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Hard Life

June 10, 2016 | Uncategorized, Wisdom

Not every act of prayer is prayer

June 3, 2016 | Instagram, Uncategorized, Wisdom

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Not every act of prayer is prayer. Standing at home before your icons, or here in church, and venerating them is not yet prayer, but the “equipment” of prayer. Reading prayers either by heart or from a book, or hearing someone else read them is not yet prayer, but only a tool or method for obtaining and awakening prayer. Prayer itself is the piercing of our hearts by pious feelings towards God, one after another – feelings of humility, submission, gratitude, doxology, forgiveness, heart-felt prostration, brokenness, conformity to the will of God, etc. All of our effort should be directed so that during our prayers, these feelings and feelings like them should fill our souls, so that the heart would not be empty when the lips are reading the prayers, or when the ears hear and the body bows in prostrations, but that there would be some qualitative feeling, some striving toward God. When these feelings are present, our praying is prayer, and when they are absent, it is not yet prayer. – St. Theophan the Recluse #orthodox #orthodoxy #orthodoxchurch #christian #wisdomofthefathers #sttheophantherecluse #prayer

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Amazing drone flyby of Mount Athos

June 3, 2016 | Media, Uncategorized

Bird’s eye view of Mount Athos in Greece which is home to 20 monasteries and an important spiritual site for Orthodox Christians.

God takes us by the hand

June 3, 2016 | Instagram, Uncategorized, Wisdom

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God takes us by the hand and begins to play with us, tenderly, with the greatest intimacy, as one might embrace and play with a small child. He picks you up in His love, and presses you closely to Himself. He hugs you, but then He releases you, and sets you back down. That's followed by another hug, and another release, all of which contributes to making you more mature, more humble. When He sets you down, you see your own nakedness, your own poverty, and then you desire Him all the more ardently. It is then that you that you realize that there's nothing you want so much as to die and be with God (cf. Phil 1:21-23). -Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra #orthodox #orthodoxy #orthdoxchurch #christian #wisdomofthefathers #elderaimilianosofsimonopetra #love #desire #humility

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O Lord, send me strength

March 31, 2016 | Instagram, Uncategorized, Wisdom

O Lord, send also strength. Convert me, that I might live in sanctity, according to Thy holy will. Sanctify my heart that has become a den and dwelling-place of demons. I am unworthy to ask forgiveness for myself, O Lord, for many times have I promised to repent and proved myself a liar by not fulfilling my promise. Thou hast picked me up many times already, but every time I freely chose to fall again. Therefore I condemn myself and admit that I deserve all manner of punishment and torture. How many times hast Thou enlightened my darkened mind; yet every time I return again to base thoughts! My whole body trembles when I contemplate this; yet every time sinful sensuality reconquers me. How shall I recount all the gifts of Thy grace, O Lord, that I the pitiful one have received? Yet I have reduced them all to nothing by my apathy — and I continue on in this manner. Thou has bestowed upon me thousands of gifts, yet miserable me, I offer in return things repulsive to Thee. Yet Thou, O Lord, inasmuch as Thou containest a sea of longsuffering and an abyss of kindness, do not allow me to be felled as a fruitless fig tree; and do not let me be burned without having ripened on the field of life. Snatch me not away unprepared; seize not me who have not yet lit my lamp; take not away me who have no wedding garment; but, because Thou art good and the lover of mankind, have mercy on me. Give me time to repent, and place not my soul stripped naked before Thy terrible and unwavering throne as a pitiful spectacle of infamy. If a righteous man can barely be saved, then where will I end up, I who am lawless and sinful? If the path that leads to life is strait and narrow, then how can I be vouchsafed such good things, I who live a life of luxury, indulging in my own pleasures and dissipation? But Thou, O Lord, my Saviour, Son of the true God, as Thou knowest and desirest it, by Thy grace alone, freely turn me away from the sin that abides in me and save me from ruin. From A Spiritual Psalter by our Holy Father St Ephraim of Edessa, the Syrian; excerpted and arranged by Bishop Theophan the Recluse according to the manner of the psalter of the Old Testament.

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Having a spiritual father

March 31, 2016 | Media, Uncategorized

Christ is everything to us

March 30, 2016 | Instagram, Uncategorized, Wisdom

Garments of the soul

March 30, 2016 | Instagram, Uncategorized, Wisdom

Keep silent

March 29, 2016 | Instagram, Uncategorized, Wisdom

You cannot come to church?

March 29, 2016 | Instagram, Uncategorized, Wisdom

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