10/27/2014
Hieromonk Irenei (Pikovsky)
The Holy Hierarch Cyprian is still liturgically venerated at Sretensky Monastery as its founder.
When I was visiting the site of St. John’s ascetic labors and Rila Monastery, it seemed as if I were on Mt. Athos, where everything breathes the mystery of Communion with God, the mystery of ascetic labors and the prayer of the heart.
On the Apodosis of Pascha some brethren of the Moscow Sretensky Monastery have answered the question of how to preserve Paschal joy.
How can a man restore his spiritual peace if he’s lost it? How can he preserve it in an environment of uncertainty, overwhelmed by all sorts of fears?
Our faith and prayers to Christ come first, followed next by the practice of fasting. For us, the practice of fasting is inseparable from our faith and from praying to Jesus Christ, our Lord.
The word “universal” (ecumenical) assumes that the Church is called to announce the good news of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth, to the populated limits of human habitation.
The Jesus prayer doesn’t replace man’s struggle with passions but complements it. Only after a person has cut off the first passion of willfulness will the Jesus prayer bear its worthy fruit.
God not only gives “freely”, but what is most amazing in today’s Gospel story, He comes to the thirsty person first.
Thomas’ disbelief was not a stubborn unwillingness to accept the evidence of eyewitnesses. It was a thirst for faith that sought support in visible evidence.
Let us pay heed to the text of the Divine service, so as not to wither like the barren fig tree; let us strive to become true theologians-men of prayer. For “he who prays purely,” St. Silouan the Athonite loved to repeat, “is a theologian.”
The star led the Wise Men as far as Jerusalem and then disappeared for a while. After the high priests and scribes had pointed to Bethlehem as the birthplace of the Leader of Israel and the Magi left King Herod, the star reappeared and showed the Persian Magi the exact location of the house of the Christ Child and Mary.
Rating: 7.3|Votes: 24
Citizens of the earthly city seek glory among people and earthly happiness. Citizens of the city of God are ready to be satisfied with little in this earthly life for the sake of future heavenly wealth.
Rating: 10|Votes: 18
The beauty of our soul lets us admire the beauties of the Heavenly world, and the purity of our heart enables us to see God Himself.
Rating: 10|Votes: 31
Dainty foods and naked bodies have become idols of our days, and gluttony and viewing erotic images can be compared to idol-worship. How can we deprive ourselves of temptations?
Rating: 10|Votes: 5
We call the Holy Spirit “upon us and upon these gifts set forth” in order to accomplish the transfiguration of life, that life would acquire incorruptibility, that the gifts themselves and every man partaking of them would be transformed into a new creation, not subject to death—transformed into the Body of Christ.
Rating: 9.8|Votes: 17
Any tree not bearing good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. God does not need just the leaves of the virtues—external, empty piety. God needs the real fruit of repentance —hearing the word of God and fulfilling it.
Rating: 2|Votes: 1
What do these two strange actions, the driving out of the moneychangers from the Temple, and the cursing of the barren fig tree, signify?
If for the pagans death meant the ruin of life, then for Christians a martyr’s death was gain of the Kingdom of Heaven. Belief in the Resurrection was the greatest treasure for ancient Christians.
Rating: 10|Votes: 2
The miraculous appearance of the icon of the Mother of God in the ninth century, during the era of iconoclastic dispute, was literally a confirmation “from above” of what had been pronounced at the Seventh Ecumenical Council on the veneration of icons.
