Today’s Scripture (at OCA)

Today’s Saints (at OCA)

Orthodox Word Podcast

Kontakion - Tone 6

Master, Teacher of wisdom,
Bestower of virtue,
you teach the thoughtless and protect the poor:
Strengthen and enlighten my heart.
Word of the Father,
let me not restrain my mouth from crying to you:
Have mercy on me, a transgressor,
O merciful Lord!

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On Fasting

For the pale countenance, the trembling limbs, and the bursting sighs, and all the great toil and trouble, are aimed at nothing save the esteem of men.

For God approves that fasting, which before His eyes opens the hands of alms. This then that you deny yourself, bestow on another, that wherein your flesh is afflicted, that of your needy neighbour may be refreshed.

~ St. Gregory Dialogos (the Great)

Fasting ought to be fulfilled not in abstinence of food only, but much more in cutting off vices. For when we submit ourselves to that discipline in order to withdraw that which is the nurse of carnal desires, there is no sort of good conscience more to be sought than that we should keep ourselves sober from unjust will, and abstinent from dishonourable action. This is an act of religion from which the sick are not excluded, seeing integrity of heart may be found in an infirm body.

~ St. Leo the Great

from the Catena Aurea on Mt 6:14

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Homily on Cheesefare Sunday

Today is called “Forgiveness Sunday.” It received this name from the pious Orthodox Christian custom at Vespers of asking each other’s forgiveness for discourtesy and disrespect. We do so, since in the forthcoming fast we will approach the sacrament of Penance and ask the Lord to forgive our sins, which forgiveness will be granted us only if we ourselves forgive each other. “If ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”(Matt. 6. 14, 15)

Yet it is said to be extremely difficult to forgive discourtesy and to forget disrespect. Perhaps our selfish nature finds it truly difficult to forgive disrespect, even though in the words of the Holy Fathers it is easier to forgive than to seek revenge. (St. Tikhon of Zadonsk after St. John Chrysostom) Yet everything in us that is good is not accomplished easily, but with difficulty, compulsion and effort. “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.”(Matt. 11. 12) For this reason we should not be discouraged at the difficulty of this pious act, but should rather seek the means to its fulfillment. The Holy Church offers many means towards this end, and of them we will dwell on the one which most corresponds to the forthcoming season of repentance.

“Yea, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own transgressions and not to judge my brother.” The source of forgiving our neighbors, of not judging them, is included in seeing (acknowledging) our sins. “Imagine,” says a great pastor, who knows the heart of man, Father John of Kronstadt, “picture the multitude of your sins and imagine how tolerant of them is the Master of your life, while you are unwilling to forgive your neighbor even the smallest offense. Moan and bewail your foolishness, and that obstruction within you will vanish like smoke, you will think more clearly, your heart will grow calm, and through this you will learn goodness, as if not you yourself had heard the reproaches and indignities, but some other person entirely, or a shadow of yourself.” (Lessons on a Life of Grace, p. 149) He who admits his sinfulness, who through experience knows the weakness of human nature and its inclination toward evil, will forgive his neighbor the more swiftly, dismissing transgressions and refraining from a haughty judgment of others’ sins. Let us remember that even the scribes and Pharisees who brought the woman caught in adultery to Christ were forced to depart, when their conscience spoke out, accusing them of their own sins. (John 8. 9)

~ St. Tikhon (Bellavin), then Bishop of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, later Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia, 1901

Read the rest of St. Tikhon’s homily at Holy Trinity Cathedral.

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Are We Not All?

The Apostle also prophetically mourned over us and said: “There is none that does good, there is not so much as one”… “Know this also, that in the last days shall come difficult times. Men will be lovers of themselves, covetous, haughty, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked, without affection, without peace, slanderers, incontinent, savage, with no love of the good”…

Woe therefore to us, for we have come upon the extreme of evil. Tell me, who of us has no part in the aforesaid evils? Is not the prophecy fulfilled in us? Are we not all gluttonous? Are we not all lovers of pleasure? Are we not all mad for, and lovers of, material things? Are we not all savages? Are we not all nurturers of wrath? Are we not all bearers of malice? Are we not all traitors to every virtue? Are we not all revilers? Are we not all fond of scoffing? Are we not all hasty and rash? Do we not all hate our brothers? Are we not all puffed up? Are we not all haughty? Are we not all proud? Are we not all vainglorious? Are we not all hypocrites? Are we not all deceitful? Are we not all jealous? Are we not all unruly? Are we not all listless? Are we not all fickle? Are we not all slothful? Are we not all neglectful of the Savior’s commandments? Are we not all full of evil?

Instead of God’s temple have we not become the temple of idols? Instead of dwellings of the Holy Spirit are we not dwellings of evil spirits? Is not our calling upon God the Father make-believe? Instead of sons of God are we not become sons of hell? We, who now bear the great name of Christ, are we not become worse than the Jews? And let no one be vexed at hearing the truth. For transgressors of the law as they were, they said: “We have one Father, even God.” But they heard from the Savior: “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do.”

~ St. Maximos the Confessor, The Ascetic Life, 32. (in Manley, The Bible and the Holy Fathers, p. 731-2)

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Now is the Time

From the book by Tito Colliander, Way of the Ascetics:

If you wish to save your soul and win eternal life, arise from your lethargy, make the sign of the Cross and say:

In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Faith comes not through pondering but through action. Not words and speculation but experience teaches us what God is. To let in fresh air we have to open a window; to get tanned we must go out into the sunshine. Achieving faith is no different; we never reach a goal by just sitting in comfort and waiting, say the Holy Fathers. Let the Prodigal Son be our example. He “arose and came” (Luke 15:20).

However weighed down and entangled in earthly fetters you may be, it can never be too late. Not without reason is it written that Abraham was seventy-five when he set forth, and the laborer who comes in the eleventh hour gets the same wages as the one who comes in the first (hour).

Nor can it be too early. A forest fire cannot be put out too soon; would you see your soul ravaged and charred?

~ Read the first two chapters online at Inner Light Productions. There is a link at the bottom of the ILP page to order the book.

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At the Threshold of the Fast

Here is another very nice meditation on the Gateway to the Fast from Monachos.net.

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Vespers

This evening we celebrate Forgiveness Vespers. Today is also the Sunday of the Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise. This is a good time for a short study of the meaning of the Vespers service.