I only want you to help me to remain always under God’s mercy and love.’ …
‘And you think you’re not asking for much,’ he said to me. ‘Is there, my child, anything greater than God’s mercy and love?’
Elder Porphyrios and a spiritual child.

Monday, June 05, 2006

Apropos to the feast of St. Abba Dorotheos of Gaza

Therefore, whoever wants to find true rest in his soul must learn humility and he will see that all joy, all glory and all true rest are to be found there, whilst in pride it is just the opposite. How have we come into all this affliction? How have we fallen into all this misery? Is it not because of our pride? Is it not because of our senselessness? Is it not because we took the wrong decision? Is it not because we chose to impose our bitter will? Why? Was not Man created with every luxury, in all joy, in all rest and in all glory? Was he not in paradise? God said, ‘Do not do that’ but he did it. Do you realise the enormity of his pride? Do you see his obstinacy? Do you see his insubordination? Therefore, when He saw his impudence God said: ‘He is a fool, he does not know how to be happy. If he does not have a hard time, he will be totally lost. If he does not learn what sorrow is, he will not learn what rest is. Then He gave him that what he deserved and expelled him from paradise. Thus, Man was given up to self-love and to his own desires which would crush his bones, so as to learn not to trust himself but the commandment of God. The hardships from disobedience will teach him the calmness that comes from obedience as the Prophet says: ‘Your own wickedness will correct you’ (Jer. 2:19). However, as I said in many ways, the goodness of God has not renounced His creature, but again invites and calls him ‘Come to me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest’ (Matt. 11:26). It is as if he is saying, ‘You were labouring, you were miserable, you were suffering through your disobedience; come then, return, recognise your weakness and your shame, so that you may attain your rest and glory. Come, lead a life of humility, you who were dead through haughtiness. Learn from me, that I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls’ (Matt. 11:29).
Abba Dorotheos. On Renunciation, Section 8.

Sunday, June 04, 2006

To be avenged

By the lamp sat the activist at his mental labor: he was drawing graphs for the record in which he wished to enter all the data concerning the welfare of the poor and middle peasantry, so there would be a permanent, formal picture and experience, as a basis.
'Write down my goods, too!' said Voshchev, unpacking his sack.
He had gathered in the village all the poor, rejected objects, all the small unknown and forgotten things—to be avenged by socialism. Those patient, shabby rags had once touched the flesh of the laboreres, and these things were marked forever by the burden of bowed life, expended without conscious meaning and lost without glory somewhere under the straw of the earth. Without full understanding, Voshchev had collected like a miser a sackful of material remnants of lost people, who had lived like him without truth and who had died before the victorious conclusion. Now he was presenting those liquidated toilers before the face of the government and the future, so that those who lay quietly in the depth of the earth could be avenged through the organization of the eternal meaning of man.
Andrei Platonov. The Foundation Pit

The truth...

stands higher than your pain.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Vivid impressions

Western hearts are tormented by this comfortable way of living, and to feel anything deeply many Western people seek for vivid impressions. …Seeking for vivid impressions is a surrogate for spiritual life.
Fr. Artemy Vladimirov