Simplicity of faith

January 11, 2014 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Fri­day. [Heb. 11:8, 11-16; Mark 9:33-41] The Sav­iour sets forth a child as a mod­el of faith and life. Sim­plic­i­ty of faith gives birth to sim­plic­i­ty of life; from both of these comes a mod­el mor­al sys­tem. Let phi­los­o­phiz­ing in here, and it will make dis­or­der with­in; un­der the ap­pear­ance of bet­ter ar­rang­ing af­fairs, it will throw one’s en­tire life in­to dis­or­der. Phi­los­o­phiz­ing al­ways cries, “This is not so, that is not so; let me es­tab­lish ev­ery­thing in a new way; the old is worth­less, bor­ing.” But it has nev­er yet, in any place, ar­ranged any­thing good; it on­ly throws things in­to con­fu­sion. The mind should obey what is com­mand­ed by the Lord. True, the mind is call­ed “the tsar in the head”; how­ev­er, this tsar is not giv­en leg­is­la­tive pow­er — on­ly ex­ec­u­tive pow­er. As soon as it starts mak­ing laws, it con­structs it knows not what. Mor­al, re­li­gious, world­ly, and po­lit­i­cal or­ders are thrown in­to con­fu­sion, and ev­ery­thing goes up­side down. It is a great mis­for­tune for so­ci­e­ty when the mind in it is giv­en free­dom to soar, with no re­straint by Di­vine truth! This is God’s wrath. A­bout it is said, emhide thy­self a lit­tle for a mo­ment, un­til the in­dig­na­tion pass a­way/em (Isa­iah 26:20) Dur­ing this apo­gee of men­tal self-wil­ful­ness it is best to wrap one­self in sim­plic­i­ty of faith. Just as dur­ing a storm it is bet­ter to sit at home and not step out to fight self-as­sured­ly with it, so dur­ing storm­y self-mind­ed­ness it is bet­ter not to step out in­to bat­tle with it, or to seize the weap­on of phi­los­o­phiz­ing, or re­sist it. Sim­plic­i­ty of faith is strong­er than phi­los­o­phiz­ing; clothe your­self in it, like in ar­mour, and you will with­stand.

Main obstacles to a sinner’s conversion

January 8, 2014 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Wednes­day. [Heb. 10:1-18; Mark 8:30-34] Hav­ing in­vit­ed peo­ple to fol­low Him with the cross, the Lord shows al­so shows this path, elim­i­nat­ing the main ob­sta­cles to it, which are not out­er, but in­ner, root­ed in the hu­man heart. It is as though He is say­ing, “If you want to fol­low Me, first of all do not pit­y your­self, for he who pit­ies him­self will de­stroy him­self; sec­ond, do not have any­thing to do with self-in­ter­est, for, emWhat shall it prof­it a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul/em (Mark 8:38)? Third, do not be em­bar­rass­ed by what peo­ple will say or how they will look at you: emWho­so­ev­er there­fore shall be a­shamed of Me and of My words, in this adul­ter­ous and sin­ful gen­er­a­tion, of him al­so shall the Son of man be a­shamed, when He com­eth in the glo­ry of His Fa­ther with the ho­ly an­gels./em Self-pit­y, self-in­ter­est, and em­bar­rass­ment are the main chains by which a per­son is held in a life not pleas­ing to God, on the path of pas­sions and sin. They are the main ob­sta­cles to a sin­ner’s con­ver­sion; they are the main ob­ject of spir­i­tu­al strug­gle in a per­son who re­pents and who al­ready has begun to bring forth fruits of re­pen­tance. As long as these threads are not cut, the Chris­tian life in us is un­re­li­a­ble, full of stum­bles and falls, if not al­ways out­er, then in­ner. Let ev­ery­one look at­ten­tive­ly at him­self; if there is any­thing in you of what is said a­bove, take care to give it up: oth­er­wise you can not hope to rise to per­fec­tion in Christ, al­though you may out­ward­ly be very prop­er.

What is written?

December 17, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Twen­ty Fifth Sun­day Af­ter Pen­te­cost. [Eph. 4:1-6; Luke 10:25-37] To the man who ask­ed how to be saved, the Lord on his part of­fer­ed a ques­tion: emWhat is writ­ten in the law? how read­est thou/em? By this He show­ed that to re­solve all per­plex­i­ty one must turn to the word of God. And so that there will not be such per­plex­i­ty at all it is best to al­ways read Di­vine Scrip­ture at­ten­tive­ly, with dis­cern­ment and sym­pa­thy, ap­ply­ing it to your own life, and ful­fill­ing in your own thoughts what re­lates to thoughts, in your own feel­ings and dis­po­si­tions what re­lates to the sens­es, and in your deeds what re­lates to deeds. One who heark­ens to the word of God gath­ers bright un­der­stand­ing of all that is in him, what is near to him, and what is a­bove him; he clar­i­fies his ob­li­ga­tions in all as­pects of life, and ho­ly rules, like valu­able pearls, are strung on­to the thread of his con­science, which then pre­cise­ly and def­i­nite­ly in­di­cate how and when to act so that he please the Lord. He tames the pas­sions — some­thing read­ing the word of God al­ways acts to as­suage. No mat­ter what pas­sion trou­bles you, be­gin to read the word of God and the pas­sion will be­come quiet­er and quiet­er, and at last it will be en­tire­ly calmed. He who en­rich­es him­self through knowl­edge of the word of God is over­shad­ow­ed by the pil­lar of cloud which guided the Is­ra­el­ites in the des­ert.

The Lost Sheep

December 13, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Wednes­day. [I Tim. 1:18-20, 2:8-15; Luke 15:1-10] emThe par­a­ble a­bout the stray sheep and the lost sil­ver piece/em. How great is the Lord’s mer­cy to­ward us sin­ners! He leaves all those who are prop­er and turns to the im­prop­er to cor­rect them; He seeks them, and when He finds them, He Him­self re­joic­es and calls all the heav­ens to re­joice with Him. How is it that He seeks them? Does He not know where we are who have step­ped a­way from Him? He knows and sees all; but if it were on­ly a mat­ter of tak­ing and trans­fer­ring them to His own, all sin­ners would im­me­di­ate­ly re­ap­pear in the same ranks. But one must first dis­pose them to re­pen­tance, so that their con­ver­sion and re­turn to the Lord would be free; and this can­not be done by com­mand or oth­er ex­ter­nal or­der. The Lord seeks a sin­ner by guid­ing him to re­pen­tance. He ar­ranges ev­ery­thing a­round him so that the sin­ner comes to his sens­es, and, see­ing the a­byss in­to which he has been rush­ing, re­turns. All the cir­cum­stances of life are di­rect­ed in this way, all meet­ings with mo­ments of sor­row and joy, even words and looks. And the in­ner ac­tions of God through the con­science and oth­er right thoughts ly­ing in the heart nev­er cease. How much is done to con­vert sin­ners to the path of vir­tue, while sin­ners still re­main sin­ners!… The en­e­my cov­ers them in dark­ness and they think that ev­ery­thing is all right, and all will pass. If wor­ries a­rise they say, “To­mor­row I will stop,” and re­main in their for­mer state. Thus day af­ter day pass­es; in­dif­fer­ence to their sal­va­tion grows and grows. A bit more and it will hard­en in­to sin. Who knows if con­ver­sion will come?

Except ye repent, ye shall all like­wise perish

December 5, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Thurs­day. [II Thess. 2:13-3:5; Luke 13:1-9] Pi­late min­gled the blood of Gal­i­le­ans with their sac­ri­fic­es — the Lord said: ex­cept ye re­pent, ye shall all like­wise per­ish; the tow­er of Si­lo­am fell and killed 18 peo­ple — the Lord again said: ex­cept ye re­pent, ye shall all like­wise per­ish. This gives an un­der­stand­ing that when some mis­for­tune be­falls oth­ers, we must not rea­son a­bout why it hap­pen­ed, but rath­er look at our­selves and ex­am­ine wheth­er there are any sins on us de­serv­ing tem­po­rary pun­ish­ment for the in­struc­tion of oth­ers, and has­ten to wipe them out with re­pen­tance. Re­pen­tance cleans­es sin and re­moves the cause which at­tracts a ca­tas­tro­phe. While a per­son is in sin, an axe is laid to the root of the tree of his life, read­y to cut it down. It does not cut be­cause it waits for re­pen­tance. Re­pent and the axe will be taken a­way, and your life will flow to its end in the nat­u­ral or­der of things; if you do not re­pent — ex­pect to be cut down. What man can know wheth­er he will live to the next year? The par­a­ble a­bout the fruit­less fig tree shows that the Sav­iour prays that Di­vine jus­tice spare each sin­ner in the hopes that he will re­pent and bring forth good fruits. But it some­times hap­pens that Di­vine jus­tice no long­er hears the in­ter­ces­sions, and per­haps He will on­ly a­gree to al­low some­bod­y one more year to re­main a­live. How do you know, sin­ner, that you are not liv­ing your last year, your last month, day and hour?

Peace on Earth?

December 4, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Wednes­day. [II Thess. 2:1-12; Luke 12:48-59] Sup­pose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rath­er di­vi­sion: For from hence­forth there shall be five in one house di­vid­ed, three a­gainst two, and two a­gainst three. The fa­ther shall be di­vid­ed a­gainst the son, and the son a­gainst the fa­ther; the moth­er a­gainst the daugh­ter, and the daugh­ter a­gainst the moth­er; the moth­er-in-law a­gainst her daugh­ter-in-law, and the daugh­ter-in-law a­gainst her moth­er-in-law. What is the rea­son? Those who be­lieve in the Lord are fill­ed with an en­tire­ly dif­fer­ent spir­it, con­tra­ry to that which reigned in peo­ple be­fore His com­ing; that is why they can­not get a­long to­geth­er. The pa­gan world pur­sued ex­clu­sive­ly world­ly and earth­ly in­ter­ests. The Jews at least had in­di­ca­tions of higher good things, but to­wards the end they in­clined to­ward the path of the pa­gans. The Lord, com­ing to the world, show­ed peo­ple oth­er trea­sures, out­side of the fam­i­ly, out­side of so­ci­e­ty, and awak­en­ed oth­er as­pi­ra­tions. Those who ac­cept­ed His teach­ing nat­u­ral­ly es­tab­lish­ed a way of life dif­fer­ent from be­fore, for which they were sub­ject­ed to hos­til­i­ty, op­pres­sion, and per­se­cu­tions. This is the di­vi­sion. The A­pos­tle Paul then said that all de­sir­ing to live god­ly in Christ Je­sus shall suf­fer per­se­cu­tion (II Tim. 3–12). So it was and so it is. When world­ly and earth­ly in­ter­ests be­gin to pre­vail in so­ci­e­ty, then so­ci­e­ty looks un­fav­our­ab­ly at those who dis­play oth­er, un­earth­ly striv­ings; it can­not even un­der­stand how it is pos­si­ble to be in­ter­est­ed in such things. Peo­ple can­not stand those who serve as rep­res­ent­a­tives of a way of life which is not sim­i­lar to their life. This is hap­pen­ing now be­fore ev­ery­one’s eyes. Is this not a sign of the times?…

Common Prayer

November 20, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Tues­day. [I Thess. 1:6-10; Luke 11:1-10] The Lord gave a com­mon prayer for ev­ery­one, com­bin­ing in it all of our needs, spir­i­tu­al and bodi­ly, in­ner and out­er, eter­nal and tem­po­ral. But since it is im­pos­si­ble to in­clude ev­ery­thing which one has to pray to God a­bout in life in on­ly one prayer, a rule is giv­en af­ter the com­mon prayer for pri­vate re­quests a­bout some­thing: Ask, and it shall be giv­en you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be o­pened un­to you. So it is done in the Church of God: Chris­tians pray in com­mon a­bout com­mon needs, but each pri­vate­ly sets his own needs and re­quire­ments be­fore the Lord. We pray in com­mon in church­es ac­cord­ing to es­tab­lish­ed rites, which are noth­ing oth­er than the Lord’s Prayer which has been ex­plain­ed and pre­sent­ed in var­i­ous ways; while pri­vate­ly, at home, ev­ery­one asks the Lord a­bout his own things in what­ev­er way he can. Even in church one can pray a­bout one’s own con­cerns, and at home one can pray with a com­mon prayer. We must con­cern our­selves a­bout on­ly one thing: that when we stand at prayer, at home or in church, we have true prayer in our soul, true turn­ing and lift­ing up of our mind and heart to God. Let ev­ery­one do this as he is able. Do not stand like a stat­ue, and do not mut­ter the pray­ers like a street or­gan wound up, play­ing songs. As long as you stand like that, and as long as you mum­ble the pray­ers, you are with­out prayer, the mind wan­der­ing and the heart full of vain feel­ings. If you al­ready stand in prayer and are ad­just­ed to it, is it dif­fi­cult for you to draw your mind and heart there as well? Draw them there, even if they have be­come un­yield­ing. Then true prayer will form and will at­tract God’s mer­cy, and God’s prom­ise to prayer: ask and it will be giv­en, it will be ful­fill­ed. Of­ten it is not giv­en be­cause there is no pe­ti­tion, but on­ly a pos­ture of pe­ti­tion­ing.

Let unbelievers go their way

November 14, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Thurs­day. [Col. 4:2-9; Luke 9:49-56] How should one re­late to un­be­liev­ers who do not con­fess the Lord? The same way as the Lord re­lated to the vil­lage that did not re­ceive Him. Youth­ful zeal, full of heat, would want to send down fire from heav­en on them; but the Lord Him­self re­strains it: Ye know not what man­ner of spir­it ye are of… The Lord and Sav­iour did not do any­thing to those who did not re­ceive Him, though re­ceiv­ing Him is what sal­va­tion it­self con­sists of; but pass­ing them by, He went to an­oth­er vil­lage, leav­ing them to them­selves. The same ap­plies now: let un­be­liev­ers go their way, and be­liev­ers go theirs. God ex­ists, Who will sort ev­ery­one out in good time. It is nec­es­sary to pit­y and pray for them; one must de­sire that they know the truth and try to find op­por­tu­ni­ties to hint to them a­bout it; but when they o­pen­ly start at­tack­ing the truth, give them a re­buff which is lov­ing and yet brings them to their sens­es — and that is e­nough.

Serving the Lord

November 5, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Tues­day. [Col. 1:1-2, 7-11; Luke 8:1-3] The Lord preach­es, the wo­men serve Him from their sub­stance, and are thus as par­tic­i­pants in his very preach­ing. It is not giv­en to ev­ery­one to preach the Gos­pels, but ev­ery­one can help spread them, and be par­tic­i­pants in this most im­por­tant mat­ter on the earth. There were man­y such par­tic­i­pants, both men and wo­men, at the time the ho­ly a­pos­tles preach­ed; and then at the time of their suc­ces­sors, and fi­nal­ly, through­out the en­tire his­to­ry of the Church. Such par­tic­i­pants ex­ist to this day. Our a­pos­tles in the Cau­ca­sus and in var­i­ous ar­eas of Si­be­ria la­bour zeal­ous­ly, suf­fer­ing ev­ery need and dep­ri­va­tion. They con­tin­ue the work of the Lord and the ho­ly A­pos­tles. Those men and wo­men who send them help join the ranks of the wo­men who served the Lord, and be­come wor­thy of e­qual rec­om­pense. The Lord said: He that re­ceiv­eth whom­so­ev­er I send re­ceiv­eth Me (John 13:20). This means that He e­quates Him­self with the one who is sent to preach; it would fol­low that He e­quates the ser­vice ren­der­ed to his mes­sen­gers with serv­ing Him. Ac­cord­ing to the law of His good­ness and truth, the way a per­son re­ceives one de­ter­mines the re­ward he will re­ceive (Matt. 10:41). This would seem to be suf­fi­cient in­cen­tive to keep giv­ing alms to help in the great work of preach­ing of the Gos­pels.

Should we look for another?

October 31, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Thurs­day. [Phil. 3:1-8; Luke 7:17-30] Saint John the Fore­run­ner sends his dis­ci­ples to ask the Lord: is He the One That should come? Or should they look for an­oth­er? He did not ask this for him­self but for his dis­ci­ples, for he knew pre­cise­ly who Je­sus Christ was, be­ing in­formed a­bout this from heav­en. The dis­ci­ples sought an an­swer to this ques­tion not out of emp­ty in­quis­i­tive­ness, but out of a sin­cere de­sire to know the truth. To such as these there is no need to say much; the Lord does not speak, on­ly in­di­cates what had been ac­com­plished by Him at that time. Di­vine deeds witn­essed to His di­vin­i­ty. It was so ob­vi­ous, that the ques­ti­on­ers no long­er ques­tioned. This is the way it al­ways is. The pow­er of God lives in the Church; a sin­cere seek­er of the truth im­me­di­ate­ly feels it and is sure of this truth. This sure­ness through ex­pe­ri­ence puts an end to all ques­tions and com­plete­ly sooth­es. He who does not want to be­lieve, and, hav­ing lost his faith, be­gins to seek in the Church and Chris­tian­i­ty not the foun­da­tions of faith, but grounds to jus­ti­fy his un­be­lief, will find no in­di­ca­tions sat­is­fac­to­ry. He con­sid­ers his un­be­lief well-ground­ed, al­though its foun­da­tions are pet­ty and in­sig­nif­i­cant. His heart wants this — that is why it is all tol­er­a­ble.