Vidovdan Celebration

June 16, 2013 | Children & Youth, Istochnik Choir, News & Events, Uncategorized

When: June 16, 2013
Where: 2148 Michelson Drive, Irvine, CA

View Video of Istochnik Choir Concert

View Video of Children’s Play

Whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name

June 15, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Sat­ur­day. [Acts 20:7–12; John 14:10–21] And what­so­ev­er ye shall ask of the Fa­ther in my name, that will I do (John 14:13). What a con­sol­ing prom­ise! But how few make use of it! Peo­ple rare­ly keep this in mind. There are peo­ple who do not un­der­stand this at all, and do not ac­cept it. Why is this so? Be­cause they do not love the Lord, and they do not ful­fil His com­mand­ments. This un­faith­ful­ness of the heart to­ward the Lord re­lin­quish­es any bold­ness to pe­ti­tion the Lord, just as a la­zy ser­vant does not dare ask some­thing of his mas­ters, for he knows that he does not de­serve any mer­cy. The es­tab­lish­ed pray­ers are read in their usu­al course, and they con­tain very great pe­ti­tions; but they are merely read, and this, as we well know, is far from prayer and pe­ti­tion­ing. We can­not stand with true prayer be­fore the Lord and ex­tend our pe­ti­tions to Him un­til our con­science is clear be­fore Him.

He who has the Son has the Father

June 14, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Fri­day. [Acts 19:1–8; John 14:1–11] If ye had known me, ye should have known my Fa­ther al­so (John 14:7). There­fore, deists do not know God, in spite of the fact that they bear His name (Deus means God; from here comes the word deist), and rea­son el­o­quent­ly a­bout Him. There is no true God with­out the Son and with­out the Ho­ly Spir­it. He who be­lieves in God, but does not con­fess Him as the Fa­ther of the Son, does not be­lieve in a god that is the true God, but in some per­son­al in­ven­tion. The true God gave His Son, gave pow­er to be­come the sons of God (John 1:12), loves them, and hears each of their pray­ers, for the sake of the Son. That is why he who has the Son has the Fa­ther; and he who does not have the Son, does not have the Fa­ther. No one comes to the Fa­ther ex­cept through the Son, and re­ceives noth­ing from the Fa­ther, ex­cept through the Son. A­part from the Son there is no path to the true God; and he who thinks to in­vent Him is de­luded.

The Need For Unbelief

June 12, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Wednes­day. [Acts 18:22–28; John 12:36–47] Lord who hath be­lieved our re­port? (Is. 53:1), the Proph­et Isa­iah la­ments in as­ton­ish­ment. Now it would be fit­ting to cry out, “Who now sin­cere­ly be­lieves Thy word, O Lord?” Al­most ev­ery­one has be­come slack. Man­y are yet si­lent a­bout their un­be­lief; while it is rare to find a heart that has not turn­ed in the oth­er di­rec­tion. What is the rea­son for this? In­ter­est in un­be­lief has begun to be felt; the need for un­be­lief has de­vel­oped, for con­ceal­ing in­ter­ests of the heart which do not a­gree with faith. Here is the root of evil. Rea­son is not the ad­ver­sary of faith, but a cor­rupt heart is. Rea­son is on­ly guilty here in that it sub­mits to the heart, and be­gins to phi­los­o­phize — not ac­cord­ing to the foun­da­tions of truth, but ac­cord­ing to the de­sires of the heart. Fur­ther­more, pow­er­ful ar­gu­ments for the truth seem worth­less to the mind, and some trifling ar­gu­ment a­gainst the truth be­comes a whole moun­tain. In gen­er­al, con­fu­sion comes in­to the men­tal realm, blinding the mind, which does not and can­not see, no mat­ter what you tell it.

Blind to the Truth

June 6, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Thurs­day. [Acts 14:20–27; John 9:39–10:9] And Je­sus said, For judg­ment I am come in­to this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind (John 9:39). They which could not see were the sim­ple peo­ple who be­lieved the Lord in sim­plic­i­ty of heart, while they which saw were the scribes and learned men of that time, who due to their pride of mind did not be­lieve, and held back the peo­ple. Our clev­er ones think that they see, and, this is why they are a­li­en­a­ted from that faith in the Lord that the sim­ple in heart and mind firm­ly hold to. There­fore, ac­cord­ing to the truth of the Lord they are blind, where­as the peo­ple see. They are ex­act­ly like those birds which can see at night, but not dur­ing the day. The truth of Christ is dark for them, where­as what is con­tra­ry to this truth — false­hood — to them seems clear: here they are in their el­e­ment. This is so ob­vi­ous, but nev­er­the­less they are read­y to ask: Are we blind al­so? (John 9:40). There is noth­ing to hide; you are blind. But since it is your own fault that you are blind, the sin of blind­ness and not see­ing the light lies on you. You can see, but you do not want to, be­cause you came to love a de­cep­tive, yet tempt­ing lie.

Consequence of unbelief

June 4, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Tues­day. [Acts 12:25–13:12; John 8:51–59] The Jews be­came an­gry with the Lord be­cause of His ac­cu­sa­tion, and pick­ed up stones to cast at Him. But the Lord went through the midst of them, and so pass­ed by (John 8:59). They did noth­ing to the Lord, but they de­stroy­ed them­selves, for the con­se­quence of their un­be­lief was the ter­ri­ble sen­tence of the Lord: Be­hold, your house is left un­to you des­o­late (Matt. 23:38) and al­so: let us pass from here. And the Lord pass­ed to an­oth­er place and chose oth­er peo­ples for His hab­i­ta­tion, in­stead of the be­loved Is­ra­el. Even now, in­sig­nif­i­cant peo­ple, in the self-de­lu­sion of a proud mind which does not con­tain the truth of Christ, take up stones of op­po­si­tion to the Lord and cast them at Him. They do not harm Him, be­cause He nev­er­the­less is the Lord, and His truth is the im­mu­ta­ble truth; they on­ly de­stroy them­selves. The Lord goes by, leav­ing such peo­ple in their vain wis­dom, which whirls them, like a whirl­wind spins loose specks of dust. But when an en­tire na­tion is car­ried a­way with false wis­dom, then the des­ti­ny of an en­tire na­tion is formed, as it was for the Jews. Un­der­stand, ye na­tions, and sub­mit to the Lord!

Not believing in the truth

June 3, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Mon­day. [Acts 12:12–17; John 8:42–51] What means, do you think, did the Lord use to ex­plain to the Jews the rea­son for their not be­liev­ing in Him? The means he used was to tell them the truth. And be­cause I tell you the truth, ye be­lieve me not (John 8:45). The lie be­came, as it is said, their flesh and blood, and made them un­able to re­ceive the truth. Why do peo­ple not be­lieve to­day? For the same rea­son; the Lord speaks the truth; this is why they do not be­lieve. But how can this be? Are they not all sci­en­tists, and don’t they talk on­ly a­bout the truth? They have man­y words, but no deeds. They spin their sys­tems as a spi­der spins its web, on­ly they don’t no­tice the flimsiness. The prin­ci­ples of their sys­tems are ground­less, and their con­clu­sions can­not be proved; but they are sat­is­fied with them nev­er­the­less. There has be­come such a de­mand for hypotheses that it seems they alone make up the en­tire con­tent of their minds, and this is reputed to be sol­id ed­u­ca­tion. They ap­ply the fog of their dreams to the few facts they have pro­cured; and these facts ap­pear in this fog to­tal­ly dif­fer­ent from what they are in re­al­i­ty. Nev­er­the­less, this is all reputed to be the sphere of im­mu­ta­ble truth. So their mind has gone rot­ten, and its taste has been ruined! How can it con­tain the truth? And so they do not be­lieve the Lord, Who speaks on­ly the truth.

Cleave to the Lord

June 1, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Sat­ur­day. [Acts 12:1–11; John 8:31–42] The Lord said: If the Son there­fore shall make you free, ye shall be free in­deed (John 8:36). Here is where free­dom is! The mind is bound with bonds of ig­no­rance, de­lu­sions, su­per­sti­tions, and un­cer­tain­ties; it strug­gles, but can­not get a­way from them. Cleave to the Lord and He will en­light­en your dark­ness (cf. Ps. 18:28) and dis­solve all the bonds in which your mind lan­guish­es. The pas­sions bind the will, and do not give it space in which to act; it strug­gles, like one bound hand and foot, and can­not get a­way. But cleave to the Lord and He will give you the strength of Sam­son, and will dis­solve all the bonds of un­truth bind­ing you. Con­stant wor­ries sur­round the heart and do not give it peace. But cleave to the Lord, and He will soothe you; then, at peace, and see­ing clear­ly ev­ery­thing a­round you, you will march in the Lord with­out hin­drance or stum­bl­ing through the gloom and dark­ness of this life, to the all-bless­ed, com­plete joy and spa­cious­ness of eter­ni­ty.

Mystery Of His Body And Blood

May 27, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Mon­day. [Acts 10:1–16; John 6:56–69] When the Lord pre­sent­ed His teach­ing a­bout the mys­tery of His Bo­dy and Blood, set­ting it as a nec­es­sary con­di­tion for com­mu­ni­ca­tion with Him­self and as a source of true life, then man­y of His dis­ci­ples went back, and walk­ed no more with Him (John 6:66). Such an act of God’s bound­less mer­cy to­ward us seem­ed too mi­rac­u­lous to them, and their dis­in­cli­na­tion to­ward the mi­rac­u­lous tore them from the Lord. The Lord saw this, and al­though He was pre­pared to be cru­ci­fied for the sal­va­tion of ev­ery per­son, He did not con­sid­er it pos­si­ble to di­min­ish or can­cel the mi­rac­u­lous. It is so cru­cial in the econ­o­my of our sal­va­tion! Al­be­it with re­gret, He al­low­ed them to de­part from Him in­to the dark­ness of un­be­lief and de­struc­tion; and said to them and to the cho­sen twelve as well, will ye al­so go a­way? (John 6:67) This show­ed that He was read­y to let them go al­so, if they could not bow down be­fore the mi­rac­u­lous. So it is, that to flee from the mi­rac­u­lous is to flee from the Lord and Sav­iour; and one who turns a­way from the mi­rac­u­lous is as one who is per­ish­ing. May those who are horrified by the mi­rac­u­lous heed this! Even they will come a­cross a mir­a­cle which they will not be able to thwart: death, and af­ter death, judg­ment. But wheth­er this in­abil­i­ty to thwart it will serve them un­to sal­va­tion, on­ly God knows.

From Unbelief To Belief

May 26, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Sat­ur­day. [Acts 9:20–31; John 15:17–16:2] When Saint Paul began to preach in Da­mas­cus, all were a­mazed, say­ing: Is not this he that de­stroy­ed them which call­ed on this name? (Acts 9:21). Isn’t it al­ways this way? Those close to some­one who con­verts from un­be­lief to be­lief, or from sin to vir­tue, mar­vel over what hap­pen­ed has with this per­son. He did ev­ery­thing our way and now sud­den­ly ev­ery­thing has changed: his words and his gaze, his step and his thoughts are not the same, and his un­der­tak­ings are dif­fer­ent, and the plac­es where he goes are dif­fer­ent. It is as if one were walk­ing to­ward the west, and then sud­den­ly turn­ed a­round to the east. These two lives are con­tra­dic­to­ry and mu­tu­al­ly ex­clude one an­oth­er. He who wants to com­bine them, or to make a whole life with part from the one, and part from the oth­er, will waste both time and ef­fort with no suc­cess. What can these lives have in com­mon?! On­ly those who do not un­der­stand things can say, “Why does it have to be so dras­tic!”