Repentance – Blisswood

St. Mary of Egypt

Parish Mosaic – St. Mary of Egypt with Lampada

Undated Sermon on the Life of St. Mary of Egypt [circa early 2000’s], by +Archpriest John Adams, of Eternal Memory

This week we read again the Great Canon, with the life of St. Mary of Egypt who is one of the most loved and revered saints.

I remember reading it the first time. Eve (Princess Eve Galitzine, a founder of our parish) had xerox copies. Oh, it was so long, but so amazing, remarkable, and moving.

Her life went from one extreme to the other, from the very depths – to the very heights.

Her life is inspiring and edifying. Those themselves who are hopeless – she lifts up, those who have exhausted themselves, like the monk Zosimas, who had started to think of himself as perfect, she humbles.

Living alone in the desert, without food or clothing, tormented, but with prayer and tears through great struggles, she clung to the Mother of God, until she was lifted up spiritually, even physically, above the earth, and above the waters.

Last Sunday was St. John of the Ladder (Climacus), and we saw from his example how the prescribed life of the ascetic leads to understanding. Further, this Sunday, we are shown St. Mary of Egypt’s ascetical life, and we see a radical transformation, a model of repentance. This is how we begin, and how we continue. “Open unto me the Gates of Repentance”. We want to turn in repentance, (to be) enlightened. We want to behold the Resurrection more clearly, more brightly.

(Soon comes) Palm Sunday and the pace picks up. At vigil on Saturday evening, there’s the blessing of bread, wine, oil, and palms are distributed…

Try to attend every (Holy Week) service you can, these services are all unique. They all add an essential element to our spiritual growth.

Oblation

An Altar’s Table of Oblation

Remember that we are called to change and be transformed. Great Lent is like a tuning fork that aligns our soul with a spiritual melody. We must strive to maintain this harmony for as long as possible, even after the Holy Forty Days have ended. ~ Metropolitan Onuphry of Ukraine

Years are not needed for true repentance, and not days – but only a single instant. ~ St. Ambrose of Optina

Wishing you all the Bright Joys of the Fast!

Looking ahead (with hope and consolation) while catching small glimpses of the coming, Shining, and Bright Paschal Dawn!

To the Journey!

Swathed in Light

Kayaking Into Diamonds ~ Strait of Juan de Fuca

Thy grace has shown forth, O Lord, it has shone forth and given light to our souls. Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the season of repentance. Let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armour of light, that having sailed across the great sea of the Fast, we may reach the third-day Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour of our souls. ~Aposticha Sticheron, Forgiveness Sunday Evening Vespers

Wishing you a most Blessed First Week of the Fast!

On a past holiday we watched a kayaker glide across a sea of glass, seemingly unaware of having passed through a brilliant, sparkling corridor of sunbeams. Suddenly, they came to a contemplative, standstill. In a flash, they reversed course and paddled forward – directly into the Golden Avenue of dazzling diamonds dancing on the water… and became swathed in Light.

I have consciousness of my sinfulness, but I live with hope. It is bad to despair, because someone who despairs becomes embittered and loses his willingness and strength. Someone who has hope, on the contrary, advances forward. ~ St. Porphyrios

…The world of nature is coming alive round us during the Lenten season. And this should be a symbol of what is to happen in our own hearts. The dawning of springtime… We shouldn’t just have a negative idea of repentance, as feeling sorry, gloomy and somber about our failings. but repentance, rather, is a new hope. An opening flower. How our lives can, by God’s grace, be changed. ~ Metropolitan Kallistos Ware

When diamonds dance
upon the shining waters
of the Great Sea of the Fast
we glimpse the Gladsome.

May your Lenten Journey be Peaceful and Fruitful!

Infinity Within

Holy Gospel Book, brass covered, depicts an Icon of the Resurrection of Christ. The Gospel (in Greek “ευαγγέλιο” means “good news”) and is the timeless record of Christ’s life and teaching as written by the four Evangelists, Saints Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, also seen in each of the cover’s four corners.

The Christian journey is not just a journey to theosis [a transformative process whose aim is likeness to or union with God, and the purpose of human life], but also a journey to a greater awareness of the theosis already given us in baptism and chrismation… So, in the light of your baptism, praying for a spirit of repentance will fairly soon show you an absolute infinity within you, and it’s a little terrifying. But one step at a time. ~ Nicholas Kotar

Spiritual Springtime

Velvet Pansies and Shy Violets Peep Out From Our Window Box
How to Make Old-fashioned Candied Violets

…grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen. ~ 2 Peter 3:18

Lent is a spiritual springtime… The world of nature is coming alive round us during the Lenten season. And this should be a symbol of what is to happen in our own hearts. The dawning of springtime… We shouldn’t just have a negative idea of repentance, as feeling sorry, gloomy and somber about our failings. But repentance, rather, is new hope. An opening flower. How our lives can, by God’s grace, be changed. ~ Metropolitan Kallistos Ware

As the field is adorned by a multitude of flowers, so should the field of my own soul be adorned by all the flowers of virtue… ~ St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ

If you do not shatter and empty your Ego, how will you make room for God?… God’s gifts to us blossom only if watered with the water of Love… Those who love can do only beautiful things. ~ St. Gavrilia

Heading towards the end of the second week of Great Lent, I’m hunkering down and holding fast (with God’s help), hoping to cultivate the spiritual springtime’s fragrant flowers of virtue, and to Blossom Forth!

Great Lent/Holy Week/Pascha – Resource

Past Posts Resource

Wishing you all the Bright Joys of the Fast!
May your journey to Pascha be Peaceful and Fruitful!

Fragrance of Life

Fragrant Plumeria flower, upheld aloft by neighbouring Heliconia Rostrata leaf. ~ Kauai 2023

Whatever in us that truly lives, exuding the fragrance of life like the blossoms in springtime will never know an autumn of decomposition and death. Those alive in Christ experience an everlasting seedtime of continual growth in faith, trust, hope, confidence, understanding, compassion, awareness, optimism, love, and joy. For them this world is a mere cocoon destined to release the true self on radiant, pure, glorious wings to a world alive with the fragrance of the Holy Trinity. ~ Very Rev. Vladimir Berzonsky

Struggle my children, the angels are weaving crowns with flowers of paradise. ~ Elder Ephraim

Lent is spiritual springtime. Not winter, but spring. The world of nature is coming alive round us during the Lenten season. And this should be a symbol of what is to happen in our own hearts. The dawning of springtime… We shouldn’t just have a negative idea of repentance, as feeling sorry, gloomy and somber about our failings. But repentance, rather, is new hope. An opening flower. How our lives can, by God’s grace, be changed. ~ Metropolitan Kallistos Ware

Through His Tender Mercy

An October Dawn

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. ~ Psalm 23:6

But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God: I trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever. ~ Psalm 52:8

Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. ~ Psalm 85:10

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. ~ St. Matthew 5:7

Repentance is the gate of mercy which is opened to those who seek it. ~ St. Isaac the Syrian

Lord, as You will, and as You know, have mercy! ~ Abba Macarius

In my life, two questions have especially occupied my attention. First, the exploration of the ways of God’s mercy which I found first in nature. Then I began to observe human life, and even where free will was leaning towards evil, I always found God’s mercy. Then I decided to turn to that which is most sinful, most evil, and I turned to my inward life. It seemed that here there was no place for God’s mercy, because there was nothing good in it; but even here I discovered God’s mercy, and I remembered the words of the Psalmist: ‘Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from Thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, Thou art there.’ Then I finally became convinced that the mercy of God towards man is limitless and boundless. ~ Archbishop Iosaph Skorodumov

The Dawning Dayspring connects all Creation through the Created! The Dayspring… the Orient from on High, refers to our merciful Lord God and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

May we all make Good Choices today… and be swathed in the Tender Mercy of His Redeeming, Healing, Peaceful, Love.

Parish Youth Choir Sing ~ 2023
🎵 Lord Have Mercy 🎵

Born For Resurrection

Greetings on Great and Holy Saturday!

Jesus Christ has taken the world of our sins upon Himself.

For this cause He came into the world…

For this New Beginning!

Do not lament Me, O Mother,
Seeing Me in the tomb,
The Son conceived in the womb without seed,
For I shall arise,
And be glorified with eternal glory as God.
I shall exalt all who magnify thee in faith and in love.
~ Ode 9, Holy Saturday Canon

Why Did Jesus Die on the Cross? Because of God’s great Love, He did something so special for each one of us. It‘s almost too amazing to even try and think about it! When we love someone very much, we help them as much as we can – without thinking how hard it might be for ourselves to do this. Through Adam and Eve, the first created man and woman, sin entered the world, and now we all sin. There are big sins and little sins, but everyone sins, and any sin separates us from God. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, willingly took all the sins of everyone ever born, which means, you, me, the whole world, and took all these sins upon Himself; because sin separates us from God. When Jesus died and was buried, all our sins died and were buried too. We also remember this at our Baptism. We are now forgiven because of what Jesus did for us on the cross! Jesus loves us so much! And, even if you were the ONLY person living in the whole world, Jesus still would have done this – just for you! Just for one person, because He knows each one of us and loves us all so much! And, because He is the Son of God- He arose victorious, from the dead! “Trampling down death, by death!” This is why we no longer fear death, for death is a new beginning, a new and Eternal Life with God. ~ The Ark Youth Quarterly – St. Sophia Orthodox Church

Branches of Inner Stillness

Photo shared by Irena

…Silence fosters stillness; it is indispensable for stillness. Inner stillness, however, goes beyond silence insofar as its aim is to purify the heart and issue in pure prayer. That purification involves the body in its entirety, because body and soul, like mind and heart, are ultimately inseparable. In the words of St. Mark the Ascetic, “The intellect cannot be still unless the body is still also; and the wall between them cannot be demolished without stillness and prayer.” Silence is the prerequisite for inner stillness, and only inner stillness enables us truly to listen to God, to hear His voice, and to commune with Him in the depths of our being. Yet silence and stillness are, like prayer itself, gifts that God can and wants to bestow upon us. The greatest truth about us is that God has created us with a profound longing, a burning thirst for communion with Himself. We can easily pervert that longing into an idolatrous quest for something other than God. Yet God remains faithful even in our times of apostasy. Like the father of the Prodigal Son, He always awaits our return. Once we begin that journey homeward, through repentance and an ongoing struggle against our most destructive passions, God reaches out to embrace, to forgive and to heal all that is broken, wounded and wasted. He reaches into the very fabric of our life, to restore within us the sublime image in which we were made… ~ Fr. John Breck

It’s coming to that amazing time again of recharging our spiritual batteries together. With purpose, we prepare our own humble journeys home to the Greatest Christian Feast of Feasts, Holy Pascha (Easter), the Resurrection of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ. Travelling the quiet routes of the Great Lenten roads ahead, we choose to make bright efforts in good faith, and to the best of our abilities. Our dear Lord desires us to come to Him and fill us with good things… now and forever!

Tomorrow is an invitation of God’s Grace.

Tomorrow is Forgiveness Sunday.

However, today, I bow to you in spirit, bending the knees of my heart, and ask you to please forgive me.

God forgives!

Isn’t that beyond wonderful? God FORGIVES!

May your upcoming Lenten Journey be Peaceful… and may your Branches of Inner Stillness bear Good Fruit.

With Love in Christ.