Grief will succeed joy, and joy, grief, just as night follows day. This is how the Father of lights has established the path of God for those who are being saved. Just have patience and hope: engrave these in the depths of your heart and all adversities will be faced.
Note: „How to find a good spouse?” is a question which is often asked by women. That’s why this text was written for women, but can equally be applied by men. First of all, pray to find a good spouse. Our Lord and His holy Mother are the primary source of aid for such matters. It is best to…
As we have already frequently said, this—we mean despondency—is very often one of the branches of talkativeness, and its first child.
My child, I hope you are well. Just recently, I got somewhat better too. This is how my life has passed, with pain and illnesses. Now I have approached death once again for your sake. I said, “Let me die, only let my spiritual children live.” And I didn’t eat at all.
The Resurrection of Christ is the most significant event to take place in History. It is the event that differentiates Christianity from every other religion. Other religions have mortal leaders, whereas the Head of the Church is the Resurrected Christ. “Resurrection of Christ” implies the deification and the resurrection of human nature, and the hope for deification and resurrection of our own hypostasis. Since the medicine has been discovered, there is hope for life.
The greatest gift God has made to people is the possibility of union with Him. This gift has become concrete through the incarnation of God, through the birth of Jesus Christ.
And God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let him have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So, God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female, he created them. (Genesis 1: 26-27)
Many today are wondering how to behave in the case of aggressive behavior, starting with those at school or playing between children ending with aggression at national level.
A few years ago, at an hour of maximum audience on the Greek national television station (ERT), a debate was held, at the highest level, on the topic of abortions.
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.
We shouldn’t think, judge, and act, having faith in our way of seeing things—but on God.
At the beginning of the 20th century, in the Skete of Saint Anne (Major) a monk wanted to extend a wall in the garden of his cell and for this purpose he started late in the evening to dig into the forest. Suddenly he found the holy relics of a big saint: they were incorrupt, with a marvelous yellow color and having a very intense fragrance.
Why do you constantly recall what you’ve done, and bring it up to us? Don’t you know that if you praise yourself, God won’t praise you anymore? And in the same way, if you deplore yourself, he will never stop proclaiming you in front of everyone.
How can we put up with these things unless it is because we have no true love? If we have true love with sympathy and patient labor, we shall not go about scrutinizing our neighbor’s shortcomings.
The warrior is not someone who fights, For no one has the right to take another life.
When there’s respect for small things, there’ll be even greater respect towards the bigger ones. When there’s no respect for small things, then neither will there be for the bigger ones. This is how the Fathers maintained Tradition.
The day-by-day spiritual life of an orthodox layman should be settled between him and his priest, in accordance with the Holy Tradition of the Church. This is the norm and the best way to do so.
When we focus on good, good grows. When we focus on bad, bad grows.
If God sees that the intellect has entirely submitted to Him and puts its hope in Him alone, He strengthens it, saying: ‘Have no fear Jacob my son, my little Israel’ (Isa. 41:14), and: ‘Have no fear: for I have delivered you, I have called you by My name; you are Mine. If you pass through water, I shall be with you, and the rivers will not drown you. If you go through fire, you will not be burnt, and the flames will not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, who saves […]
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 you pursue virtue in a monastery or community, you are not likely to be attacked much by fear. But the man who spends his time in more solitary places should make every effort to avoid being overcome by that offspring of vainglory, that daughter of unbelief: cowardice.
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.
God made us in His image and likeness—that is, just a single created god—a single Human in many persons of two kinds (man and woman), as He is a single God in three persons. God created a giant mind, a created god, in which all persons would cooperate flawlessly through their minds in real time to accomplish the same goal, even if each person would keep his specificity.
We ought to be careful never to do anything rashly or carelessly, or anything at all for which we cannot give a reasonable ground.
Few words, much love. To all. No matter who they are because every one of us is ‘sent’, every one of us is created with a purpose, every one of us is unique in his own way.
We who are given the fullness of true Christianity are obliged to be working on ourselves, to be watching the signs of the times, and to be extremely joyful, as St. Paul is constantly saying: ‘Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say: Rejoice!’ (Phil. 4:4). We rejoice because we have something which all the death and corruption of this world cannot take away, that is, the eternal Kingdom of Jesus Christ.
Let us now carefully consider whether God ever allows evil to be forced on his saints, either by himself or by someone else.
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?”
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 […]
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 […]
