orthodoxgladness

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But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; 28 and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, 29 that no flesh should glory in His presence. 1 Corinthians 1:27-29

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Four things arouse fornication in the body: excessive sleep, excessive consumption of food, laughter and jokes, and adornment in clothes. - Venerable Abba Isaiah (Skete)

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APRIL 18 - APRIL 23 HOLY WEEK

Holy Week is the time when Christ asks us to help carry His cross.

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He who desires salvation will ask the Lord day and night to strengthen him in the faith. He will not serve the world, but the Lord, insisting on purity and seeking righteousness, will fight against sin and the Lord will help him. He will seek humility, for this is the great diamond before the face of God. - Elder Justin Parvou

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WHEN TO LEAVE A JOB “I ask for your advice, Vladyka. If at work you are constantly faced with the disbelief of other people, with temptations, with assignments that contradict faith, isn’t it better to change your job? Thanks to. – It is not easy to leave the place where we work, serve and live. Once a man from Halkidiki came to the Holy Mountain, who worked at a large metallurgical enterprise, where strontium was mined (this is a metal that is very deep in the earth). He worked in a deep mine with other people for many hours, but these people were blasphemers and blasphemed the Mother of God. He came to Athos and asked the elder for blessing to change jobs, because he could not hear how they blasphemed the Mother of God. The elder told him: “It is very difficult to change jobs. You do have a family. Wherever you go, won't there be temptations?" And thus gave him no blessing. He was very upset and during the service he went to the miraculous icon of the Virgin Vimatarissa (Altar), which is located in the Vatopedi monastery, knelt down and prayed with tears. He wept, prayed and said to the Theotokos: “Most Holy Theotokos, I cannot hear how they blaspheme You.” And he heard the voice of the Mother of God, Who said to him: “For two thousand years I have heard how they blaspheme Me, and I endure. Can't you wait a few years? Go, pray, and I will be with you." It is not easy to leave our seats. The word "patience", in Greek ὑπομονή, comes from the verb ὑπομένω, which means to remain in a certain place regardless of difficult circumstances, to remain in one's place no matter what. WHEN WORK TAKES ALL THE TIME - Bless! If I have to support my family and work takes all my strength, then how can I have time not only to pray, but also to read spiritual books, the Gospel? Does this mean that spiritual life is not yet possible for me? – As we have said before, the spiritual life is not a bodily method. Spiritual life means that the Holy Spirit must live in your heart. And the one who sacrifices himself, works and tries every day and every minute for his family, for his neighbors, he is a martyr of love. And he can even use the few minutes that he has at his disposal to cry out to Christ, and Christ is a just and good Father. And He sees the struggle and work of each person. Spiritual life does not only mean that I read and pray, spiritual life means that I imitate Christ in all the little things of my life. Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol

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Beloved, when you see disasters multiplying, do not be discouraged, but be even more encouraged. God allows them to be in order to drive away your carelessness, to wake you up from sleep.- St. John Chrysostom

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When two people get angry with each other and Satan keeps them away, the Virgin Mary comes in the middle and puts a bouquet between them, the bouquet of the "peacemaker". Do not wait for the other person to take your prize (the bouquet). "Run first, apologize to the other and grab the bouquet. St. John Chrysostom

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Hand painted wooden angel holding St. Seraphim icon Inside the angel is a wooden egg. Will make a beautiful Pascha gift. Available at www.OrthodoxGladness.com under "Angel" https://www.instagram.com/p/CbS0CWfL_9O/?utm_medium=tumblr

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We must give thanks for all things to the Lord, Who has rightly given us difficulties that we may learn patience, which is more beneficial than comforts, and ennobles the soul. - St. Moses of Optina

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***New item: Panagia Tears 100 knot Prayer Rope made by the monks on Holy Mt. Athos About the prayer rope: This special prayer rope has a symbolism that makes it unique in the Christian world. The plant that produces the seeds used for the handcraft of these prayer ropes, sprouted in a miraculous way from the earth on which the tears of the Mother of God fell at the time of the crucifixion of her beloved Son. Saint Silouan the Athonite writes: "When the Mother of God stood at the foot of the Cross, the depth of her grief was inconceivable, for she loved her Son more than any one can realize. And we know that the greater the love the greater the suffering. By the laws of human nature, the Mother of God could not possibly have borne her affliction; but she had submitted herself to the will of God, and the Holy Spirit sustained her and gave her the strength to bear this affliction. And later, after the Ascension of the Lord, she became a great comfort to all God's people in their distress." According to the tradition, the plant called "Panagia's Tears" ("The Tears of the Mother of God") took its name from the monks living in the Skete of Saint Anne in Mount Athos, after the following event occurred: A pious Elder living in the Cell of the Holy Great-martyr and Healer Panteleimon, just above the Skete, being sad of his inability to tie a wool prayer rope, received the miraculous visit of the Most Holy Mother of God, which strengthened his weakened soul with her holy presence and gave him a few seeds of this plant, saying to him, “My child, take these seeds, cultivate them, and make prayer ropes with which men may say the prayer of the heart.” https://www.instagram.com/p/CbNoQ26rdcg/?utm_medium=tumblr

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An amazing thing: no matter how much we worry about our health, no matter how we take care of ourselves, no matter how healthy and pleasant foods we eat, no matter how healthy drinks we drink, no matter how much we take walks in the fresh air,and in the end it all comes out that we are subject to disease and decay.

The saints, who despised the flesh, mortified it by incessant abstinence and fasting, lying on the bare ground, vigil, toil, unceasing prayer, immortalized both their soul and their flesh: our bodies, much nourished and sweetly nourished, emit a stench after death, and sometimes even during life, and their bodies are fragrant and bloom both in life and in death.

An amazing thing: we, creating, destroy our body, and they, destroying, created; we, pouring fragrances on it, do not avoid its stench, but they, caring not for the fragrance of the body, but for the soul to be a fragrance for God, fragrant their bodies.

My brethren! Understand the task, the purpose of your life. We must mortify the many-passionate body or carnal passions through abstinence, labor, prayer, and not revive it and its passions through delicacy, satiety, laziness. - St. John of Kronstadt

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Prayer of St. Silouan of Mt. Athos

Lord, grant Thy peace to Thy people. Lord, grant to Your servants Your Holy Spirit, so that He warms their hearts with Your love and guides them into all truth and goodness.Lord, grant them Your grace, so that in peace and love they would know You, and would love, and would say, like the apostles on Tabor: “It is good for us, Lord, to be with You.” Warm the sad hearts of people; let them praise you in joy, forgetting the sorrows of the earth. Good Comforter, I tearfully ask You to console the sorrowful souls of Your people. Let all Your peoples understand Your love and the sweetness of the Holy Spirit, may people forget the grief of the earth, and may they leave everything bad and cling to You with love, and may they live in peace, doing Your will for Your glory.

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Beginning of Great Lent (Monday March 7)During the forty days that now follow there is an increasing concentration upon the central moment in sacred history, upon the saving event of Christ's Passion and Resurrection, which makes possible man's return to Paradise and inaugurates the End. Lent is, from this point of view, a journey with a precise direction; it is the journey to Pascha. The goal of our journey is concisely expressed in the closing prayer at the Liturgy of the Presanctified: "... may we come uncondemned to worship at the Holy Resurrection". Throughout the forty days we are reminded that we are on the move, travelling on a path that leads straight to Golgotha and the Empty Tomb.The forty days' journey of Lent recalls in particular the forty years in which the Chosen People journeyed through the wilderness. For us, as for the children of Israel, Lent is a time of pilgrimage. It is a time for our liberation from the bondage of Egypt, from domination by sinful passions; a time for progress by faith through a barren and waterless desert; a time for unexpected reassurance, when in our hunger we are fed with manna from heaven; a time when God speaks to us out of the darkness of Sinai; a time which we draw near to the Promised Land, to our true home in Paradise whose door the crucified and risen Christ has reopened for us. (Triodion)

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Icon "Holy Forties" which means Great Lent" written on Mount Athos (Greece) in 2006.

The icon depicts six weeks of Great Lent in the events celebrated by the Church:

The Triumph of Orthodoxy, the Holy Cross Day, Lazarus Saturday, as well as the honored saints: St. Gregory Palamas (XIV century), St. John of Climacus (VII century) and St. Mary of Egypt (VI century .), as contributing to the life and teachings of their salvific life, and of all those who listen to the call of the Holy Fast, which leads to the bright day and the feast of Pascha.

The icon was created by monks and iconographers, working in the cell of the Dormition of the Mother of God, near the hermitage of St.Anna.

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At the supplications of Thy preachers and prophets, martyrs and apostles, holy bishops and of all the righteous, O Christ, send down upon our souls the cleansing of our offences.

Friday in Cheese Week

Lenten Triodion Supplement

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Sunday before Lent (March 6)

The last of the preparatory Sundays has two themes: it commemorates Adam's expulsion from Paradise, and it is also the Sunday of Forgiveness. There are obvious reasons why these two things should be brought to our attention as we stand on the threshold of the Great Fast. One of the primary images in the Triodion is that of the return to Paradise. Lent is a time when we weep with Adam and Eve before the closed gate of Eden, repenting with them for the sins that have deprived us of our free communion with God. But Lent is also a time when we are preparing to celebrate the saving event of Christ's death and rising, which has reopened Paradise to us once more (Luke 23:43). So sorrow for our exile in sin is tempered by hope of our re-entry into Paradise:O precious Paradise, unsurpassed in beauty,Tabernacle built by God, unending gladness and delight,Glory of the righteous, joy of the prophets, and dwelling of the saints,With the sound of thy leaves pray to the Maker of all:May He open unto me the gates which I closed by my transgression,And may He count me worthy to partake of the Tree of LifeAnd of the joy which was mine when I dwelt in thee before.Note how the Triodion speaks here not of 'Adam' but of 'me': 'May He open unto me the gates which I closed'. Here, as throughout the Triodion, the events of sacred history are not treated as happenings in the distant past or future, but as experiences undergone by me here and now within the dimension of sacred time.The second theme, that of forgiveness, is emphasized in the Gospel reading for this Sunday (Matthew 6:14-21) and in the special ceremony of mutual forgiveness at the end of Vespers on Sunday evening. Before we enter the Lenten fast, we are reminded that there can be no true fast, no genuine repentance, no reconciliation with God, unless we are at the same time reconciled with one another. A fast without mutual love is the fast of demons. As the commemoration of the ascetic saints on the previous Saturday has just made clear to us, we do not travel the road of Lent as isolated individuals but as members of a family. Our asceticism and fasting should not separate us from our fellow men but link us to them with ever stronger bonds. The Lenten ascetic is called to be a man for others.(Triodion)

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In making the sign of the cross, believe and constantly remember that your sins are nailed to the cross. When you fall into sin, immediately condemn yourself sincerely, and make the sign of the cross over yourself, saying: "Lord, You Who nailed our sins to the cross, nail also my present sin to Your cross, and 'have mercy upon me, O God, after Thy great goodness'" (Psalm 50:3); and you will be cleansed from your sin. Amen. - St. John Kronstadt