St. Barsanuphius of Optina
Rating: 9,8|Votes: 15
I greet all of you gathered here with the New Year. I congratulate you with the joys that I hope the Lord might send you in the coming year. I congratulate you also with the sorrows that will inevitably visit you this year: perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow, or in the near future. Incidentally, do not be confused by sorrows or fear them.
Fr. Seraphim Holland
Rating: 4|Votes: 2
We cannot but scratch the surface of what this parable means in the Christian life, but it is here primarily because one cannot celebrate a feast without being morally prepared. This parable tells us sins to avoid, attitudes to avoid. It tells us to wake up! It tells us to be ready. We commemorate the Holy Forefathers today, because they indeed were part of the preparation for Christ. Without them, there would have been no God-man, Jesus Christ, because He was born of a woman, who was of their lineage, and, if this is not exactly so in a physical sense[2], their prophesies and piety prepared the way for the coming of Christ. That was part of God’s plan.
Rating: 10|Votes: 1
Another voice shouted angrily, "We didn't come to see this painting. We came to see the Van Goghs, the Rembrandts. Get on with the real bids!"But still the auctioneer continued, "The son! The son! Who'll take the son?"
Archimdrite Kirill (Pavlov)
Rating: 6|Votes: 4
By the good master of the house in this parable is meant God the Heavenly Father, Who continually calls us to His supper—that is, the supper in the Kingdom of Heaven, which was prepared for us from the creation of the world, inherited through the acceptance of faith in our Redeemer, Christ the Savior, and which will be revealed toward the end of this world.
On December 15/28, the Moscow Sretensky Monastery celebrates one of its major feasts—the commemoration of the uncovering of the relics of Holy Hieromartyr Hilarion (Troitsky), the abbot of the monastery before his arrest and martyric death in 1929. St. Hilarion’s relics are preserved in the monastery’s Church of the Meeting of the Vladimir Mother of God, for veneration by the faithful. One parishioner tells of the miraculous healing of her eyes through the prayers of Holy Hieromartyr Hilarion.
