People are saved through sorrows. Nobody’s ever been saved without sorrows. Without sorrows and trials, don’t expect any repose in the life beyond the grave. » Elder Ephraim of Arizona
The mountains, the hills, the trees, the sea and the fish all praise God. But because we’ve blackened the understanding of our souls, we understand very little of this, very little. » Elder Ephraim of Katounakia
It’s clear from the outset that the rather unusual young man who approaches Christ in today’s Gospel reading has no hidden agenda. He didn’t go to try and trick the Lord, as did the lawyer and some of the Pharisees. He was sincere. This is proved by the fact that when he heard Christ’s final exhortation, ‘he departed in sorrow’. He really was looking for the kingdom of God. This is why Saint Mark the Evangelist ‘supplements’ Matthew, saying ‘Jesus looked at him and loved him’. Young and rich yet being concerned about eternal life is a rare phenomenon. Young people never have much time for preachers. Today, when young people- and not only them- hear someone talking about eternal life, ...
Take care that you know the health and sickness of your soul. Saint Basil the Great
It’s great to walk, to work, to move and to have your health. But first you should have your spiritual health. Your spiritual health is fundamental, then comes bodily health. Almost all sicknesses come from the lack of trust in God and this creates stress. » Venerable Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia
People are never satisfied with what they’ve got, since the soul wasn’t made for this world. So earthly things can’t make them content. » Saint Païsios the Athonite
After the resurrection of Christ, Our Lady was the support of the apostles and the newly-founded Church. It was she who taught the new Christians, guided them and comforted them in their sorrows. In her Life we read that, three days before her dormition, the angel Gabriel visited her, as he had done at the Annunciation, and announced her glorious translation from death to life. Thereafter, in miraculous fashion, the Holy Spirit gathered all the apostles in Gethsemane, at the house of the Mother of God, so that they could obtain her blessing and be present at the funeral. After they had sung praises to the Mother of God, they asked her to grant them a final teaching, as a ...
Hospitality’s the greatest of the virtues. It attracts the Grace of the Holy Spirit. My child, in the face of every stranger, I see Christ Himself. » Elder Amphilochios Makris of Patmos
Every time we celebrate the Dormition of the Mother of God, it’s like Easter all over again; the summer Easter. Our Lady the Mother of God prepares this Easter, this ‘glorious Passover from death unto life’, for us. A second Passover, holy, spotless, life-giving for the human race, because truly, today, ‘the terms of nature are overcome’. Saint John the Damascan cried aloud: ‘How the source of life goes towards life by passing through death!’ The death of the Mother who was the source of life for the Lord Himself transcends the notion of death, so that it’s not even called death but ‘dormition’ and ‘divine translation’, or a progression or procession towards the Lord. And even if we call it ...
Be patient with your own passions and be patient with mine. Then you’ll become a saint. » Elder Ephraim of Katounakia
Think good things about other people. With your prayer, through Christ, you can have a beneficial effect on others. Don’t think ill of other people, because then you’re a bad influence on them.
Because people don’t look to their own wickedness, because they don’t weep over their dead self, they’re incapable of doing anything at all to put themselves to rights and so they’re constantly concerned with other people. There’s nothing that angers God more, nothing that exposes us so much and leads to our isolation than gossip, than condemning and slaughtering other people.
Fasting was a commandment given to us to observe right at the beginning, but our first ancestors didn’t obey.
People need humility and the fear of God more than the breath they take. Two wrongs don’t make a right, so if anyone does you harm, respond with a good action and in that way you’ll cancel out their wickedness.
Heaven’s newspapers write everything that happens here, all the good and the bad. Believers should be simple in their actions and pure in their thoughts and feelings. They should seek God with a pure heart and encounter Him in simplicity, because ‘a pure heart easily passes through the gates of heaven’.
People aren’t worth less than an animal which, according to the law, if it falls into a ditch, you have to pull out and look after (Deut. 22, 1-4). So how kind should we be to our fellow human beings, when we’re enjoined to have pity even on dumb animals?
Christ is here! Why don’t you believe? Believe and everything will be fine. Just believe. Wait. Don’t be afraid. God’s Grace is protecting you. Wait. Ask the Lord for love. All the virtues are hidden away in love.
Yesterday and today we have a great feast of the Lord, the Transfiguration of Christ the Saviour. We shall say a few words about the feast, based on what the Gospel tells us. Not long before His crucifixion, Christ took three of His disciples, Peter, James and John, led them up onto a high mountain called Tabor and was transfigured before their eyes. His face became as bright as the sun and His clothes shone white. On His left and right appeared two figures from the Old Testament, Moses and Elijah, who represented the Law and the Prophets respectively. The disciples were unable to bear the light and fell to the ground (Pentecost had not yet happened). One of them, ...
When we speak to people today, about mourning, it seems strange to them, because they think it shameful to cry. Of course, when we’re dealing with passing, vain matters, it is indeed not worth crying. But that mourning’s just on the level of social convention. Spiritual mourning has to do with our relationship with God and is the product not so much of our own choice, as of the Grace of the Holy Spirit. The sense of responsibility for wicked deeds weighs down upon our heart and this gives rise to the sad state of mourning.
Temptations happen to people: to test them, and so that their virtue will shine through, as was the case with Abraham, Job and many others of the righteous; to cleanse them of all the stains of sin, or as the Prophet Isaiah puts it, all the rust God sees in the depths of the souls of His children (cf. Is. 1, 25) so that, on the day of judgment, they can appear before Him as pure gold; or so that we can be chastised for our own good, because of our sins, as we read in the Psalms: Many are the afflictions with which the Lord scourges the sinner (Ps. 31, 10).
