It seems very difficult to become good, but in fact it’s easy, provided you have good experiences when you’re little. As you grow up, you don’t have to make great efforts, because you’ve got goodness within you, you live it. You don’t work at it, you experience it, its your property which, if you’re careful, you’ll have with you for the rest of your life. » Venerable Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia
The Grace of the Holy Spirit, true faith in God, united to all good works and the confession of the name of Jesus Christ are the prerequisites for our salvation. Grace is given to those who believe in Christ and live in repentance. » Elder Cleopa Ilie
Don’t impose on your children without discernment. I tie my tomatoes up with pieces of cloth. If I tied them with wire, it would cut into them. It needs care. Children today have a strong engine, but square wheels. This is why they need help to get started. » Venerable Païsios the Athonite
That’s what evil’s like: it darkens the reason and brings to the edge of the cliff those who’ve gone astray from the right path, even if it’s the first time. Evil really is blind and can’t easily see any of the things that are requisite. When wicked people hide away in the holes, the lairs, the caves of evil, it’s impossible for them to cast their gaze upon a ray of light because of the weakness of the eyes of their soul. >Saint John Chrysostom
We should learn to love rather than want other people to love us. We should love everyone and make selfless sacrifices, as great as possible, for all our brothers and sisters in Christ, without expecting praise and love from them. » Venerable Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia
In his Letter to the Philippians, the great Apostle to the Nations, St.Paul urges us to always be joyful. He stresses it repeatedly, that the Christian should always have joy. Along with this, he also tells us the ways a Christian can manage to do so, even in the midst of problems and difficulties. To have a calm spirit, and not give in to melancholy, fear, agony or turmoil. First, he advises us to be friendly and conciliatory towards others. To understand other people and not quick to anger: “Let your gentleness be known to all men” (verse 5). No matter how hard this may seem to us, it can be done if we remember that all the things that bother ...
Wealth doesn’t destroy and neither does poverty. What does destroy is bad intentions, which cannot use either of these states properly. Intentions beget more intentions and just as a flame burns more fiercely the more it’s fed with wood, the same is true of intentions. Evil and virtue aren’t the result of nature, but of the intentions. >Saint John Chrysostom
The Raising of Lazarus Excerpt from the book by Aikaterina Tsotsakou-Karveli, ‘Λαογραφικό Ημερολόγιο, Οι δώδεκα μήνες και τα έθιμά τους’ (The Twelve Months and their Customs) published by Pataki. Lazarus Saturday is dedicated to Poor Lazarus, his death and resurrection. It’s a portent of the death and Resurrection of Christ, which will be celebrated the following week. According to Saint John’s Gospel, Lazarus was a friend of Christ and died in Bethany: In the town of Bethany Martha weeps and So does Mary for their brother, Lazarus The faithful friend of their hearts Then after four days, Christ raised him in order to demonstrate the victory over death and to prepare the ground for His own Resurrection. Tradition says that Lazarus was so terrified by the Underworld, ...
There are people who never turn to God and never pray. Suddenly their soul experiences melancholy, their spirit worry and their heart sorrow. Then they realize that in such unhappiness no-one can help them. This is why they turn to God and say with a deep sigh: ‘Lord, have mercy upon me’ And the Lord hears them, although at first they only just sense divine Grace. Later they experience it much more and feel relief. » Venerable Nectarios of Optina
Fr JOnah from Taiwan, speaks on the Gospel of the 5th Sunday of Great Lent (Mark 10, 32-45).
Today the Church is facing another iconoclast controversy: the pressure being exercised upon it by secular society to conform to its values and ideals, so that the Church will also become secularized. The danger to the Church from secularization is enormous. Instead of the Church helping society to become more ecclesiastical, the world is attempting to influence the Church and turn it into the world. So, the Church will retain its forms and norms, but will lose its faith. It will suffer the same fate as Papism, about which Saint Nektarios wrote: ‘Through the dogma of infallibility, the Western Church lost its spiritual freedom, it lost the adornment of this freedom, it was shaken to its foundations, it was deprived of the ...
All Christians want to go to paradise, but they don’t want to work for paradise. It’s not enough just to want salvation. For your wish to be fulfilled you have to struggle, you need iron determination. » Saint Theophan the Recluse
Before you come to Holy Communion, pay attention to what you say: ‘Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors’. Do you forgive? You’ll be forgiven. Approach with boldness. It’s bread, not poison. So look to it. Have you forgiven? Because, if not, you’re lying. And, what’s more, you’re lying to Him from Whom you can’t hide it. You can tell God lies. But you can’t hide from Him. He knows what you’re up to. He sees through you. He examines you inside and out. He searches you inside and out. He judges you inside and out. And He either condemns you or crowns you. » Saint Augustine of Hippo
Fervent love for Christ nourishes more than any material food and gives lots of calories to the soul and body. It often heals incurable diseases, without medicines, and bring repose to the soul. » Venerable Païsios the Athonite
People’s need to confirm their faith in the inaccessible God and His energies leads them to seek miracles, to exaggerate them or even to make them up. In this sense, miracles as miraculous events can be found in all religions. In the New Testament, the various cures effected for the sick, the resurrections of the dead and other expressions of the love of Christ and the Apostles towards those in pain, are called ‘signs’. A miracle provokes astonishment, surprise, whereas a sign demonstrates something, that is, the kingdom of God- already in existence- where the results of decay no longer obtain. The challenge of the Scribes and Pharisees to Christ- ‘We want to see a sign from you’ (Matth. 12, 38) – ...
When we think of the saints, they think of us and help us. So you make friends with the saints, which is the surest form of friendship. Then you can be alone and live with everyone: with the saints, the angels and everybody else in the world. » Venerable Païsios the Athonite
16 April 1989 In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. We keep today the memory of Saint Mary of Egypt in the gradual progression from glory to glory which Lent is, and which must lead us step by step to facing the supreme glory of the Divine Love crucified, the sacrificial love of the Holy Trinity. Saint Mary of Egypt was a sinner, someone whose sin was known to everyone and not to God alone; perhaps she was the only one who was least of all aware of it because sin was her life. And yet, one day, she wanted to go and venerate an icon of the Mother of God in a church. The supreme beauty of ...
When people begin to be steadfastly united with God in prayer, they never want to be separated from Him. Because the sweetness they taste through the Divine Presence is so great they never want to taste anything else. » Saint Theophan the Recluse
People who won’t accept a word of advice, even from people who love them, are, in the end, like warped pieces of wood and render themselves useless spiritually. Just as planks that you can’t plane to make furniture end up as scaffolding or a staircase where they’re trodden on and muddied and eventually end up in the fire, these people are also destroyed, in the end. » Venerable Païsios the Athonite
This period of Great Lent through which we’re passing, and also the worrying social phenomena we see on a global scale, challenge and invite us as people to reflect on and weigh up why it is that almost the whole of mankind is in turmoil. Tension between ourselves and between nations, loathing and intolerance within states and between different people are part and parcel of daily life. The result is conflicts, sometimes of considerable proportions, with people as the victims. Even worse, these victims often belong to the most vulnerable groups who have no responsibility for or relation to the criminal behaviour of those at whose bidding the disasters were created. What’s the cause of all the turmoil and confusion, which ...
