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Great Lent

Lent is great indeed. I haven’t been posting for Lent but I am reading your messages and prayer requests. It is Day 38 of the Great Fast, the week of St. Mary of Egypt. Pray that we may be purified of all evil thoughts; that we may be granted a pure heart, for blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. May we be counted worthy to participate in Pascha, the joyful celebration of Christ’s Resurrection in 10 days.

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A Lebanese Orthodox nun lighting a candle in the shrine of Sayyidat al-Nouriyyeh (Our Lady of Light) in Beirut. The shrine was later looted and completely destroyed during the Lebanese Civil War.

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Monks Walk To The Mountain Monastery of Athos, 1905 Art by Hermann David Salomon Corrodi

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Grace is not freely given to the person who has experienced spiritual arousal, who knows and senses what life in Christ is, and who has fallen into sin again. He must give something himself first. He must still be worthy and beseech. it is not enough merely to wish; he must work on himself in order to attract spiritual arousal by grace. Such a person, in recollecting his previous sojourn in the virtuous Christian way, often desires it again, but has no power over himself. He would like to turn over a new leaf, but is unable to gain self-mastery and conquer himself. He has abandoned himself to helpless despair because he previously abandoned the gift and reproached and trodden underfoot the Son of God. . .and hath done despite unto the Spirit of Grace (Heb. 10:29). Now he is allowed to perceive that this power of grace is so great that it will not be granted immediately. Seek and labor, and learn to appreciate how difficult it is to acquire.

Such a person is in a somewhat agonizing condition: He thirsts but is not given drink, hungers but is not fed, seeks but does not find, exerts himself but does not receive. Sometimes a person is left in this condition for a very long time, to the point where he feels divine reproach, as if God had forgotten him, turned away and betrayed His promise. He feels like the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it. . .but. . .which beareth thorns and briers (Heb. 6:7-8). But this slow touching of grace to the heart of the seeker is only a trial. He goes through the period of trial, and thanks to his labors and agonizing search, the spirit of arousal once again descends on him as it descends on others as a gift. This course of action of salvific grace shows us two things: First, the special actions of divine grace in arousing a sinner; second, the usual way of acquiring the gift of arousing grace.

-- Saint Theophan the Recluse: Path to Salvation; A Manual of Spiritual Transformation

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hey guys i’m on my way to the airport right now to go to the Philippines with the blessing of my spiritual father to do some mission work there. if God wills, we hope to establish a shelter for children, a school, a clinic, a church, and perhaps a monastery.

please pray for the mission, our spiritual father, me, and my dear husband. our names are Maria and Elias.

through the prayers of our holy fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God have mercy on us and save us.

amen.

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– Blessed Hieromonk Father Seraphim Rose

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Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. John 14:27

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My spiritual father is a hieromonk from Mount Athos and he’s notorious for driving really fast which is so funny, several people have told me stories about them pulling over to make way for his truck going way above speed limit. I asked another monk how fast he drives and the monk just told me that Father P was known as the Fastest Monk on the Holy Mountain.

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They did not talk, not because they hated conversation, but because they wanted to listen intently to the voice of God in silence; they did not dislike eating, but were feeding on the Word of God so that they did not have room for earthly food or time to bother with it; they did not avoid company because it bored them, but, as one of them said, ‘I cannot be with you and with God.’ It was not a dislike of sleep that made them keep vigil, but an eager and longing attitude of waiting for the coming of Christ.

Sayings of the Desert Fathers

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“Humility is acquired after struggles. When you know yourself you acquire humility, which becomes a (permanent) condition. Otherwise you can become humble for a moment, but your thought will say to you that you are something, although in reality you’re nothing; and you’ll be deluded like that to the moment of death. If death finds you with the thought that you are nothing, then God will speak. If, however, your thought says at the hour of death that you are something and you don’t understand it, all your effort goes to waste.”

Saint Paisios

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