The heart’s an apparently small organ, but there’s room for God to dwell inside. And if God does reside there, then the heart’s filled to overflowing and there’s room for nothing else. Even if the whole world were to be installed there, the heart would be an empty dwelling-place without God.
By Chris Vlahonasios It’s been a pretty chilly winter so far. Heavy rain, strong gusts and long, cold nights. Despite cranking up the heater and doubling up on quilts, the only logical solution to solve our winter-blues is a trip to Greece! Sadly, we all can’t just get up and escape this miserable weather, that’s where VOD binging is the next best option. However, with all the terrible remakes and new shows, with stories that sound more like a political science lecture, even this option seems bleak – however – there IS a real alternative: Byzanfest. What is Byzanfest? It’s the world’s first and only online Orthodox Christian short film festival. An initiative of TRANSFIGURE MEDIA, Byzanfest is dedicated to offering the ...
Hypocrites want to be considered saints and have everyone reverence them for their piety. You see their outward demeanour and think that they serve God in all things, but their hearts are full of jealousy, guile and every kind of wickedness.
The immediate fruit of God’s love is the love of the image of God, that of people and all God’s creatures. Through years of ascetic effort, monastics acquire a ‘merciful heart’, which loves as God does. According to Abba Isaak the Syrian, a merciful heart is ‘a heart burning on behalf of the whole of creation, that is people, birds, animals, demons and every other creature, at the remembrance or sight of which the eyes shed tears and, from so much fellow-suffering and mercy, the heart of the merciful person recoils and is unable to bear or hear of any hurt or any sorrow that has been dealt to creation. This is why such people pray with tears and at ...
You can’t expect to uproot the futility of the world from within you as long as you’re content to live within its vanity. When we become estranged to the world, then our intellect is also detached from it easily and wishes to become close to God.
In our reading from the Letter to the Romans, St. Paul lays before us two basic truths, which are of particular interest for us today. The first, is that we should desire and seek the salvation of our people with all of our hearts. Not only those close to us, but all people. Second, the Holy Apostle tells us that the salvation offered by Christ is open to all, and is within reach for those who turn to Him. St. Paul retained great zeal for the salvation for his own people, the Jewish people. Saul (St. Paul’s Jewish name), from the time he turned to Christ, never stopped facing the scorn of his own nation. Every time he found himself among ...
In our reading from the Letter to the Romans, St. Paul lays before us two basic truths, which are of particular interest for us today. The first, is that we should desire and seek the salvation of our people with all of our hearts. Not only those close to us, but all people. Second, the Holy Apostle tells us that the salvation offered by Christ is open to all, and is within reach for those who turn to Him. St. Paul retained great zeal for the salvation for his own people, the Jewish people. Saul (St. Paul’s Jewish name), from the time he turned to Christ, never stopped facing the scorn of his own nation. Every time he found himself among ...
Through tears of repentance, all the impurities of sin that have piled up in the heart are expelled.
It’s a waste of effort to serve the devil while invoking God‘s mercy.
Watch Fr Jonah’s from Taiwan sermon on the gospel of the 3rd Sunday of Matthew (6, 22-33).
Only the heart of a person who is continuously being cleansed by repentance from egotism, selfishness and the passions can really love God and other people. Egotism and love are irreconcilable. It’s often the case that egotism believes it’s loving, but this ‘love’ is merely a patina of love that conceals selfishness and self-interest. Monastics in repentance burn with Divine love. God’s love holds their hearts together, so that they don’t live for themselves alone, but for God. The soul/bride continuously seeks its bridegroom with pain and desire and finds no rest until its united with him. It’s not content to serve God as a servant (out of fear), nor as a hireling (with Paradise as a reward). It wants to ...
If you hate your enemy, you show how senseless you are. Because if your enemy hounds you, you hound yourself as well, inside you. Tell me, isn’t it hounding, the worst and fiercest form of persecution, if your hatred torments you as regards your enemy? If only you knew what a triumph, what a blessing it is to love your enemies and do good to them.
You have a long struggle ahead! You have to cultivate a bold outlook within yourself. Have a look at the things you love. Are you over-fond of them? Are you too attached to them? Renounce them. That’s the answer the Lord expects from you.
Saint Marina was from a village in Pisidia, the daughter and only child of a certain Aidesios, a pagan priest, and lived in the reign of Emperor Claudius II. When she was twelve, her mother died and she was given into the charge of another woman and she asked of God to be granted the faith of the Christians, which was being taught in the village by some of them at that time. When she became fifteen, in 270, she had a desire to die as a martyr for the love of Christ. With one occasion, the governor Olymbrius sent people to arrest her and cast her into prison. After several days had passed, she was fetched from the prison ...
In India, for a child to have an opportunity for success, they must go to an English Medium School. The need for the school strikes at the heart of serious issues facing India. World leaders are calling for governing officials to take action on the world-wide issues of poverty, illiteracy, and trafficking. In a small town on the outskirts of Kolkata, Sister Nektaria is working with local leaders to combat the serious effects of this global issue. No one is immune. No one is untouched. Sister Nektaria is a Greek Orthodox nun who is deeply committed to the education of these children. Her orphanage, located in the impoverished outskirts of Kolkata, is also the only affordable English Middle School in the entire ...
This is an excerpt from Lactantius describing that “Constantine was advised in a dream to place the celestial sign of God on his shields… Having been armed with this sign, the army took up its weapons…”. After routing Maxentius’ forces in northern Italy, Constantine approached Rome in October. According to Eusebius and Lactantius, on October 27, the day before the two armies would battle outside of Rome near the Milvian Bridge, Constantine had a vision instructing him to fight in the name of Christ, with his soldiers’ shields bearing the symbol of Christ. The symbol was either a cross or the labarum, an intersection of the chi (X) and rho (P), the letters of Christ. Christian author Lactantius, writing several years after ...
Hypocrisy’s the result of envy and all evils derive from it. Hypocrites are the most unjust of people, because thinking you’re just when you’re not is the final injustice.
The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is glad tidings , because it brings into the world not only a new teaching, but a new life to replace the old one. The old life was dominated by sin, passions, corruption and death, and ruled by the devil. Despite its ‘natural’ joys, it leaves a bitter taste, because it’s not the real life that people were made for, but a life corrupted and diseased, which is why it’s marked with the feeling of absurdity, emptiness and anxiety. The new life is offered to people by our theanthropic Christ as a gift and a potential for everyone. The faithful are united with Jesus Christ and so they partake in His divine and immortal ...
Bless, Father. Saint Neofytos, ‘presbyter, monk and recluse’, as he calls himself, was born in the village of Lefkara, in the Larnaka region of Cyprus, in the middle of the year 1134 A. D., which is why he is praised as ‘the glory of Lefkara and the boast of Cyprus’. His father was called Athanasios and his mother was Evdoxia. She became a nun after the death of her husband. His family were poor farmers and there were a lot of children- eight in all- and they were also very devout. Their Christian upbringing is apparent from the fact that two of the boys followed the monastic life: Neofytos, at 18, and Ioannis, a little later. The latter became the Abbot ...
If you believe that God’s dependable and powerful, then you’ll not only hope in Him, but you also become a sharer in His good things.
