jcalvarado1008

[jcalvarado1008]

Brother, await your death daily. And prepare yourself for that journey, for the fearful command of death will come at an hour when you will not expect it. Woe to you, then, if you be found unprepared.

Now, if you should happen to be still young, the Enemy may often put into your mind these thoughts: “You are now still young. Enjoy your pleasures – you have time – then repent when you get old. For tell me, I ask you: Do you not know of many who were able to enjoy earthly pleasures and then afterwards, through repentance, reap the heavenly delights? So, why do you wish to destroy your health and body at this young age? There is, indeed, the danger that you might fall ill.“ To this sly advice of the Enemy you must protest and say to him: “O Destroyer and Enemy of our souls, cease counseling me with such things. For what if death seizes me in my youth and I do not reach old age? And what defense will I have before the Judgment Seat of Christ? Indeed every day I see many young people die and many elders live to ripe old age. It is not known to a man when he will be called to pay the common debt of death.

“Thus, if death should seize me, will it then be possible to say to the fearful Judge: ‘Death has come to me while I am still young and, therefore, please let me go, so I can repent’?

From St. Ephraim

The Evergetinos, Vol. I, p 41

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First we must struggle against our own passions, watching and keeping in mind the course of the battle; and then on the basis of personal experience we can advise others about this warfare, and render victory easier for them by describing the tactics beforehand.

- St Neilos the Ascetic, Ascetic Discourse

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O Lord, extend Your hand to me who am lying in the dust and help me.

Because I would like to get up, but I cannot.

The weight of my sin crushes me.

My wicked habits keep me bound to the earth, and I am like the paralytic.

I promise to change my ways and I fast, but everything I do stays the same.

I am eager to praise You with my lips, but I lack zeal for You with my works.

How can I entreat your forgiveness of my past sins when I make no attempt to leave my previous love of sin?

Or how will I remove the old man, when I have not forsaken my longing for wicked seductions?

O Lord, lift me up, a paralyzed man.

Rouse me who am asleep. Resurrect me, who has become dead through sin.

Save my vile soul from death, O Lord who has power over life and death.

Before the end, wipe out all my sin.

And allow me, O Lover of mankind, to weep heartfelt tears to cleanse the pollution of my soul from my brief life, so that I might be saved by the protection of Your all-powerful hand, when all souls tremble before Your fearful glory.

O Master, hear me and accept the prayer of Your sinful and unworthy servant.

Freely deliver me, by Your grace, because you are a compassionate and man-befriending God, and we send up praise, thanksgiving and adoration to You, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

St. Ephraim the Syrian

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"The lack of joy is a pathological state of man, a willing closure within one's self. And whatever he wishes to do he will not be successful.

First, one must clean his field, to find out what is going on and why he is not joyous. Then, he must pursue joy within himself, and then the peace of God will take the place of joy. Thus, man should keep his relationship with God and with his Elder [or Spiritual Father], and should seek a true life.

Am I good, faithful, perfect, holy?

Am I a teacher?

If I am not joyous, then I am nothing.

It is important when they tell me: "Physician, heal thyself, and then, offer him to God." God cannot enter into a heart that is not joyful, He cannot find a place of contact, because He is peace, He is the fulfillment of joy.

Only like things can unite, and because of this, God can only unite with a joyous soul. For the monk who is not joyous, the Elder cannot do anything at all, his hands are totally tied.

Whoever thinks that he is approaching to reach "the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ", but is not joyous, can understand that he is totally deluded. Joy is the criterion, the thermometer.

Joy is something external, but it is also something internal.

Ultimately, it is a necessary presupposition, because the lack of joy makes man study things differently and to become changed. For example, if one puts even one drop of nitric oxide into pure water, immediately he changes its essence. Thus, exactly, one drop of bitterness, depression, sadness transforms the whole atmosphere of a person, and extinguishes God.

But joy must also exist in a brotherhood [or a family], because it is an element both of one's personal life and of the brotherhood.

I cannot be joyous if all those around me do not have the tendency and the atmosphere of joy, neither, however, can I have any benefit if I do not take on this joy from the brotherhood.

Only when I take it on can I say that I have a relationship with the Elder, and then I can take in God, because God is the life that exists within man, and the life which is transmitted through man."

-Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra, from the book Neptic Life and the Ascetical Canons

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“The fact that I am a monk and you are a layman is of no importance. The Lord listens equally to the monk and to the man of the world provided both are true believer. He looks for a heart full of true faith into which to send his Spirit. For the heart of a man is capable of containing the Kingdom of God. The Holy Spirit and the Kingdom of God are one.”

— St. Seraphim of Sarov

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Work at stirring the heart, and you will see for yourself how it keeps the thoughts in check. It is necessary to force yourself. Without labor and mental effort you will not attain anything spiritual. Prostrations help a lot in the warming of the heart. Do these a little more often, performing both bows from the waist and full prostrations to the ground.

St. Theophan the Recluse

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When leaving your home, be sure to read the prayer to the cross of the Lord, and when you have a meeting with people you are afraid of, read this prayer too.

And the Lord and your Guardian Angel will protect you from all evil.

Yes, there are now people who consciously choose evil, but they cannot do anything to those who are with God. After all, the enemy is strong, but only the Lord is omnipotent.

From the letters of Archimandrite John (Krestiankin)

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Prayer to the Cross of the Lord:

Let God arise and let His enemies be scattered, and let them that hate Him flee from before His face. As smoke vanisheth so let them vanish; as wax melteth before the fire, so let the demons perish from the presence of them that love God and who sign themselves with the sign of the Cross and say in gladness: Rejoice, most precious and life-giving Cross of the Lord, for Thou drivest away the demons by the power of our Lord Jesus Christ Who was crucified on Thee, Who went down to hades and trampled on the power of the devil, and gave us thee, His precious Cross, for the driving away of every adversary. O most precious and life-giving Cross of the Lord, help me together with the holy Lady Virgin Theotokos, and with all the saints, unto the ages. Amen.

or shorter version

Protect me, Lord, with the power of Thy Holy and Life-giving Cross, and save me from all evil.

[jcalvarado1008]

[jcalvarado1008]

O wise man, do not be enticed by expectancy of a long life! For just as the rose wilts at a breath of the wind, so at a little puff on even one of the elements of which you are composed, your knees will suddenly grow feeble without you expecting it. And while you are thinking it is nothing and you are caring for the ailment, suddenly that stern being will draw nigh, he who ridicules the wise. O the wretchedness of our nature! How we are held fast by the love of this substance wherein God does not wish to leave us!

Fix your departure in your heart, O man, by always saying to yourself: “Behold, the messenger is at the door, he who comes for me. Why am I idle? My going forth is forever; there will be no return.” Pass the night in this reflection; muse upon this thought throughout the day. And when the time of departure comes, greet it with gladness, saying: “Come in peace! I knew that you were coming and I have not neglected anything that could prove useful to me on the way.“

St. Isaac the Syrian

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This place of ours also has its own heaven. It is this holy church. For every holy church is also a piece of heaven on earth. And whenever you are in a church, behold, you are already in heaven.

When the world torments you with its hell, hasten into a church, enter it, and behold, you have entered paradise…Take refuge in church, fall down before God, and He will take you under His gentle and almighty protection.

~Saint Justin Popovich Of Chelija

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The Maria Laach monastery library

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“Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us, therefore, celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” ‭‭#HolyFriday #orthodoxgoodfriday #deathtotheworld #dttw https://www.instagram.com/p/B_FT-Min58v/?igshid=1dvonamy577sj

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Posted @withregram • @realtraddad Modern man has no spirit or virility because he no longer struggles. There’s beauty in struggle, embrace it. https://www.instagram.com/p/B_AH5dKHBBp/?igshid=1u0t9t1ugf90i

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Posted @withregram • @domesticmonastic “Our Orthodoxy is a little island in the midst of a world which operates on totally different principles—and every day these principles are changing for the worse, making us more and more alienated from it.” + Hieromonk Seraphim Rose + #domesticmonastic https://www.instagram.com/p/B-00I1sHXkl/?igshid=5n3xe1wsirpc

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Posted @withregram • @domesticmonastic “You greatly delude yourself and err, if you think that one thing is demanded from the layman and another from the monk.” + St. John Chrysostom + #domesticmonastic https://www.instagram.com/p/B-vhwASn3UQ/?igshid=ka9vqablq1ly

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Posted @withregram • @orthodox.kentuckian “Perhaps what makes St. Mary of Egypt’s story such a beautiful icon of true repentance is that she was genuinely humble before God. She was not sorrowful for her sin out of a sense of wounded pride, obsessive self-centered guilt, or fear of what others thought of her. Instead, she said earnestly to the Theotokos ‘Be my faithful witness before your Son that I will never again defile my body by the impurity of fornication, but as soon as I have seen the Tree of the Cross I will renounce the world and its temptations and will go wherever you will lead me.’ And she did precisely that, abandoning all that she had known for the long and difficult journey that led to the healing of her soul. Her focus was completely on doing whatever it took to reorient her life toward God, to purify her desires so that she would find true fulfillment in Him. Today the Orthodox Church calls us all to follow her example of repentance, regardless of the details of how we have sinned in thought, word, and deed. St. Mary of Egypt reminds us to accept humbly the truth about our failings as we confess our sins, call for the Lord’s mercy, and do what is necessary to find healing. Her example reminds us not to be paralyzed by prideful obsessions that block us from being freed from slavery to our passions... The Savior did not reject her and He will not reject us when we come to Him as she did. Instead of assuming that she was ‘damaged goods’ for whom there was no hope, she humbly died to self by taking up her cross. Indeed, her repentance began in the context of venerating the Holy Cross at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. The rest of her journey required profound faith, sacrifice, and courage. To undo with God’s help the harm that she had done to herself through years of debauchery must have been incredibly difficult. But sustained by the Lord’s mercy and the intercessions of the Theotokos, that is precisely what she did over the remaining decades of her life.” —Fr. Phillip LeMasters • • • #orthodoxy #russianorthodoxy #rocor #oca #faith #christianity #christian #hope #love #mercy #prayer #icons #devotion #liturgy #chotki #church #pray #greek #ch https://www.instagram.com/p/B-mt0UGHinY/?igshid=g4zz9r13pqku

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Posted @withregram • @deathtotheworld “Let the memory of death sleep and awake with you.” +St John of the Ladder . . #death #dttw #plague #sickness #momentomore #deathtotheworld https://www.instagram.com/p/B-eg8vaHnbV/?igshid=nfyjafuq38o3