Proud people feel embarrassed when they’re asked to humble themselves before others. So do envious or vindictive people if they’re asked to wish their enemies well. But they have to defeat their passions, rein in their feelings and do what other people want or what the Gospel demands. Otherwise, if they unrepentantly cling to their passions, they’ll suffer eternal damnation.
By Metropolitan Panteleimon of Antinoes Today, is Cheese-fare Sunday, which sees the closing of the period of Triodion. Tomorrow, with God’s blessing and help, we embark upon the forty day Fast of Great Lent. Great Lent is a time of spiritual struggle for Orthodox Christians. The aim of this struggle is our spiritual upliftment. The practice of fasting was established by God Himself, when He first created man. ''And the Lord God commanded the man saying, yου may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall die" (Gen. 2:l6-l7). Βy this commandment God wished to try the virtue ...
Now because God was about to fashion people from the visible and invisible creation in His own image and likeness to reign as monarchs and rulers over all the earth and everything that therein is, He first made for them, as it were, a realm in which they should live a blessed and blissful life. And this is the divine paradise, planted in Eden by God’s own hands, a veritable treasury of every joy and gladness. For the word “Eden” means enjoyment. Lying in the East and higher than all the earth, it had a temperate climate and basked in a breeze that was the purest and most gentle, with evergreen plants redolent with scent, inundated with light, surpassing every ...
Previous post: http://bit.ly/2lOoijG> 22. But what will be the sign of this second coming? Let no opposing force dare to imitate it. Matthew (24, 30) tells us that then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky. And the real, distinctive sign of Christ is the Cross. The sign of the Cross in the form of light will precede the King and declare that it is He Who, in former times, was crucified. This is so that the Jews may see Him Whose side they pierced and Whom they conspired to murder and so that the whole nation and all the tribes separately (cf. Zach. 12, 10, 12) will mourn, saying: ‘This is He Whom we scourged; this ...
In his Letter to the Ephesians, the Apostle Paul teaches that God has given His people salvation through the gift of faith in His Son Jesus. He speaks of how he experienced this by referring to “how the mystery was made known to me by revelation”. Paul believes and unequivocally states that his ministry is supernatural. It is not of earthly intent, essence, or means. This supernatural nature of his ministry is from where he attributes his authority as an apostle. Consequently, he exhorts that we as God’s people are called to express this new life we have in Christ by holy living and self-sacrificial love. It is precisely this diakonia (service) of love to one another rooted in worship that ...
Those who patiently bear sorrows, persecutions and the trials of this life, with the aim of pleasing God, buy themselves heavenly goods and everlasting bliss. With the death of the body, they pay for their eternal and immortal life with our Eternal and Immortal God.
Let us look to ourselves, brethren, and be sober. Who will give us this time, if we waste it? The time will come when we seek these days and will not find them… Let us make a start, let us, in the meantime, desire good. For even though we are not yet in perfection, our desire for it is the beginning of our salvation. From desiring we enter into combat, with God’s help, and through fighting will be assisted in the acquisition of the virtues. This is why one of the Fathers says: “Give blood and receive the Spirit”… For virtues are to be found in the middle. This is the King’s highway of which the holy Elder said: ...
How easily we Orthodox indiscriminately adopt the language of Western theology! It is always a great temptation for those who have converted to Orthodoxy from Western Christian denominations to bring the baggage of their former allegiances with them rather than embrace Orthodoxy as something which is entirely different from the Christianity they left behind. While they may see the Western Christendom of today as alien to the Church of the Fathers, they are sometimes reluctant to accept that not everything from the pre-schism West is part and parcel of Orthodoxy. And yet, the influence of Western theology is to be found not only amongst Orthodox converts in the West, but also among those who have been brought up in the ...
When you’re around other people and looking after your livelihood, try, at the same time, to think of God, to feel that He’s close to you and guiding you in accordance with His holy will. In this way you won’t be distracted from your inner task. Distraction is the first achievement of the devil. Try to free yourself from all bonds in your heart and from any distractions to your inner work. There’s only one way to do this. Don’t turn your attention away from the Lord and from the feeling of His presence.
Most people today have grown up in this atmosphere and, as a result, bring up their own children in a similar manner. The majority prefer to hide death from children and to keep quiet about it, since they naively believe that it’s an event which is ‘foreign’ to them. Foreign either because it doesn’t directly concern them since they’re ‘at the dawn of their life’, or because they can’t conceive of death at such a young age, or because they’re thought to be too young to be able to mourn the death of someone they loved, or, finally, because death is considered to be a process which should in no way be experienced by the soul of a child. And ...
Saint Nikolaos died on 6th December 330 A.D. After his assumption he was renounced “Myrrh” as his relics started gushing myrrh. His memory is celebrated on 6th December by both the Orthodox and the Romeo Catholic Church. It is also very important that St Nikolaos was gifted with the charisma of miracle- working, and he saved a lot of people during his life and after death. Some of his numerous miracles are the following ones; • First of all he saved the city of Myra, by miraculously appearing in front of a ship’s captain, making him to bring the wheat his ship was caring to the inhabitants of the hungry city. • He appeared in the dream of emperor Konstantinos and revealed to ...
5. Beware lest anyone should lead you astray. ‘For many will come in my name, saying, “I am Christ” and they will lead many astray (Matth. 24, 5). In part, this has already happened. Simon the Magician and Menander already said something of the sort, as did other leading heretics. Others will say so in our own age, and no doubt, others again after us . 6. A second sign: ‘You will hear wars and rumours of wars’ (Matth. 24, 6). But don’t we now have a war between the Romans and the Persians over Mesopotamia? Will one nation rise up against another and one kingdom against another (Matth. 24, 7) or not? And there will be famines, epidemics and earthquakes ...
I think that we will not deviate from our subject if we give here a more detailed account of this demonic calamity which torments mankind. Delusion is the devil substantially and existentially. Through wrongful and selfish thoughts and judgements he has severed himself from the truth, God, from whom he had been receiving his participation in the “well being” and the entire normal performance of his personality. Thus he became The delusion, because he has not been truly and correctly thinking and acting. Having then been subjected to a total reversal, he first revolted against his own self and then he passed on to his victims his own corruption. According to our Fathers, only good has a real existence.The non ...
The prayer of the Church has such great power that, even if we speak less than stones, it could make our tongue lighter than a feather. Just as, when a breeze fills the sails of a ship and makes it go faster than an arrow, so the prayer of the Church, when it falls onto the tongue of those saying it, makes our words stronger than the breeze.
The last part of the Divine Liturgy consists of the thanksgiving for Holy Communion and the Dismissal. The priest takes the chalice and paten to the Preparation Table, folds the red cloth and places the Gospel on it, while saying prayers of thanksgiving, in which the congregation take part. There are two brief hymns: ‘We have seen the true light; we have received the heavenly Spirit; we have found the true faith, as we worship the undivided Trinity; for the Trinity has saved us’. And: ‘Let our mouths be filled with your praise, Lord, that we may sing of your glory. For you have counted us worthy to partake of your holy, divine, immortal and life-giving Mysteries. Keep us in your ...
The Place of the Artist The place and prominence of the artist in society has shifted radically in the last millennium. Very little is known about the artists prior to the end of the Middle Ages. The architects, artists, and craftsmen were not identified. They did not sign their works. Artistic accomplishments were brought forth out of the cultural context and were an expression of the world view or the faith of the people and the time in which they were created. Just as we do not know the names of the bankers, or contractors, or chariot builders, the names of artists were not recorded. It was not until the Renaissance and the rise of humanism that artists began to be ...
Of the several ministry-related issues which are raised in the book, I think that two have particular relevance to me in my ministry experience in light of the Pastoral Epistles and the Letter to the Ephesians. The first issue that I see as relevant to my ministry is the need for ministry to be rooted on the Apostolic model and to resist the secular mindset which is permeating local churches and denominational jurisdictions. The congregation should not set the tone, scope or nature of the pastor’s ministry. By mere definition, it shouldn’t because it can’t. Ontologically, the pastor’s call is of Apostolic origin. As the authors rightly observe, “Everybody and his dog has a job description for the pastor. Everybody knows ...
People need to taste the sweetness of Grace in their soul, so as to understand how unfair they’re being to themselves if they don’t try to find it.
That Christians should open their eyes to ecological problems, and recognize their responsibility for the preservation of their natural environment, is the insight underlying this conference at the St. Michael’s institute. And I want to thank Father Alexander for having invited me to participate, for the permission, as a woman, to break the silence we should usually observe, and for the opportunity to learn more about what it means for a Christian to worry about the environment. That Christians should open their eyes to ecological problems, and recognize their responsibility for nature’s resources, was brought home to me in Germany while I was still a Protestant. In its 1983 Vancouver meeting, the World Council of Churches initiated its conciliar process, a ...
