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.
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.
Some people tell me that they are scandalized because they see many things wrong in the Church. I tell them that if you ask a fly, “Are there any flowers in this area?” it will say, “I don’t know about flowers, but over there in that heap of rubbish you can find all the filth you want.” And it will go on to list all the unclean things it has been to.
After fulfilling a commandment expect to be tempted: for love of Christ is tested by adversity. So, never belittle the significance of your thoughts, for not one escapes God’s notice.
A person cannot choose the time in which he is born or lives; it is not up to him, who his parents are, or the nation he will be born into, but what he is responsible for is how he will act in that given time: will he be human or inhuman, no matter his nationality nor parents.
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.
The whole planet wants the freedom of eternal happiness, but most people seek it where it is not and seek it in an inappropriate way.
First of all we should mention that our illnesses are a result of Adam’s fall. In paradise there were no illnesses. So, demonic energy is more or less involved in various degrees and because of various causes and for various purposes: to pay off for a particular sin, to stop someone from a wrong path or for one to receive a higher degree of spiritual knowledge etc.
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.
If a man has some spiritual gift and feels compassion for those who do not have it, he preserves the gift because of his compassion. But a boastful man will lose it through succumbing to temptations of boastfulness.
We must know that the divine light is not a natural phenomenon, like when we hit our head or other causes which generate electrical signals through the nervous system which our brain (more exactly our visual cortex) interprets as light.
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.
But someone might say, “Then, if heaven is so great, why don’t you all just go and kill yourselves, and pass over to your God right away, and not bother us anymore?”
One may ask: Who wove the Holy Belt of the Virgin Mary? Well, She did, of course. Although the answer may be obvious, let us think a little more deeply about it. The Virgin Mary was full of Grace and spiritual knowledge – she was, after her Son, the most perfect being in the world.
Once, the trees went forth to anoint a king over them, and they said to the olive tree, “Reign over us!” But the olive tree said to them, “Shall I leave my fatness with which God and men are honored, and go to wave over the trees?”
There are some people who impress us more and help us more than others do, even if they say almost the same things as the others.
Every created nature is far removed from and completely foreign to the divine nature.
If someone is not under obedience to you, do not rebuke him to his face for his faults. For that would imply you have authority over him, and are not just giving advice.
There is among the passions an anger of the intellect (mind), and this anger is in accordance with nature – that is courage . Without this anger a person cannot attain purity: we have to feel angry with all that is sown in us by the enemy. When Job felt this anger he reviled his enemies, calling them ‘dishonorable men of no repute, lacking everything good, whom I would not consider fit to live with the dogs that guard my flocks’ (cf. Job 30:1, 4). If we wish to acquire the anger that is in accordance with nature we must […]
In the Christian context: by “mystery,” we do not mean merely that which is baffling and mysterious, an enigma or insoluble problem.
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.
When a man lies, he murders some part of the world These are the pale deaths which men miscall their lives All this I cannot bear to witness any longer Cannot the kingdom of salvation take me home? Adorn yourself with truth, try to speak truth in all things; and do not support a lie, no matter who asks you. If you speak the truth and someone gets mad at you, don’t be upset, but take comfort in the words of the Lord: Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of truth, for theirs is the Kingdom of […]
Sin is distorted pleasure, so we need pain analogous with the severity of sin in order to re-establish an equilibrium, according to spiritual law.
The Mother of God died, as all people die by the necessity of their mortal human nature which is indivisibly bound up with the corruption of this world as the result of Adam’s fall.
There are three ways that we can please God:
Father Seraphim Rose of Platina, himself a convert to Orthodoxy, was once asked to compose a “Manual for Orthodox Converts”. In his notes for such a manual, he jotted down the following “convert pitfalls”, or what he called “obstacles in the Orthodox mission today” – or, shortly, “convertitis”. Based on these notes we have:
Many are interested in solving “hot” topics in their minds. We are interested in how Elijah was lifted up to heaven with the chariot of fire, how is the vision of paradise, the angels, the creation of the world, and other things like this.
What we know as the inflammatory faculty of our soul is a non-rational aspect of our soul which is responsible to avoid or attack, that is a flight or fight response.
Even if the rules of iconography insist that the holy image depicted (the saints) should be with black hair and black eyes, however, from tradition and from visions, we are informed from the saints which saw the Mother of God that her hair texture resembles that of ripe wheat with blue eyes.