In what does the life a Christian consist? In having nothing in the heart but Christ, or, if possessing earthly blessings, in not in the least attaching himself to them, but in clinging with the whole heart to Christ.
My Life in Christ, St John of Kronstadt
Category: Orthodox
Herman
Yesterday, in 1970, St Herman was canonized (I think the Orthodox terminology is ‘glorified’). He is part of the hall of heroes.
He lived alone on Spruce Island but people came to ask his advice. He is an example of real mission to indigenous people (unlike, methinks, some attempts in Australia!).
So I share with you … St Herman of Alaska.
which one?
ideal
If the monastic ideal is union with God through prayer, through humility, through obedience, through constant recognition of one’s sins, voluntary or involuntary, through a renunciation of the values of this world, through poverty, through chastity, through love for mankind and love for God, then is such an ideal Christian? For some the very raising of such a question may appear strange and foreign. But the history of Christianity, especially the new theological attitude that obtained as a result of the Reformation, forces such a question and demands a serious answer. If the monastic ideal is to attain a creative spiritual freedom, if the monastic ideal realizes that freedom is attainable only in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and if the monastic ideal asserts that to become a slave to God is ontologically and existentially the path to becoming free, the path in which humanity fully becomes human precisely because the created existence of humanity is contingent upon God, is by itself bordered on both sides by non-existence, then is such an ideal Christian? Is such an ideal Biblical—New Testamental? Or is this monastic ideal, as its opponents have claimed, a distortion of authentic Christianity, a slavery to mechanical “monkish” “works righteousness”?
The Ascetic Ideal and the New Testment: A Critique of the Theology of the Reformation
by Father George Florovsky
fasting
transfiguration of the Lord
Today is the great feast of the Transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ. I wish all of you to be spiritually transfigured and to begin a new life in Christ. Those who fulfill the commandments of the Lord according to their strength even here on earth pass from strength to strength. But those who are counted worthy to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven will pass already from glory to glory.
Talks with Spiritual Children: Spiritual Counsel from St. Barsanuphius of Optina
And, today, is my birthday! So happy birthday to me.
nationalism?
Nationalism has been the bane of Orthodoxy for the last ten centuries.
The Orthodox Church, 84
schema cat
adapt and evolve
It is intrinsic to ascetical theology to adapt itself to the contemporary situation, yet it can only evolve out of a living tradition with roots in the past.
English Spirituality, 13
the elder
What entitles someone to act as spiritual guide? How and by whom is he or she appointed?
To this there is a simple answer. The elder or starets is essentially a “charismatic” and prophetic figure, accredited for her or his task by the direct action of the Holy Spirit. Spiritual guides are ordained, not by human hands, but by the hand of God. They are an expression of the Church as “event” or “happening,” rather than of the Church as institution
The Spiritual Guide in Orthodox Christianity, Bishop Ware
