Give doctors the honor they deserve, for the Lord gave them their work to do. Their skill came from the Most High, and kings reward them for it. Their knowledge gives them a position of importance, and powerful people hold them in high regard.
In any society there are richer people and poorer people. People who find a job, people who can’t find a job for a variety of reasons. All of this God has left on earth in order to need each other and to learn to love one another and not to judge too much why. In any case, Jesus does not want the sinner’s death but to return and be alive.
A nation without faith in God does not become free, neither advances further as a civilization. Only in this way we can assure for our children the heavenly inheritance, the only one true inheritance which truly remains even after death.
One should not think about the doings of God when one’s stomach is full; on a full stomach there can be no vision of the Divine mysteries.
The parable of the Last Judgment begins by saying that Jesus will separate us “as the shepherd divides the sheep from the goats.” Okay, but what is the connection between sheep and goats with the Fearful Judgment?
It was in the parish of perpetually-depressed Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a number of decades ago. The colors of the land were washed out. The sky was drab with winter, even in spring, and the view from the parish rectory grimy, looking over the grey mountain-range and a tired horizon. Much of the area’s industries were shuttered and moved. Alternating houses sat with their eyes boarded-up.
Know that there are eight evil thoughts that bring about all that is vile: those of sensuality, lechery, love of money, anger, inappropriate grief, despondency, vainglory and pride. All these wage warfare against every person.
Avarice (“the love of money”) is the worship of idols, the daughter of unbelief, a lying excuse for illness, a foreboder of old age, a harbinger of drought, and a herald of hunger. The lover of money sneers at the Gospel and is a willful transgressor. He who has attained love scatters his money. But he who says that he lives for love and for money has deceived himself.
Self love, as has often been said, is the cause of all impassioned thoughts. For from it are produced the three principal thoughts of desire; those of gluttony, avarice and self-esteem. From gluttony is born the thought of unchastity; from avarice, the thought of greed; from self-esteem, the thought of pride.
In a metropolis in Northern Greece, there’d been no rain for some time. It was a terrible drought and, due to the situation, the local metropolitan and clergy began to pray for rain.
Like most things, it’s not the outward actions and situation that matter most, it’s our inner state.
When we think of Christmas, we think about what we have to offer to others, seen as a kind of social obligation or at most an expression of everyday love.
All vice is caused by self-esteem and sensual pleasure; you cannot overcome passion without hating them.
Someone asked me if he could use a gun to protect his house. Well… I don’t know about guns. But I know about locks to protect the houses: A very old hermit monk here had a kelli dedicated to Saint Nicholas. Even though he was alone in the wilderness, he not only didn’t have a lock at his cell, but he left the door largely open even if he went some distance away (Karyes, a monastery etc.). In the many years he behaved like this, no unfortunate accident occurred. This went on for years till once a group of pilgrims […]
The delicacy and the knowledge of the saints is above anything we can concieve. In fact, without God’s grace, we are just barbarians—without God’s grace, we humans are wolves among other humans.
Wait a minute! Is it not possible, they say, to enjoy ease both here and hereafter?
With God’s grace, you will gain your true liberty: you will have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.
They also found that the eating of greens or pulse did not agree with everyone, and that not everyone could live on dry bread. One man, they said, could eat two pounds of dry bread and still be hungry, while another might eat a pound, or only six ounces, and be satisfied.
But wealth, someone may say, bring honor to those who possess them, and give them the power to take vengeance on their enemies easily.
Loneliness – voluntarily or not – is your time for prayer and knowing God better. This knowledge comes mainly via prayer because prayer is the union of the mind with God.
The physician is not to be praised only when he leads the patient into gardens and meadows, or baths and pools of water, or when he sets a well-furnished table before him.
All vices grow feeble when conquered, and when beaten are day by day made weaker, and lessen and subside both in place and time—or at any rate, as they are unlike the opposite virtues, are more easily shunned and avoided.
Any addiction is a bad habit, an illness of the soul, a brain disorder characterized by compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli, in the causes of sin, despite the adverse consequences.
Saint Paul says “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”
So he who desires to come to the rest of the Lord and not be defeated by the evil one, lovingly withdraws from people in all things, so as not to criticize them or praise or justify, or bless another or to upset someone else in any respect, or to observe his downfall, and to leave no needle of enmity in his heart against him, and to submit to those who are demented.
We ought to be careful never to do anything rashly or carelessly, or anything at all for which we cannot give a reasonable ground.
Someone who wanted to do evil, prayed Someone wanted to do evil, but first prayed as usual; and finding himself prevented by God, he was then extremely thankful.
One of the biggest noblemen from Gaza asked Saint Zosimas, “How can you say that you are nothing? You make miracles, you heal people, you are a saint!”
There are two basic ways of a cure. The first is for a person to abandon “wealth” of the mind. In speaking of poverty, Saint Niketas Stethatos maintains that poverty is not only the renunciation of material goods, but is also the denial of the “wealth” of the mind.
If you want to make a donation, you must know that you will resemble God because He is merciful by excellence. Hence, He will help you and enlighten you. You will receive a revelation from Him because He will necessarily tell you how much to give, since you act like Him.