9/20/2010
St. John of Kronstadt
Only a very pure heart can love all people, and no person has ever had such a pure heart as the Mother of God.
So, where can we seek the true way to beatitude? What guidance and which commandments should we observe to achieve it?
The possessed existed before, and they exist now; only now, in the new grace, the demons act more stealthily and cunningly than in the old time, when their power and authority over people was not yet triumphantly crushed and they had much more scope in the world.
This Gospel is highly instructive for all of us, for people of every condition and rank.
So, the Lord ascended from us to heaven—in order to open the doors of heaven to us—for an unhindered entrance there.
Judge, I say, judge, what was the sharpness, bitterness and burning of the sufferings of the cross, what was the spiritual sorrow of the Lamb of God, who took upon Himself the sins of the world.
Come, with tears of repentance and with love we will kiss the wounds of this Lamb, who takes away the sins of the world.
From this day on, mainly guard your heart in the most careful way for Him alone, and do not let anything worldly, corruptible, or any passion take possession of you.
So, brothers and sisters, ask yourself: Do you bring the fruits of good deeds to the Lord of your belly every day?
Some of us are wise in our faith, virtuous life, and readiness for death; others are unreasonable in their lack of faith or cold indifference to faith; by their unholy carnal life, by their unpreparedness for death and the judgment immediately following it.
Look, how the Lord as if announces to us from the Cross what He has endured for us.
Where do these catastrophes come from? From our sins. We do not bring to the Lord God our fruits of repentance and correction of our wicked life.
This is the marriage of the king’s son—the union of Christian souls with Christ in the Mystery of Communion! This is the feast—partaking of His Flesh and Blood! A Divine, most holy, incorrupt, Heavenly, and deifying feast!
We owe all the successes of enlightenment in all fields to our faith, which has shed abundant light into the minds of men and into all the sciences—and yet we reject faith? Do children reject their mother, who bore them and raised them up? It’s insanity and ingratitude!
We have to force ourselves; you hear, “you have to force yourself” for the benefit of others and for the glory of God.
In the Gospel reading for today, the Savior our God solves a very important question for us: What must we do in order to inherit eternal life?
The holy Church remembers and celebrates today the wondrous mystery unfathomable to mortal minds: the incarnation of the Creator of the ages and worlds—the Son of God—Who becomes Man.
Why do we compound sin upon sin, fall endlessly into opposing God, into a life of vanity? Is it not because of a passion for earthly things and especially for earthly pleasures?
Believe undoubtingly in the Lord, Who is and will be with us all the days until the end of the age; live piously, repent sincerely, amend your life, ask the Lord with unquestioning faith for what is good and useful, and you will receive it.
Rating: 9.8|Votes: 15
Brothers, what does it mean that the Church calls the end of Mother of God’s earthly life not death, as we usually refer to this moment in the lives of others, but her Dormition, which is the same as repose, or peaceful sleep; and not only does it not grieve or weep by her coffin, but to the contrary sings joyful, triumphant songs to her departure?
Rating: 9.7|Votes: 65
Fear evil like fire. Don’t let it touch your heart even if it seems just or righteous.
Rating: 10|Votes: 43
The Holy and Righteous John of Kronstadt recalled this vision, which he had in January of 1901.
St. John of Kronstadt, Metropolitan Innocent of Moscow
Rating: 7.9|Votes: 17
Now tell me: Is Confession profitable or needful? Certainly it is profitable and even essential; because, just as it is impossible to cleanse a vessel without ridding it of all uncleanness, so it is impossible to purge your soul of sins without confession.
Rating: 1|Votes: 2
Have we put on Christ? Let us ask ourselves and think about this sincerely.
Rating: 8.7|Votes: 9
Today, dear brethren, we celebrate the glorious feast of the lightning-like Archangel Michael and all the heavenly bodiless powers. On this day let us talk of the boundless world of the angels.
St. Gregory Palamas, St. John of Kronstadt, Deacon Giorgi Maximov
Rating: 2|Votes: 1
If a tree is known by its fruit, and a good tree bears good fruit (cf. Mt. 7:17; Lk. 6:44), then is not the Mother of Goodness Itself, She who bore the Eternal Beauty, incomparably more excellent than every good, whether in this world or the world above? Therefore, the coeternal and identical Image of goodness, Preeternal, transcending all being, He Who is the preexisting and good Word of the Father, moved by His unutterable love for mankind and compassion for us, put on our image, that He might reclaim for Himself our nature which had been dragged down to uttermost Hades, so as to renew this corrupted nature and raise it to the heights of Heaven.
Rating: 4.8|Votes: 21
We solemnly celebrate, dear brothers and sisters, the Nativity of the Most Holy Virgin Mary from her barren parents, pious Joachim and Anna. The Holy Church established this feast during the first centuries of the Christian Faith.
Rating: 8.7|Votes: 13
Today the Holy Church solemnly glorifies the honorable Dormition or translation of the Mother of God from earth to heaven. A wonderful translation - she died without serious illness, peacefully. Her soul is taken up in the divine hands of Her Son and carried up into the heavenly abode, accompanied by the sweet singing of angels.
What is there to wash away in Thee, Who art more pure than the sun; or to enlighten in Thee, the Sun of Righteousness? -- But is it for us sinful and short-sighted ones, deprived of far-sightedness, to gainsay the Lord Himself, Who created all tthings and Who wisely does much that is beyond word and reason?
Rating: 6|Votes: 2
And the Word became flesh!...in order to make us earthly beings into heavenly ones, in order to make sinners into saints; in order to raise us up from corruption into incorruption, from earth to heaven; from enslavement to sin and the devil – into the glorious freedom of children of God; from death – into immortality, in order to make us sons of God and to seat us together with Him upon the Throne as His royal children.
Rating: 10|Votes: 7
This song to the incarnate God, the Infant Christ, was sung by the angelic hosts on earth at His Nativity. It is a brief song, but its meaning and significance are wise and full of substance. In it is contained and revealed to us the mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God for the salvation of the world. This mystery, in the words of the Church, amazed all the angelic powers. But where is this peace on earth, which the angels announced to the Bethlehem shepherds?
Rating: 7|Votes: 3
This is what it means to possess all things. Truly, having nothing on earth and no passionate attachment to anything earthly, the Apostles possessed everything—all spiritual riches, all spiritual power; all spiritual consolation. They counted everything earthly as rubbish, dust, and vanishing smoke, because they had God Himself living in them, working countless miracles through them and saving through them a countless multitude of people.
Rating: 10|Votes: 2
We can receive these spiritual powers in the temple of God through the Sacraments. Here a heavenly, unearthly spirit hovers; here is the school of Jesus Christ, in which future heavenly citizens are educated. Here you will receive heavenly lessons from the Divine Teacher, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit in the Gospels. Here is heavenly food and heavenly drink, spiritual, heavenly garments, and spiritual armaments against the enemies of salvation. Here you will receive the peace that is a foretaste of heaven, so necessary to our spiritual activity and education, and strength for spiritual labors and struggle with sin.
Rating: 6.2|Votes: 37
"In this warfare I have come to know the immensity of God's long-suffering to us; for He alone knows all the infirmity of our fallen nature, which He mercifully took upon Himself, except for sin (I Peter2:22; Isaiah 53:9; I John 3:5; 4:10; Hebrews 4:15), and therefore He commanded us 'seventy times seven' times to forgive the sins (St. Matt. 18:22) of those who have fallen into them; and He has surrounded and continued to surround me everyday with the joys of salvation from sin in peace and expansion of the heart. The Divine mercy which I have experienced and the perpetual nearness to me of the Lord confirm me in the hope of my eternal salvation and in that of those who follow and hear me to salvation, according to the word of the Scriptures, 'Behold I and the children which God hath given me'"
Rating: 9.5|Votes: 6
Thus, the measuring stick of relationships to others is simplicity and sincerity, good will, and love for all—this is the best side of relationships to others. But not rarely, the nature of relationships to others is cunning, suspicion, dislike, rudeness, envy, extreme selfishness, self-seeking, partiality, vanity, ambition, vainglory, sensuality, or extreme haughtiness; that is, a high opinion of one's self, which seeks to humiliate others.
