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?”
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:
There is a lot of anxiety and distress about the famous 666 in some circles, which most of the time (if not always) distracts us from our main aim in life – the salvation of our eternal soul.
If you want to serve God, prepare your heart not for food, not for drink, not for rest, not for ease, but for suffering, so that you may endure all temptations, trouble and sorrow.
At the approach of the great feasts, you must be especially watchful over yourself.
The almighty Christ was the only one which had the right, the power and the capacity to be a tyrant.
Perhaps you are saying, “Why are the wicked joyful? Why do they live in luxury? Why do they not toil with me?”
We should have always room for one more. Perhaps this should be obvious but the hell of egotism in our minds teaches us that the state of necessity and war is an excuse for domestic tyranny.
I also maintain that those who are punished in Gehenna are scourged by the scourge of love.
Who killed Jesus? Many would say “the Jews” – however, if we look closely at the Gospels we will see that the answer isn’t correct and besides that, such forms of judgment of people based on their ethnic or cultural appurtenance of a certain group have dire consequences, as we saw in history.
Many times we yell at our children “do this” or “don’t do that” – but unfortunately the end results are not what we expected.
Orthodoxy is a divine-human co-operation in which the Lord Himself will settle any crisis within His Body – the Church – and the most common way is the following one:
We all sin and the effect of any sin is the increase of demonic energy upon us. Devils, like any angel, are spirits – noetic existences – so our minds can communicate with them but because the demons are very good “theologians” and very intelligent – even if their intelligence is distorted – that’s why we cannot escape from them when we are under their influence by using logic. We will just tangle more in their nets.
The question of forgiveness is not a moral issue. We do not forgive because it is the “correct” thing to do. We forgive because it is the true nature of the life in Christ.
Now, it’s true that most people who don’t have much sense expect to be content with avoiding hell. But I say it’s a far worse punishment than hell to be excluded from the glory of the other world. I think that someone who has failed to reach it should be sorry, not so much because of the miseries of hell, but because of his rejection from heaven. For that by itself is more dreadful than any other kind of punishment.
A humble person never behaves like a teacher; he will listen, and, whenever his opinion is requested, he responds humbly. In other words, he replies like a student. He who believes that he is capable of correcting others is filled with egotism.
Thoughts are the movements of the mind which can be motivated by: 1. God and His angels or even by His servants, ie the saints. from which pure & positive thoughts are always generated.
During confession, especially one’s first confession – it is much better to list the sins in front of the priest – that is in front of God – and to seek His forgiveness in order to show your repentance.
The aim of the Christian is to attain the blessed state of deification. Deification is identical with `likeness’, that is, to be like God.
Depression suppresses us from the lack of God’s grace in our heart and soul for without God nothing makes sense anymore, we lose our aim and purpose in life and since the result of God’s grace is love, happiness and peace, then that is why we fall victim to depression. Besides that we suffer from depression as a result of a cronical bad habit or because of the devil’s warfare of the thoughts which have succeeded to convince us that we are good for nothing and that nobody loves us.
Pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit.
When the soul betrays itself and loses the blessed and longed for fervor, let it carefully investigate the reason for losing this. And let it arm itself with all its longing and zeal against whatever has caused this. For the former fervor can return only through the same door through which it was lost.
Orthodox religious thought lays the utmost emphasis on the image of God in the human person. Because one is an icon of God, each member of the human race, even the most sinful, is infinitely precious in God’s sight.
We think we know a lot, but what we know is very little. Even all those who have striven all their life to bring progress to mankind — learned scientists and highly educated people — all realize in the end that all their knowledge is but a grain of sand on the seashore. All our achievements are insufficient.
Love is essentially the banishment of every kind of contrary thought, for love thinks no evil. So, we must love others as they are and not as we want to be, according to our selfish desires. We can pray for them, we can give them our good example–even our good counsels. But we must not direct our anger toward them.
First of all, in the Palm Sunday services, we learn how volatile is vain glory. On Palm Sunday, our Lord was hailed as a king by the same people who, in very few days later, crucified Him.
Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell
Do not judge. You don’t know from what storm the other person has come. You don’t know
Always help someone; you might be the only one that does. Help today because you don’t
Don’t ruin a good today by thinking too much about a bad yesterday. Let it go. It is water under the bridge. So, let your past make you better, not bitter, because–
