Category: Reflections

The Journey & Destination

Heading Out the Front Door and Looking to the Cross

Happy St. Nicholas Day! (December 19/6)

As with all great Journeys, we make the path by travelling it… and mindful, active preparation is paramount!

Today is the halfway point of the 40 day Nativity Fast!

Faithfully fixing our eyes on the Joyous, Inspiring Destination ahead, we trim our wicks as it were, and proceed with continued efforts (that, speaking personally… may feel huge, but in reality are mostly quite small) to greet the Shining Feast of The Nativity of Christ.

Beginning with this month’s earlier Feast Day of the Entry of the Theotokos into the Temple, the Katavasia Christ is Born is sung encouragingly at all vigil services… combining aspects of both the Journey and the upcoming Festal Destination. The hymns brim with Old Testament prophecies and exude mysterious prefigurements of His coming.

The Heavenly Babe calls each one of us to come to Him, with childlike faith… and fasting is a spiritual aid to do this. While there are also many celebratory fast-free periods throughout the church calendar year, half the church year is literally spent in fasting together.

Besides the Church’s usual weekly Wednesdays and Friday fast days, there are other Lenten times during the church calendar year. The most lengthy and strictest fast is the Great Lent before Pascha. Depending on the individual of course, practical health considerations (such as age, pregnancy, diabetes, etc.) may exclude full physical fasting… but there are countless other ways to spiritually fast.

Fasting of the body is food for the soul… Do you fast? Then feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, visit the sick, do not forget the imprisoned, have pity on the tortured, comfort those who grieve and who weep, be merciful, humble, kind, calm, patient, sympathetic, forgiving, reverent, truthful and pious, so that God might accept your fasting and might plentifully grant you the fruits of repentance. ~ St. John Chrysostom

Because we did not fast, we were chased out of Paradise; let us fast now, so that some day we return there. ~ St. Basil the Great

Of course, it would be easier to get to paradise with a full stomach, all snuggled up in a soft feather-bed, but what is required is to carry one’s cross along the way, for the kingdom of God is not attained by enduring one or two troubles, but many! ~ St. Anthony of Optina

Christ comes from heaven, meet ye Him! And so, like little children… let our souls fly and cling to the Heavenly Babe, and praise Him, for He is a God is Love. Let us spiritually reap the rays of His Light that illumines the world’s darkness… For He is the Sun of Righteousness, which knows no rising or setting, and He Shines ceaselessly!

Pearls of Compunction

Photo Shared by Alec

Let each one of us keep in mind the benefit of fasting… For this healer of our souls is effective, in the case of one to quieten the fevers and impulses of the flesh, in another to assuage bad temper, in yet another to drive away sleep, in another to stir up zeal, and in yet another to restore purity of mind and to set him free from evil thoughts. In one it will control his unbridled tongue and, as it were by a bit, restrain it by the fear of God and prevent it from uttering idle and corrupt words. In another it will invisibly guard his eyes and fix them on high instead of allowing them to roam hither and thither, and thus cause him to look on himself and teach him to be mindful of his own faults and shortcomings. Fasting gradually disperses and drives away spiritual darkness and the veil of sin that lies on the soul, just as the sun dispels the mist. Fasting enables us spiritually to see that spiritual air in which Christ, the Sun who knows no setting, does not rise, but shines without ceasing. Fasting, aided by vigil, penetrates and softens hardness of heart… it causes fountains of compunction to spring forth… it is not possible for these things to come about in one day or one week! They will take much time, labour, and pain, in accordance with each man’s attitude and willingness, according to the measure of faith and one’s contempt for the objects of sight and thought. In addition, it is also in accordance with the fervour of his ceaseless penitence and its constant working in the secret chamber of his heart that this is accomplished more quickly or more slowly by the gift and grace of God. But without fasting no one was ever able to achieve any of these virtues or any others, for fasting is the beginning and foundation of every spiritual activity. ~ St. Symeon the New Theologian

Steep and Thorny

Bristling Scotch Thistles

Steep and thorny is the path that leads to the Heavenly Kingdom… Self-love is the soil upon which grow passions, emptiness of life, and sorrow. ~ Archbishop Seraphim Sobolev

Loving only himself, a man loves neither God nor his fellow-men. He does not even love the man that is in himself; he loves only his thoughts about himself, his illusions about himself. Were he to love the man in himself, he would at the same time love God’s image in him, and would quickly become a lover of God and man, for he would be seeking man and God in other men, as objects of his love. Self-love is not love, but is rejection of God and contempt for men, whether open or concealed. Self-love is not love but sickness, a serious illness that inevitably brings other illnesses in its train. As pox inevitably produces fever throughout the body, so self-love produces the fire of envy and anger in the whole body. A man full of self-love is full of envy of those who are better than he is, or richer, more learned or more respected by men. With envy there always goes anger, like flame with fire; a concealed anger, that flares out at times and, in so doing, reveals all the ugliness of the man’s sick heart, that has been poisoned with the poison of self-love… ~ St. Nikolai Velimirovic

Take the example of the earth. Even though it is one, nevertheless, some earth is rocky, some quite fertile. And some is good for vines while other ground is suited for raising wheat and barley. So also are different types of human hearts and wills. Likewise also gifts from above are distributed differently. To one is given ministry of preaching, to another that of discernment, to another the gifts of healings (1 Corinthians 12:9). For God knows how a person is able to fulfill his stewardship and so He gives His various gifts accordingly. In a similar way to the interior battles, the enemy power is permitted to attack humans in the certain measure that each person is able to receive and withstand. ~ St. Macarius of Egypt (Fifty Spiritual Homilies)

By Way of Golgotha

Crucifix Icon on Mosaic Stand

Some people want to go to the Resurrection without passing by way of Golgotha. ~ Gerontissa Gavrielia

God does not create a cross for man. No matter how heavy a cross a man may carry in life, it is still just wood, from which man himself made, and it always grows from the soil of his heart. ~ St. Ambrose of Optina

This is the way we should see Christ: He is our friend, our brother. He is whatever is good and beautiful. He is everything. Yet, He is still a friend and He shouts it out, ‘You’re my friends, don’t you understand that? We’re brothers. I’m not threatening you. I don’t hold hell in my hands. I love you. I want you to enjoy life together with me.’ Christ is Everything. He is joy, He is life, He is light. He is the true light who makes man joyful, makes him soar with happiness; makes him see everything, everybody; makes him feel for everyone, to want everyone with him, everyone with Christ. ~ St. Porphyrios

Lord, Help

Crypt of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in Bari, Italy – 2017

There is no need to make long prayers, but extend your hands and say, ‘Lord, as you will and as you desire, lead me.’ If the conflict us urgent within you, say, ‘Lord help.’ He knows what is good for us, and He acts with mercy toward us. ~ St. Macarius the Great

As Showers on the Grass

Freezing Rain Drops Bead Ornamental Grass

Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass: Because I will publish the name of the Lord: ascribe ye greatness unto our God. He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he. ~ Deuteronomy 32: 1-4

He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass as the dew that waters the earth. ~ Psalm 72:6

Therefore, if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? ~ St. Matthew 6:30

For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls away, but the word of the Lord endures for ever… ~ 1 Peter 1:25-25

Perfect Love

Ruins in Mystras, Greece 2006

He has yet no perfect love, whose disposition towards men depends on what they are like, loving one and despising another for this or that, or sometimes hating one and the same man. Blessed is the man who can love all men equally. ~ St. Maximos the Confessor (Philokalia)

If you cannot find Christ in the beggar at the church door, you will not find him in the chalice. ~ St. John Chrysostom

Great-Martyr Katherine of Alexandria

Congratulations on your Saint’s Day Katherine, and Catherine! Memory Eternal Ekaterina.

Greetings on Great-Martyr Katherine’s feast day!

St. Katherine was the daughter of Constas, the governor of Alexandria in Egypt. She was a brilliant and avid scholar in philosophy, rhetoric, poetry, music, mathematics, astronomy, and medicine. 

During a visit by the Roman emperor, a huge pagan festival was held in his honour. However, Katherine protested the Christian persecutions and refused to offer sacrifice to the gods, declaring herself a bride of Christ, the One True God. The emperor decided that due to young Katherine’s societal status, intelligence and strong spirit, she should be ridiculed, being made an entertaining, public example, and proven wrong. His plans backfired.

Fifty of the region’s top orators and philosophers were summoned to mockingly debate the superiority of paganism versus Christianity. With her face glowing Divine Grace, and moved through the Power and Wisdom of the Holy Spirit, young Katherine eloquently defended the Christian faith. She victoriously converted hundreds in the audience… including all 50 orators, the emperor’s own wife, the emperor’s imperial advisor, and 200 soldiers. She and the group of new Christians were imprisoned and martyred around the year 305 AD.

St. Katherine’s body was taken by Angels to the highest peak of Mount Sinai, near where God appeared to Moses in the Burning Bush. Her holy relics are enshrined in the world’s oldest and continuously inhabited Christian monastery, which is over seventeen hundred years old.

Our St. Katherine Ring

Pilgrims to St. Katherine’s Monastery on Mt. Sinai are given remembrance rings that have been reverently placed on her holy relics, as a blessing. They are copied from the ring she still has on her hand, from Christ.

St. Katherine is a patron saint of students, scholars, philosophers, teachers, public speakers and librarians.

By the prayers of the most wise martyr Katherine, O Christ, enlighten the darkened eye of my soul, granting me a ray of thy splendour… ~ Excerpt from Canon to Great-Martyr Katherine

Rays of Grace

Sunrise on Hawaiian Beach – 2014

Grant unto me, my Lord, that with peace in mind I may face all that this new day is to bring. Grant unto me grace to surrender myself completely to Thy holy will. Instruct and prepare me in all things for every hour of this day. Whatsoever tidings I may receive during the day, do Thou teach me to accept them calmly, in the firm conviction that all eventualities fulfill Thy holy will. ~ Excerpt from Morning Prayer of the Optina Elders

…the greatest prayer you can make for someone is to be able to say to the Lord truthfully, “I love this person. Thy will be done in his or her life…” ~ Gerontissa Gavrielia

When a bad or gloomy thought, fear of temptation threatens to afflict you, don’t fight it to try to get rid of it. Open your arms to Christ’s love and He will embrace you, then it will vanish by itself. ~ St. Porphyrios

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