In English

When the Jews slew St. Stephen by stoning, they left his body for the dogs to consume. However, God’s providence intended otherwise. The martyr’s body lay in an open place at the foothill of the city for one night and two days. The second night Gamaliel, Paul’s teacher and secretly a disciple of Christ, came and removed the body, taking it to Caphargamala, and buried it there in a cave on his own land. Gamaliel later buried his friend Nicodemus, who died weeping over the grave of Stephen, in the same cave. Gamaliel also buried his godson Abibus there; and, according to his own will, he himself was buried there also. Many centuries passed, until no one living knew where ...

You can’t eat or drink or smoke all the time, turning your life into one long bout of food, drink and tobacco. The spirit of the evil one has tried to transform life into smoking. So he’s made the mouth, which ought to be constantly glorifying God, more like a furnace pumping out smoke.

It’s the end of the day and toys strewn all over the floor. No clear path to set my feet upon. Dishes arch high in the sink and I just notice the hint of smoke. And now the dinner’s burned beyond saving. I hear the phone ringing, along with the storm brewing in the back of the house, one that needs my attention. I stop. Stop to shut out the thought of it all, the moment’s demands. Just stop and shut my eyes. Let the burning wave pass over. Breathe deep. With that breath I remember their story. The one about the two women, married to brothers. How they reached spiritual heights unknown to desert dwelling saints. Of course, you don’t hear stories like ...

The second struggle we have to engage in is against the spirit of lust and bodily desire, which begins to bother people at an early age. This is a great and difficult struggle, that’s fought on two fronts. Because, whereas the other failings battle away within the soul, the war of the flesh is conducted in both the soul and the body. This is why we have to fight a double battle. Bodily fasting isn’t enough for us to acquire perfect restraint and true purity, unless it’s followed by a contrite heart, intense prayer to God, continuous study of the Scriptures, labour, and the works of our hands, all of which can repel the unruly impulses of the soul and ...

May sweetest Jesus be ever in your thoughts. May He be a haven to which you return again and again.

Since the Reformation, the polemics between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism have centered on the role of the Bible as the only rule of faith for the Church over and against any notion of Bible and Tradition as being the normative rule of faith. In recent years, the debate has taken the same popular note that it once had during the Reformation. Roman Catholic apologists such as Karl Keating (director of Catholic Answers) and Patrick Madrid frequently square off against Reformed Protestant apologist James White (director of Alpha & Omega Ministries) in a battle for the mind, the heart, and, ultimately, the soul of their listeners and readers. Orthodox Christians may assume that Roman Catholic apologists represent the Orthodox position in Western ...

If we hear something bad, let’s get rid of it immediately. Bad things should go in one ear and out the other.

We hear in today’s Gospel narrative that Christ was in an out-of-the-way place where thousands of people had been listening to His words all day, ignoring their needs and the work in their homes. In the end the holy apostles intervened and  told Him: ‘Let them go. They can go into the nearby villages and get something to eat. They’ve had nothing all day’. Christ replied: ‘You give them something’. ‘We haven’t got enough. Only five loaves and two fish. That’s never going to be enough for five thousand mean and goodness knows how many women’. Certainly, by human standards it wasn’t enough. But in God’s terms everything’s possible, so there was more than enough in the end. It’s important to note, ...

There’s nothing more humbling than being a parent, because what makes for good children is the life you’re living. And it’s a parent’s love of God, the faith of a father and a mother, that sparks flame and ignites the heart of a child. It’s when a parent sees the face of a child and beholds the face of God, that’s when divine love spreads warmth and hearts speak words unspoken. The radiance of a life lived in Christ, it’s the beacon that guides a child aright. Providing for the body matters little when the soul’s left bare. And there’s no greater way to embrace the entire child, body and soul, than through the gentle caress of prayer. The prayer of a ...

The occasion for the composition of this text was the anniversary of the Fall of Constantinople. On days of historic anniversaries, we generally turn to the ideals which formed the motivating force behind the important events. As ideological imperatives, ideals are transformed when societies themselves change. This transformation has considerable repercussions on the lives of individuals and on society itself. The dialectic produced from a clash of ideals is one of the factors which have caused the greatest friction in the history of humankind and of civilization, from ancient times until today. The interactions between the old and the new, the changes in priorities, the projection of ideologies as superior to others, the invocation of historical memory, with all the tragedy which ...

Guile is the mother of all evil. It distances us from God and delivers us to the cunning demon making us his companion and ally. Those who are full of guile are lost. They do evil and fight good. They want what isn’t pleasing to God.

His great love of prayer He would dedicate a lot of time to prayer. In any case, prayer is a virtue, and the mother of virtues and, as a mother, introduces us into the secrets of communion with God, according to Mark the Hermit. The Elder was himself unceasing prayer, with the unification he offered people within themselves and with God. He performed all the services on a daily basis- the midnight office and matins- he read paraclitic canons and commemorated a multitude of names- and in the evenings read vespers and Compline, kept vigil and made his prayer to the Lord, the Mother of God and various saints of the Church. He would often pray for hours and, if he ...

One of the brethren asked Abba Pimen: ‘If I see some error on the part of my brother, should I cover it up?’ The Elder replied: ‘Whenever we cover up an error of our brother’s, God also covers up ours. And if we reveal an error of our brother’s, God will reveal ours’.

Buddhist Mysticism Since mysticism is the immediate, intuitive relationship with the Absolute, it would be possible to claim, insisting on this strict definition, that there is no such thing as Buddhist mysticism., because, in the classic forms of this religion, there is no acceptance of the existence of the Absolute. Unlike the prophetic religions, whose message is defined by the word, Buddhism, as a religion of silence, rejects all ways of naming the Absolute, while, in depth, it allows it to seem that it accepts an ineffable Absolute, which it indentifies with emptiness. Promoting the idea of “anatman”-“anatta” (not-self), sets as an ideal the achievement of “nirvana”. But even if it denies a real, positive Absolute, it accepts an absolute goal. Buddhist ...

A) The Main Features of his Sermon He preached 4-5 times a week at Wittenberg and it wasn’t unusual for him to give 4 sermons in one day, following in the steps of Augustine and Ambrose of Milan. He followed the lectio continua (continuous reading of Scripture) and it’s estimated that he preached about 4,000 sermons, of which some 2,300 have survived . In the pulpit, he had with him a brief outline (known as the Konzepten ), which he followed in his oral sermon. These notes haven’t been preserved. All we have are the sermons which were taken down in shorthand by his friends, although often enough they didn’t agree among themselves, even though they’d attended the same sermon. He ...

Moving on now to more theological issues, one day I asked the Elder whether God Himself really had to be crucified in order for us to be saved. Wasn’t there another way? ‘Of course’, he said, ‘only the Lord knows these things. However it seems as if there was no other way’. So not only is God truly related to the world (because some people ask ‘is God going to do anything for us?’), but He also abandoned His heavenly glory and came to Earth to endure blows at our hands and to be crucified. And the Elder in fact clarified that we shouldn’t just say that ‘Christ died on the cross for us’, which is perfectly true, of course, ...

Try to overcome your irascible nature. This passion acts against your real will, desire or command. But as long as pride resides within you, you won’t achieve anything. That’s what governs everything. If you can, kick it out your front door and tell it not to come back.