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Good upbringing for childrenFebruary 1, 2016 | Instagram, Uncategorized, Wisdom |
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Prayer in the familyJanuary 31, 2016 | Instagram, Uncategorized, Wisdom |
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Demon of BlasphemyDecember 15, 2015 | Uncategorized, Wisdom |
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When one is beset by the demon of blasphemy the therapy is as follows, ‘Cast the thought aside for it is not of your own mind but the invention and scheme of the devil to whom you must answer thus: This blasphemy is yours, O subtle demons. May it be on your heads and may your injustice smite your arrogance. Your abominations accuse you for you blaspheme against God, for you are proud and apostates. I always bless the Lord and my Savior. When your response is thus, and you do the sign of the Cross, the demons will flee and will vanish suddenly like smoke. You must know that the reason I can’t here, is in the ceramic pithos jar.” Four Great Saints |
Wealthy and lacking GodNovember 4, 2015 | Uncategorized, Wisdom |
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When it’s not distributed to the poor for the good of our souls and the benefit of our departed ones, wealth is a total disaster. Riches choke the soul, through great anxiety and rapacity. When we see people who have got everything, who want for nothing, but yet are anxious, worried and sad, we should recognize that they’re lacking God… » Venerable Païsios the Athonite |
CharityNovember 4, 2015 | Uncategorized, Wisdom |
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Despite the fact that virginity, fasting and sleeping on the ground demand greater efforts, there’s nothing so powerful and so capable of extinguishing the fire of our sins as charity. It’s superior to all else and places those who live it close to the King of the Heavens Himself. And rightly so. >Saint John Chrysostom |
What’s living within you?November 2, 2015 | Uncategorized, Wisdom |
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When the desire for Christ is dominant within you, you remain calm in every sorrow and you know that Christ lives within you more than the world does. And again, when sickness and the various misfortunes of life throw your mind into turmoil, you should know that your body is living within you, not Christ. In general, whatever thing is overriding and dominant, that’s what’s living within you. God and His angels rejoice in times of need; the devil and his minions in times of leisure. You should know that, without temptations, you’re a long way from the path of God and you aren’t treading in the footsteps of the saints. » Saint Isaac the Syrian |
Purpose of fastingOctober 17, 2015 | Uncategorized, Wisdom |
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“When the body is humbled, our thoughts become more peaceful, too. This is the purpose of fasting. God is present in a mysterious way in every being, most especially in the heart, which is the center of life. It is impossible to unite with God when the stomach is full, for a full stomach causes many cares and worries. All our thoughts, all our emotions, and all our will must be concentrated. When they are not, we are restless and lose our peace.” Check out this book on the iBooks Store: https://itun.es/us/9s_VR.l |
Emitting the Aroma of ChristJuly 16, 2015 | Uncategorized, Wisdom |
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Let the scent of our actions be heard from afar – good, pure, just and full of love. Only this way can the Kingdom of God that exists in our hearts be revealed, manifesting itself not with words but with power. Amen. St. Luke of Simferopol Source: http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2015/07/emitting-aroma-of-christ.html |
The Strength of Oral TraditionJune 5, 2014 | Uncategorized, Wisdom |
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In a world characterized by the rationalism of the Enlightenment and the instant knowledge of Google, it’s hard to believe things have not always been so. In the ancient world, ideas, customs, stories, and even history were committed primarily not to books, but rather memorized through both poetry and song. They were preserved through oral tradition. And of course, tradition simply means to “pass on” or “hand down” a custom, belief, or idea from one person to the next. For example, Jude writes (1:3): Fight hard for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. ‘Delivered’ is of the same Greek root (παράδοσις or paradosis) as ‘handed over’—like in the case of Christ being handed over to the Jews; cf. John 18:36—or even ‘tradition-ed.’ In St. Paul’s letters, he more than once speaks of tradition. He writes to Corinth: I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things, and hold firm to the traditions as I delivered them to you. —1 Cor. 11:2 This is interesting, given that his previous statement mentions they do well in imitating him in all things. Whatever ‘tradition’ is in this case, it is not a written document or a set of doctrines one should merely contemplate in their hearts, but is rather something that is lived and imitated in the life of the Church. The apostle also wrote to Thessalonika: Stand firm and keep the traditions which we taught you, whether by word or by letter. —2 Thess. 2:15 Luke’s Gospel was a compilation of tradition he received—likely both oral and written—as he prefaces the narratives: [T]hose who were eyewitnesses and servants of the word since the beginning have delivered [this tradition] to us. —Luke 1:1 Given that oral tradition existed even within the earliest days of the Church, we can now look at what these traditions were. Were they the scriptures themselves? This doesn’t seem likely, given that the apostle Paul makes a delineation between his epistles and “other traditions” in 1 Thessalonians, not to mention the unanimous witness of early Church fathers—such as Saint Irenaeus and Hippolytus of Rome—who also distinguish ‘apostolic tradition’ from the holy scriptures. To help put this all in context, let’s consider a few facts about oral tradition and memorization in the ancient world. As I mentioned at the beginning, humanity in antiquity preserved ideas, stories, and histories through the use of both poetry and song—or through ‘the arts’ in general, as we see with Christian iconography—as well as by ‘mnemonic art.’ For example, Hippias of Elis (a Greek Sophist and contemporary of Socrates) was able to memorize “the genealogies of heroes and men . . . the settlements, and in a word all ancient history” of a people. When pressed on this issue by Socrates, he replied: “Let me hear them once and I’ll memorize fifty names” (Greater Hippias 285e). Pliny the Elder (A.D. 23–79) once claimed that Cyrus was able to name every single person in his army (thousands of people), and some of that same era were known to have been able to recount the names of every citizen in Rome. The Platonist Charmides (164–95 B.C.) was able to recount whole books in the library at Athens from memory. Seneca the Elder (54 B.C.–39 A.D.) claims “that he could recall 2,000 names or 200 disconnected verses in the order given, or in reverse order” (Controversiae, Book 1, pref. 2). Not only were ancients capable of memorizing large amounts of information, but there also existed among some a certain disdain towards the written word and towards ‘books’ themselves. Socrates himself never wrote anything, and Plato relates his teachings in conversations, rather than detailed treatises or summarizations of information—which are ‘lifeless’ and can be easily misconstrued or twisted to mean something other than intended (cf. 2 Pet. 3:16). In one of his conversations, Socrates shares the myth of Theuth, the Egyptian god of writing, measuring, and calculating. Thamus, the king of Egypt, tells him: Since you are the father of writing, your affection for it has made you describe its effects as the opposite of what they really are. In fact, it will introduce forgetfulness into the soul of those who learn it: they will not practice using their memory because they will put their trust in writing, which is external and depends on signs that belong to others, instead of trying to remember from the inside, completely on their own. You have not discovered a potion for remembering, but for reminding; you provide your students with the appearance of wisdom, not with its reality. Your invention will enable them to hear many things without being properly taught, and they will imagine that they have come to know much while for the most part they will know nothing. And they will be difficult to get along with, since they will merely appear to be wise instead of really being so. —Phædrus 275a–b Socrates continued to tell Phædrus that those who think writing can yield any positive results—especially in the disciplines of the arts or philosophy —“must be quite naive and truly ignorant” (275c). In the end, writing serves only as a reminder, but not as a true ‘teacher.’ This, he contended, could only come through face-to-face conversation and personal interaction. Almost all of the ancient ‘epics’—as we see with Homer, for example—are poetry. They are history meant to be recited, dramatized, or, better yet, sung. They are not merely written down for someone else to ‘read about,’ and possibly mis-interpret. They are lived from generation-to-generation in a community, passed down from one family to the next. If we look at the later Christian context, such as with the Second Council of Nicaea (A.D. 787), a canon demanded that bishops be able to recite the entirety of the Psalter by memory. This would seem nearly impossible were it not for a developed capacity (in antiquity, at least) for memorizing and retaining ‘traditions,’ not to mention the regular practice of singing through the Psalter, and especially in a monastic context. Monks are called to pray through the entire Psalter weekly, singing through the appointed Kathismas each day. They breathe the Psalms and prayers of the Church, and thereby ‘memorize’ her voice; they assume and become united with her ‘Mind.’ I would contend that the majority of apostolic traditions in the early Church are not written or even the scriptures themselves, but are rather this more ‘artistic’ and even holistic expression of the faith. For example, and as already mentioned above, the iconographic tradition—which preserves sacred truths regarding Christ’s genesis, life, death, burial, conquering of Hades, resurrection, ascension, and great and second coming—is an example of the ‘handing down’ of shapes and colors that not only convey and preserve truth, but also mysteriously make present the heavenly realities. Another key example is the lives of the Saints (Menologion, etc.), including our numerous festal and daily commemorations, all of which are preserved in our remembering them. These are not merely written down in a book, but are lived out and expressed (on a yearly basis) in the liturgical piety of the Church, committing both them and their meaning to the collective ‘memory’ of God’s people. Accompanying these celebrations (and even the commemoration of certain icons) are songs and hymns which, just like the epic poetry of antiquity, preserve and ‘hand down’ the history of God’s people. They preserve and ‘hand down’ his divine manifestation through the lives of martyrs, in the ministry of the apostles, and in the lives of those who faithfully followed. The genius of singing our history is shown in the reality that children are predisposed towards memory through song. The Church ensures her preservation through each generation by the encouragement of pious parents to raise children ‘in the Church,’ and with our “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” (Eph. 5:19). Our liturgies and prayer services are all traditions that have been ‘handed down’ from one clergyman or psaltis to the next. There are, of course, books one can read on how to perform a liturgy, but this pales in comparison to the action of doing liturgy—and this applies to both clergy and laity. We assemble to not only ‘do liturgy,’ but also to preserve it through our repeated service. By allowing children to participate fully in our services—by actually treating them as true and full Christians—we ensure the survival of our faith to the next generation, not to mention in the lives of children themselves. Even if both the Internet and Google were suddenly destroyed, our liturgy and sacred prayers would not be lost; there is a presbyter, layman, or elderly lady somewhere in the Church that remembers all or part of our divine services. Even if every copy of the scriptures were one day burned, I believe our Orthodox monks, clergy, and laity could come together and write them anew—and without a ‘loss in transmission’; that is to say, without a loss in tradition. One of the strengths of Orthodox Christianity is this reliance on oral tradition, even in a world where no one has to memorize anything. And this intellectual, and even spiritual laziness is much to our detriment. Books can always be mis-interpreted or even perverted in a number of ways, but the rhythms of our liturgy, the songs in our hearts, and the sacred images of our incarnate and risen Lord can never be lost. They can never be lost because they are truly a part of each one of us; they are a part of our very life. |
The Jesus PrayerJuly 1, 2013 | Uncategorized, Wisdom |
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By Fr. Steven Peter Tsichlis Prayer is the basis of our Christian life, the source of our experience of Jesus as the Risen Lord. Yet how few Christians know how to pray with any depth! For most of us, prayer means little more than standing in the pews for an hour or so on Sunday morning or perhaps reciting, in a mechanical fashion, prayers once learned by rote during childhood. Our prayer life – and thus our life as Christians – remains, for the most part, at this superficial level. THE CHALLENGE OF ST. PAUL But this approach to the life of prayer has nothing to do with the Christianity of St. Paul, who urges the Christians of first century Thessalonica to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17). And in his letter to Rome, the Apostle instructs the Christian community there to “be constant in prayer” (Rom. 12:12). He not only demands unceasing prayer of the Christians in his care, but practices it himself. “We constantly thank God for you” (1 Thess. 2:13) he writes in his letter to the Thessalonian community; and he comforts Timothy, his “true child in the faith” (1 Tim. 1:2) with the words: “Always I remember you in my prayers” (2 Tim. 1:3). In fact, whenever St. Paul speaks of prayer in his letters, two Greek words repeatedly appear: PANTOTE (pantote), which means always; and ADIALEPTOS (adialeptos), meaning without interruption or unceasingly. Prayer is then not merely a part of life which we can conveniently lay aside if something we deem more important comes up; prayer is all of life. Prayer is as essential to our life as breathing. This raises some important questions. How can we be expected to pray all the time? We are, after all, very busy people. Our work, our spouse, our children, our school – all place heavy demands upon our time. How can we fit more time for prayer into our already overcrowded lives? These questions and the many others like them which could be asked set up a false dichotomy in our lives as Christians. To pray does not mean to think about God in contrast to thinking about other things or to spend time with God in contrast to spending time with our family and friends. Rather, to pray means to think and live our entire life in the Presence of God. As Paul Evdokimov has remarked: “Our whole life, every act and gesture, even a smile must become a hymn or adoration, an offering, a prayer. We must become prayer-prayer incarnate.” This is what St. Paul means when he writes to the Corinthians that “whatever you do, do it for the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). THE JESUS PRAYER In order to enter more deeply into the life of prayer and to come to grips with St. Paul’s challenge to pray unceasingly, the Orthodox Tradition offers the Jesus Prayer, which is sometimes called the prayer of the heart. The Jesus Prayer is offered as a means of concentration, as a focal point for our inner life. Though there are both longer and shorter versions, the most frequently used form of the Jesus Prayer is: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” This prayer, in its simplicity and clarity, is rooted in the Scriptures and the new life granted by the Holy Spirit. It is first and foremost a prayer of the Spirit because of the fact that the prayer addresses Jesus as Lord, Christ and Son of God; and as St. Paul tells us, “no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:3). The Scriptures give the Jesus Prayer both its concrete form and its theological content. It is rooted in the Scriptures in four ways:
THE THREE LEVELS OF PRAYER Because prayer is a living reality, a deeply personal encounter with the living God, it is not to be confined to any given classification or rigid analysis. However, in order to offer some broad, general guidelines for those interested in using the Jesus Prayer to develop their inner life, Theophan the Recluse, a 19th century Russian spiritual writer, distinguishes three levels in the saying of the Prayer:
THE FRUITS OF THE JESUS PRAYER This return to the Father through Christ in the Holy Spirit is the goal of all Christian spirituality. It is to be open to the presence of the Kingdom in our midst. The anonymous author of The Way of the Pilgrim reports that the Jesus Prayer has two very concrete effects upon his vision of the world. First, it transfigures his relation ship with the material creation around him; the world becomes transparent, a sign, a means of communicating God’s presence. He writes: “When I prayed in my heart, everything around me seemed delightful and marvelous. The trees, the grass, the birds, the air, the light seemed to be telling me that they existed for man’s sake, that they witnessed to the love of God for man, that all things prayed to God and sang his praise.” Second, the Prayer transfigures his relationship to his fellow human beings. His relationships are given form within their proper context: the forgiveness and compassion of the crucified and risen Lord. “Again I started off on my wanderings. But now I did not walk along as before, filled with care. The invocation of the Name of Jesus gladdened my way. Everybody was kind to me. If anyone harms me I have only to think, ‘How sweet is the Prayer of Jesus!’ and the injury and the anger alike pass away and I forget it all.” ENDLESS GROWTH “Growth in prayer has no end,” Theophan informs us. “If this growth ceases, it means that life ceases.” The way of the heart is endless because the God whom we seek is infinite in the depths of his glory. The Jesus Prayer is a signpost along the spiritual journey, a journey that all of us must take. APPENDIX The purpose of this pamphlet is merely to introduce the practice of the Jesus Prayer. The Jesus Prayer cannot be separated from the sacramental life of the Church and asceticism. The following books are recommended for further study:
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The rose doesn’t speak but it gives off a strong fragrance. We also need to be fragrant, to emit a spiritual aroma, the aroma of Christ.