Rely on the Grace
Archimandrite Georgios Kapsanis, Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Gregoriou † If you allow the thought that you can rely on your own powers and proceed in that vein, then pride enters. You lose what you’ve gained and you need to start again from the beginning, to humble yourself,...
Like the starving
Saint Justin Popovich In the first place, church attendance is a need of the soul. Just as the hungry have need of food and the thirsty require water, so, too, do Christians have need of their ‘daily bread, which is the word of God and the spotless sacraments, the...
It’s up to us
Saint Peter the Damascan Nobody’s the cause of perdition; only our own will is. God’s the cause of salvation: He gave us life and bliss, knowledge and power and His own Self. Not even the devil can bring us to perdition against our will; all he can do is...
The Wisdom of Obedience
Fr. Andreas Agathokleous The various Books of the Elders, ancient and modern, take us into the world of the monastic state. There the genuine way of the Christian/Gospel life continues, as does the human reality of blunders and failures, which are overcome through asceticism. One very important and substantial...
A variety of ploys
Saint Ignatius Brianchaninoff Conscious, calculated or artificial humility is a mix of numerous and varied stratagems through which human pride attempts to attire itself in the glory of humility in the eyes of the blind world, the world which clings to its own things, the world which fawns on...
Human Tape-recorders
Saint Paisios the Athonite Because of so much reading, people today have ended up as tape-recorders and their cassettes are full of superfluous things. But according to Abba Isaac, teaching without action is a ‘repository of shame’. You see, lots of people who are interested in sports read sports...
Let’s not be overwhelmed
Saint Ambrose of Milan ‘Don’t let us fall into temptation that we can’t withstand’. As if we were athletes wishing to compete and asking for the strength to resist our opponent, which in this case is sin. The Lord, Who took our sins upon His shoulders and forgave our...
It seems hard
Saint Theophan the Recluse If you pray in the morning as you should, your whole day will be blessed. Don’t be downcast over efforts that seem fruitless. Remember how you learned to knit, or read and write. What efforts you made then… Now you can do all of these...
It’s passing
Saint John of Kronstadt Don’t confuse people, who are images of God, with the wickedness they bear inside therm. This evil is merely incidental, it’s their misfortune, their sickness, the devil’s deceit. Their real being, the image of God, is always there inside them. Source: pemptousia.com ABOUT...
This is the measuring-stick
Saint Nicholas Velimirovich Christian love moves in a circle. First comes love for yourself, then love for your friends and, finally, love for God. Christ took our love for our self as the standard for measuring our love for our enemies and our love for God. He said: ‘Love...
