3/7/2011
Igumen Nektary (Morozov)
There they are—the “Father’s embrace”. Hands pierced with nails, fixed to the Cross, Blood streaming to the ground. Arms ready to embrace the whole world, and embracing the whole world.
One evening, a man came in with an unbearable expression of pain on his face. A terrible misfortune had brought him to the church. After a disagreement, his sixteen-year-old son inexplicably jumped from the tenth floor.
It is absolutely clear for me that this period did not only deprive me of something important and habitual—it also gave me something that I didn’t have before: an experiential understanding of how fragile the world that we live in is.
“When you endlessly rebuke someone for his imperfections and keep the focus entirely on his sins, a man quits growing as a Christian.”
Is there anyone who never felt trapped? When you think you have arrived at an effective solution, you realize there is no money to implement it. You cannot sit and do nothing, as time is short. You have no idea what should be done. You are on the verge of a nervous breakdown and your conscience is killing you. This is what it is like when we reach a dead-end.
There is a part of the Church community that not only remembers that the Apocalypse will eventually take place but anxiously anticipates it.
If you are used to such a life, when you are deceived all the time and permanently lie to others, bringing yourself to believe is a far more exceptional podvig than the Apostle Peter’s readiness to walk on the raging sea at the Savior’s command.
And somehow, unlike all the other days of this week, the content of this day is lost, forgotten, or even not noticed at all. What content? This content:
Today the fast is too often understood as someone’s “private affair”, “making efforts to improve” and “growth time”. And in some sense it is so; meanwhile, if no one except us feels the benefit of the fast, what is it worth?
Modern man is primarily a consumer. And temperance is the best way to declare war on consumerism itself.
This is for the Christian the most difficult and at the same time the most important ascetic labor: to rise each time he falls. To rise, and continue his way.
And it seems we ought to think more seriously about this: what occasions do we, Church people, give someone to leave the Church?
A time of self-restraint and a time of prayer, a time of temptations and a time of joys: All of these relate to fasting—a special period in the life of every Orthodox Christian.
Death can then be transformed for us from a tragedy, horror, or pain into a dormition, a gentle and peaceful sleep, and will be resolved by our awakening into joy, light, and a life in which death will be no more.
In difficult life circumstances we often have to select from two or more evils. Can a choice like this be based on Christian principles? By what should we be guided and to what should we pay attention when we make such choices?
Thus our humility is not the belief that we are nonentities, but the conviction of how great we are, coupled with our deep sorrow for the state we live in, having walked away from God.
Rating: 7.7|Votes: 15
The Lord ascends, as the Gospel says, blessing them. And this blessing was not taken away from and will never be taken away from those who await His Second and glorious Coming and prepare for it with their entire lives.
Rating: 9.5|Votes: 21
It’s our meeting with the Lord. It’s our personal feast of the Meeting of Lord in the Temple. We might have forgotten when it happened and under what circumstances, we may have no “icon” for this meeting, but if this day was in our life, if we had this meeting, it is for a reason.
Rating: 10|Votes: 27
Speaking about love of money in our days is just the same as describing hot weather in summer. Everyone suffers torment from the scorching heat in July, and it seems there is no way to hide from it, though there are air conditioners, fans, shady places, and cold water. Very few people like the blazing sun, while the love of money captures our hearts and enslaves us. And this may happen even to those who have no money in their pockets…
Rating: 8.7|Votes: 13
But I think about the Pharisee in the parable and for some reason I feel sorry for him. Not only because he left the temple “less justified” than the publican, although that’s also why.
Rating: 8.9|Votes: 13
Here it is: "For the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light (Lk. 16:8)." Our Lord Jesus Christ says these words in the Parable of the Unjust Steward. What for? In my view, the Savior wants to tell us that if we are willing to become the children of the Kingdom, then we have something to learn from the children of this age: They have their experience, skills and valuable findings that should in no way be ignored.
Rating: 9.8|Votes: 26
Igumen Nektary (Morozov) talks about “how long we have left”, and what spiritual mistakes cause this panic in us over the destruction of everything and everyone.
Rating: 8.8|Votes: 10
But our conversation will not be about the beauty of humility, but of the lessons that give us the chance to attain humility, the lessons that life offers, or rather, that the Lord offers throughout our lives.
The feast of the Resurrection of Christ is the most important for Christians. “Enjoy ye all the feast of faith: Receive ye all the riches of loving-kindness,” St. John Chrysostom summons us in his catechetical word on the feast of Pascha. The joy of the resurrected Savior is appointed for every man on earth, but not all know about it and not all understand how to join in this common exaltation. Igumen Nektary (Morozov) talks about how to share the joy of Pascha with others.
Igumen Nektary (Morozov), Nun Natalia (Aksamentova)
Rating: 9|Votes: 8
I remember batiushka’s own words of two years ago, when he still had the strength and desire to say at least something: “After all, a person needs nothing besides God’s mercy!”
Rating: 10|Votes: 6
This is probably the first thing to which it would make sense to pay attention: As Christians and simply as adults, responsible people, we should not create hardships for ourselves artificially. Our lives are hard enough without that. Nevertheless, a person who categorically avoids whatever difficulties that may be rarely succeeds in life.
Rating: 10|Votes: 4
Christian ministry… Despite its apparent simplicity, today this expression remains obscure for many parishioners. Or, more often, it is clear only “in general” but is somewhat inapplicable to one’s own life.
And I was happy. Not because I had completed probably the first fast in my life, not because I had lasted to the end of this service so foreign to me, and not from the awareness that I had “endured,” but a simple happiness—some kind of childlike, pure joy, thanks to which you become a child and begin to hope that, no matter how bad you are, the Kingdom is for you.
Rating: 10|Votes: 3
Does a Christian have the right to take offense at his parents? Why do so many elderly parents find themselves alone nowadays? Are the children of “bad” parents exempt from any obligation to honor and care for them? How can parents and children develop a proper relationship?
Rating: 9.3|Votes: 14
A person can repent of the most terrible sins, the most barbaric evil-doing; his tale may be bitter and worthy of tears. But if an inner change occurs, that very “metanoia”, that is, a change of mind, or more precisely, of the entire human personality, there is no feeling of weariness.
Valery Dukhanin, Igumen Nektary (Morozov), Priest Sergei Begiyan, Priest Dimitry Fetisov
Rating: 6|Votes: 2
The fourth Sunday after Pascha is dedicated to the Gospel of the paralytic, who spent thirty-eight years by the pool of Siloam waiting for healing, and was finally delivered from his serious infirmity by the Savior Himself. That unfortunate man was physically paralyzed, while we are spiritually paralyzed to one or another degree.
Igumen Nektary (Morozov), Elena Balayan
Rating: 10|Votes: 1
How can modern man believe in God and trust in Him, how can we feel what goes beyond the boundaries of the five human senses: Elena Balayan talks with Igumen Nektary (Morozov).
So, on Saturday at the Vigil Service, during the Polyeleos I was looking at the icon of St. Gregory of Palamas and thought about his amazing life, about the light of Mt. Tabor, the nature of which he so wisely explained and in which he himself abided—being transformed, illumined, “reaching for the heights”. What grace he live in! But then it was as if a spear pierced my heart: How he also suffered!
Igumen Nektary (Morozov), Archpriest Igor Shestakov, Archpriest Vasily Mazur, Priest Vladimir Voitov
Rating: 8|Votes: 25
With whatever inner disposition we begin any task—that is how we will carry it out. It is the same for the fast: with whatever disposition we enter the fast—that is probably how we will go through it. That means that we need to relate to the first week of Lent with particular responsibility.
