3/22/2012
Metropolitan Philaret (Voznesensky)
A hungry man stands before the temptation to steal a piece of bread or money from his neighbor, for example. What can restrain him from this?
In contrast to all these sources of mutual maliciousness and quarrels, Christianity summons us towards love of peace and the forgiveness of injuries.
Where there is repentance, there must be God’s mercy.
One of the main deficiencies of our contemporary society is falsehood. It appears in different forms, especially in the common form of lying.
Up to now, we have spoken about the responsibilities of a Christian to himself. Now let us examine his responsibilities to his neighbor, to other people.
Drunkenness and the love of money. Christian unselfishness. The attitude of a Christian toward health, his conduct during illness. The attitude toward death. The sin of suicide.
A Christian, God-fearing and strict with himself, will never allow or admit bad desires and thoughts to control his mind and heart.
In order not to have emptiness and distraction within the soul, so common in our nervous, uneasy, agitated time, a Christian should teach himself self-possession.
How can we develop a strong will? The answer is simple: exercise it.
Christian hope may be defined as a heartfelt, lifelong remembrance of God by a Christian, indissolubly connected to an assurance in His Fatherly love and help. Man, having such a hope in his heart, always and everywhere feels himself to be under His Father’s protection, just as everywhere in the physical world, he sees the immense vault of the heavens.
Thus the question raised is: What is beauty?
The Mind develops first of all and mainly through studying the sciences, through education. One should not think that Christianity considers “secular” studies or education unnecessary or even harmful.
We see here in practice how our resurrection will occur, when the voice of the Son of God sounds forth—and by this voice the dead will leave their tombs, coming out alive.
The Lord worked this miracle, so that everyone heard firsthand the voice of the Son of God, which calls a dead man from the grave. Only, then it was addressed to Lazarus alone, but at the end of the age, it will be addressed to all the departed.
Our holy fathers-ascetics pointed to one way whereby the sincerity and depth of humility may be found out.
The three kinds of responsibilities of Man. The responsibility to oneself; the development of a spiritual personality (differentiated from egoism). The gradualness of this development.
Lately, a theory called Determinism has spread widely. The followers of this teaching, Determinists, do not acknowledge that man has a free will.
The insufficiency of only an inner law. External God-revealed law. The meaning of Moses’ Law and the New Testament Law for us.
Life therefore, from a Christian point of view, is a test, a path of continuous seeking of goodness and perfection. There can be no stopping on this path according to the law of spiritual life.
Sin is spiritual leprosy, illness, an ulcer having struck all of human nature, both its soul and body.
The deeper one delves into himself, the more accustomed he becomes to comprehending his internal world, the more clearly and painfully he feels the internal harm done by sin.
The Church emphasizes that each one of them was in his own time a Diocesan Bishop, but that their spiritual influence spread far beyond their borders; and truly the entire flock of the Universal Orthodox Church learns of Christian wisdom, Christian knowledge and piety from them.
Rating: 9.9|Votes: 36
How did he, having begun his life as pastors of the Church usually do, become such a spiritual giant, a colossus of the spiritual life, the likes of which have been few not only in Rus’, but in the entire universal Church in general?
Rating: 10|Votes: 8
A young girl, of a rich and noble family, an unusual beauty, she had, it seems, every opportunity to rely on so-called “success in life.”
Rating: 10|Votes: 1
As part of their commemoration of the 50-year anniversary of Metropolitan Laurus’s episcopal consecration, the Media Office of the Eastern American Diocese published these homilies delivered by the newly-consecrated Bishop Laurus, and by Metropolitan Philaret.
Rating: 9.6|Votes: 5
When I have occasion to speak about how the All-Pure Virgin covered the worshippers in the Blachernae Church with her omophorion, I always point out that there were, of course, different people in this church: the pious and godly; the not very pious; perhaps some who had grown cold; and perhaps even the very sinful. But did the Mother of God inquire into this?
Rating: 10|Votes: 15
At one time, even fairly recently, the date July 17 in the so-called “new style,” was marked as a day of sorrow, because on this day the Russian people and the Russian diaspora remembered the great evil act when the Royal Family was brutally killed in the basement of Ipatiev House.
Rating: 7.9|Votes: 9
Having accepted the grace of ordination, bear in mind of what a gift and of what mercy the Lord has found you worthy – and what responsibility you now bear.
Rating: 8.4|Votes: 5
When he was still a young man in Harbin, the equally-spiritual monastic, hieromonk Methodius (Yogl), noted perceptively that we all stand up for prayer, but Vladyka John does not need to stand, he is always in a prayerful mood…
Rating: 7|Votes: 3
And what if at the last day of the history of the human race on earth — on the day of the Dread Judgment — it turns out that a man (or his sponsors for him) made vows, and he does not even know what the vows were and what was promised? What will happen to such a man?
Rating: 9.5|Votes: 2
The time has come when mankind has been consumed with activities which displease God, in which the Enemy of mankind reigns, and, as they said in old days, this Enemy makes everyone dance to his flute. This fuss and bother, which envelops our daily lives, is distasteful to God, and God is absent from it, and the Enemy of God is master and ruler of it. If we gave the promise to renounce Satan and all his works, then we must fulfill it, and try not to crush our souls with daily cares, remembering what the Church teaches: “there is one thing needful,” only one thing necessary—to remember that we must unite ourselves with Christ, that is, not only fulfill His commandments but to try to unite with Him.
St. Theophan the Recluse, Metropolitan Philaret (Voznesensky)
Rating: 3.8|Votes: 4
The Holy Spirit is an immaterial fire: the light of faith, the warmth of love, the tongues of fire that speak in the heart of God’s Law. He awakens us from the world’s charms, leads us to hope in God, and encourages us toward repentance. If we do not prevent His action, He directs us along the narrow path of self-denial. Grace transforms everything it touches into a priceless treasure.
Rating: 8.9|Votes: 16
The Russians like to call Saint Nicholas “Nikola the Merciful” because his miracles are as numerous as the stars of heaven. I would like to remind you of one touching miracle that shows his mercy. This did not happen once upon a time, long ago; it happened in our time, in the city of Harbin [China], where I lived for over 40 years.
Rating: 10|Votes: 2
The Church, telling us today about this miracle of the Savior, at the same time chants in the person of each of us: “Blind with my spiritual eyes, I come to you, O Christ, like one born blind.” Not long ago we prayed to our Lord intensively: “Grant that I may see my own sins.” If we ask to see, to be able to see our sins it means we cannot see them as well as is needed. This is because our “spiritual eyes” are blind.
Rating: 6.9|Votes: 8
So it is also in the spiritual life. As a Christian gradually ascends, the force of spiritual and ascetical labours lifts him on high. Our Lord Jesus Christ said: "Strive to enter in through the narrow gate." That is, the Christian ought to be an ascetic. Not only the monastic, but every Christian. He must take pains for his soul and his life.
