| Sermons, Lectures Last Updated: Feb 8th, 2011 - 05:50:02 Make your Glass Clean By Fr. Panayiotis Papageorgiou Oct 2, 2010, 10:00 Discuss this article Printer friendly page Source: Syndiakonia: The Monthly Bulletin of the Holy Transfiguration Greek Orthodox Church How many times have you picked up a glass at a restaurant and looked at it carefully before you poured in your beverage to drink. You certainly do that because you want to make sure that the glass is clean! Right? And if you see a spot or something else on the glass, you lift up your napkin and wipe it clean, or even call the waiter (the server) and ask for the glass to be replaced. You do not want to drink from a dirty glass! The dirty glass has to go back to the washing machine! If we look at this from the spiritual perspective, each one of us is a " glass " in the face of the Lord! We offer ourselves to Him in many ways wanting to honor and please Him. We offer ourselves to him so that He may pour His Grace in us. If we are clean, He will be able to fill us with His Grace; if we are spotted or filthy, He will have to reach for the napkin, or send us to the " washing machine " . The first question one would ask is " how do we manage to get ourselves dirty? " Well, think about it. There are so many ways we can to do that; Remember when we were kids and played outside, how easy it was for our mother to know that we had gone too close to the lake, because our shoes were muddy, or too close to the barn because we had hay in our hair? It is usually obvious as to where we have been by the effect that the place and environment has left on us. In the spiritual warfare, of course, the filth will not be just physical. For example, if we have been in the company of people who curse, we will have constant thoughts of all the filth we have heard. If we have been looking at pictures or movies of seductive scenes, our mind will be filled with thoughts and urges that lead us in that direction. If we have exposed ourselves to actual sin by action, then our mind and heart will be held captive by the passion of that sin until we wash it clean and restore the mind and heart to its original settings. |
| About Pages Проекты «Правмира» Raising Orthodox Children to Orthodox Adulthood The Daily Website on How to be an Orthodox Christian Today Twitter Telegram Parler RSS Donate Navigation Christian Life: A User Manual Can one write a brief guide to Christian life? Yes, one can. And there will only be one rule in it. Hieromonk Makary (Markish) 26 May 2014 Instructions cannot be written for the Christian life: the devil will always be able to create situations unforeseen by even the most “perfect” instructions. “I ask you to reply to my questions: Should I, as a beginner (I have tried to live as a Christian for three months), practice the Jesus Prayer and other means of the unceasing remembrance of God? Or does one first need to weaken the force of the passions and only then proceed? Or do them in parallel? The Holy Fathers don’t agree. If I get the blessing of a priest for this, will it not be a sin if I inadvertently forget prayer for a short time and live without the memory of God, but then remember and repent and continue to pray? (For two weeks I’ve tried but often forget about prayer during the day due to extraneous thoughts.) How can I combine study and mental prayer, if the mind is focused on mastering the material? There is a kind of dichotomy as a result (I cannot learn knowledge, and I don’t manage to remember the Lord Jesus Christ while reading secular books). Do I need a prayer rope?” This is a very distressing, simply tragic letter. Explaining this to those who don’t understand is pointless. This is a frightful, murderous hodgepodge of consciousness. “But,” you say, “the person is trying to live in a Christian manner for only the third month…!” That’s why no one blames the young author of the letter, but only feels pity for him. The beginning of anything is always connected with some measure of hodgepodge of consciousness, but this is a matter of life and death, so that mistakes are not just annoying, but deadly. By analogy, someone decides to build a barn: without a plan, without skills, without knowledge of the tools, without boards and nails, he sits down and smokes. The thing isn’t moving forward. Annoying. But his neighbor, with the same level of skill and awareness, builds a gas station: he brings gasoline, pours it on the troughs, splashes it around – and also sits down and smokes. |
| From " Orthodoxy and the World " www.pravmir.com Sermons, Lectures Make your Glass Clean By By Fr. Panayiotis Papageorgiou Oct 2, 2010, 10:00 Source: Syndiakonia: The Monthly Bulletin of the Holy Transfiguration Greek Orthodox Church How many times have you picked up a glass at a restaurant and looked at it carefully before you poured in your beverage to drink. You certainly do that because you want to make sure that the glass is clean! Right? And if you see a spot or something else on the glass, you lift up your napkin and wipe it clean, or even call the waiter (the server) and ask for the glass to be replaced. You do not want to drink from a dirty glass! The dirty glass has to go back to the washing machine! If we look at this from the spiritual perspective, each one of us is a " glass " in the face of the Lord! We offer ourselves to Him in many ways wanting to honor and please Him. We offer ourselves to him so that He may pour His Grace in us. If we are clean, He will be able to fill us with His Grace; if we are spotted or filthy, He will have to reach for the napkin, or send us to the " washing machine " . The first question one would ask is " how do we manage to get ourselves dirty? " Well, think about it. There are so many ways we can to do that; Remember when we were kids and played outside, how easy it was for our mother to know that we had gone too close to the lake, because our shoes were muddy, or too close to the barn because we had hay in our hair? It is usually obvious as to where we have been by the effect that the place and environment has left on us. In the spiritual warfare, of course, the filth will not be just physical. For example, if we have been in the company of people who curse, we will have constant thoughts of all the filth we have heard. If we have been looking at pictures or movies of seductive scenes, our mind will be filled with thoughts and urges that lead us in that direction. If we have exposed ourselves to actual sin by action, then our mind and heart will be held captive by the passion of that sin until we wash it clean and restore the mind and heart to its original settings. The final question is " how can we wash clean our heart and mind and be restored to God " s pleasing? " Repentance, humility and the desire to clean what is dirty and fix what is broken is the only way. God " s " washing machine " is the Sacrament of Confession. The process is relatively easy: Just call the " server " of the Holy Sacrament (the father confessor) and you are half way there. Then you will be able to present yourself " clean " to the Lord. Then He will be able to pour His Grace abundantly in you. Then He will be able to " drink " from your offering. What a great gift God has given us in Confession! The ability to regenerate our souls and reset our hearts and minds! © Copyright 2004 by " Orthodoxy and the World " www.pravmir.com |
| About Pages Проекты «Правмира» Raising Orthodox Children to Orthodox Adulthood The Daily Website on How to be an Orthodox Christian Today Twitter Telegram Parler RSS Donate Navigation Make your Glass Clean How many times have you picked up a glass at a restaurant and looked at it carefully before you poured in your beverage to drink. You certainly do that because you want to make sure that the glass is clean! Right? And if you see a spot or something else on the glass, you lift up your napkin and wipe it clean, or even call the waiter (the server) and ask for the glass to be replaced. 02 October 2010 Source: Syndiakonia: The Monthly Bulletin of the Holy Transfiguration Greek Orthodox Church How many times have you picked up a glass at a restaurant and looked at it carefully before you poured in your beverage to drink. You certainly do that because you want to make sure that the glass is clean! Right? And if you see a spot or something else on the glass, you lift up your napkin and wipe it clean, or even call the waiter (the server) and ask for the glass to be replaced. You do not want to drink from a dirty glass! The dirty glass has to go back to the washing machine! If we look at this from the spiritual perspective, each one of us is a “glass” in the face of the Lord! We offer ourselves to Him in many ways wanting to honor and please Him. We offer ourselves to him so that He may pour His Grace in us. If we are clean, He will be able to fill us with His Grace; if we are spotted or filthy, He will have to reach for the napkin, or send us to the “washing machine”. The first question one would ask is “how do we manage to get ourselves dirty?” Well, think about it. There are so many ways we can to do that; Remember when we were kids and played outside, how easy it was for our mother to know that we had gone too close to the lake, because our shoes were muddy, or too close to the barn because we had hay in our hair? It is usually obvious as to where we have been by the effect that the place and environment has left on us. In the spiritual warfare, of course, the filth will not be just physical. For example, if we have been in the company of people who curse, we will have constant thoughts of all the filth we have heard. If we have been looking at pictures or movies of seductive scenes, our mind will be filled with thoughts and urges that lead us in that direction. If we have exposed ourselves to actual sin by action, then our mind and heart will be held captive by the passion of that sin until we wash it clean and restore the mind and heart to its original settings. |
| “Rebels said we had to pay money for the revolution,” a refugee told the Telegraph. “My cousin is a farmer, and wanted to check on his land. I warned him he should take armed security but he refused. A group kidnapped him in the barn of his farm. We had to pay for his release. They are milking the Christians.” “A few prayer requests from churches inside Syria – ” reported Open Doors, “include lasting peace, counselling for children who have been traumatized by violence, support for almost one-third of the Syrian population who are either refugees outside the country or homeless inside Syria, medicines, food and other relief materials get to those most in need.” But included in the prayer request was that Christians around the world pray that the Syriac Christians remaining in the war zone “be a salt and light in their community even as civil war rages. “ Much of Syria’s Christian community has avoided “choosing sides” in the war, seeking self-preservation in neutrality, reported Sherlock. “But the strategy has left Christians defenseless in the face of sectarian attacks and the lawlessness that now define rebel-held areas. Last year, when government forces pulled out al-Hasakah province, leaving the terrain in the hands of Kurdish groups and Sunni opposition rebel, Christians became an easy target. “A Christian man calling himself Joseph and living in al-Hasakah said: ‘The only unprotected group are the Christians. The Arabs had arms coming from Saudi and Qatar, the Kurds had help from Kurdistan. We had no weapons at all.’” “The deadly violence percolating half a world away in Syria and the warnings of a possible U.S. attack have some people not only looking ahead to what might happen in the coming days — but also looking backward into ancient, apocalyptic prophecies in the pages of the Old Testament,” writes J.D. Gallop in USA Today newspaper. “In recent weeks, some dire prophecies have turned up on websites, in book stores, as the subject of Bible studies and in sermons by some Christians and others who see a link between the old passages and modern-day events in Egypt, Libya and Syria.” |
| Grandad drove the same car for twenty years. It was always clean and ready for church on Sunday morning, so he could arrive early to ring the bell – a hand-rung bell on an old rope pulley. When the car became too old for regular use, he either turned it over for farm use, or passed it on to someone who needed it. For my Grandad, six days each week meant work. Although he had only an hour or two each day of recreational time, he was well-read in current events, politics, and spiritual and religious matters, which he discussed at family meals three times each day. He did not work on Sundays, unless there was some emergency, which only happened once in a blue moon, not every week. The word “emergency” and “crisis” actually meant something to my grandfather. Grandad did not ever use the word recycle: he just did it. To him a footprint was something you made with your boot in the mud, while you worked outside the barn. Global warming was something that happened in the summertime, and which called for longer afternoon breaks and lemonade for guests. Pollution was something an irresponsible young man did to himself with a bottle of scotch, and green was the colour of his overalls, not his politics or his spirituality. He didn’t buy local goods because the planet needed him to do so: he just liked his neighbours, and they liked him. Today as we read about Orthodox faithful and hierarchs trying to share the environmental “side” of Orthodox Christianity, I am often reminded of my grandfather. Although he was not an Orthodox Christian, his views on environmentalism were more Orthodox than many contemporary writers in the Church. Like the Church Fathers, he would have seen our environmental crisis as a logical consequence of the fall, not the mechanism for the Apocalypse. He would have told us city folks to simplify our lives, to stop listening to fancy writers who go on lecture tours, to live quietly, to say our prayers, and to never draw attention to ourselves. He would have shaken his head over church leaders jumping on the environmental bandwagon. |
| Like so many other aspects of our spiritual life, emptiness cannot replace fullness. To trust in God and to rejoice in His goodness is an act of fullness, an act that fills the heart with good things. However, to refuse to put our trust in things human is not a command to cynicism. It is, instead, a commandment to center our hearts and lives on the goodness of God rather than placing our hope in the works of man. The difference is not simply a matter of emphasis, but goes to the very heart of the spiritual life. It is easy to view many practices of devotion in a negative manner – to see fasting simply as abstinence from food, chastity as abstinence from sex, and so on. Such an attitude towards the disciplines of the spiritual life yields the opposite of its intent. We abstain from certain foods when we fast (and eat less as well), in order to give ourselves more fully to God. Fasting without prayer is known in Orthodoxy as “the fast of demons,” for though the demons never eat, neither do they pray. Chastity is not simply a resistance against the temptations of our flesh, but, again, and effort to give ourselves to God. The statement of St. John the Baptist when comparing his ministry with that of Christ’s, placed things in their proper order: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:22). Cynicism with regard to the things of the world is not the same thing as trust in the goodness of God. Indeed, cynicism need have no God at all. In C.S. Lewis’ classic The Last Battle (part of the Narnia series), cynicism plays a large role in the lives of a small band of dwarves. Having been fooled by a false pretender to the throne of Aslan (the lion who allegorizes Christ), they refuse to be “fooled” again, and in so doing refuse to recognize the true Aslan when he comes. Sitting in the new Narnia, paradise itself, they think they are in a dirty barn. However, until the end they comfort themselves with the false claim that “they are not fooled.” Cynicism may refuse to believe what is false, but it does not possess the virtue of seeing what is good. Such virtue only comes because we rejoice in the good and set our hearts on God. Though we put not our trust in princes nor in the sons of men, we nevertheless recognize the goodness of God, Who keeps truth forever; Who executes justice for the oppressed; Who gives food to the hungry; Who sets the prisoners free; Who opens the eyes of the blind; Who raises those who are bowed down; Who loves the righteous; Who watches over the strangers and relieves the widow and the fatherless. |
| God loves beauty; He created it; He endows us with the ability to appreciate beauty, and some of us with the ability to create it. Sometimes we are asked why we so bountifully adorn our churches. After all, God hears us even if we pray in a barn… The answer is obvious: Because God created us as beings capable of appreciating and loving beauty, and if we strive to live amidst beauty and not ugliness, then shouldn’t we before all adorn the place where we worship God? And if beauty is redeemed by Christ, then first of all in order to witness to the beauty of His Kingdom and instruct people in faith and piety. As the fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council said, “For the more frequently and oftener they are continually seen in pictorial representation, the more those beholding are reminded and led to visualize anew the memory of the originals which they represent and for whom moreover they also beget a yearning in the soul of the persons beholding the icons. Accordingly, such persons are prompted not only to kiss these and to pay them honorary adoration, what is more important, they are imbued with the true faith which is reflected in our worship which is due to God alone and which befits only the divine nature. But this worship must be paid in the way suggested by the form of the precious and vivifying Cross, and the holy Gospels, and the rest of sacred institutions, and the offering of wafts of incense, and the display of beams of light, to be done for the purpose of honoring them, just as it used to be the custom to do among the ancients by way of manifesting piety. For any honor paid to the icon (or picture) redounds upon the original, and whoever bows down in adoration before the icon, is at the same time bowing down in adoration to the substance (or hypostasis) of the one therein painted.” Sergei Khudiev Translation by OrthoChristian.com 2 марта 2015 г. Подпишитесь на рассылку Православие.Ru Рассылка выходит два раза в неделю: Смотри также Комментарии Мы в соцсетях |
| It is also customary to make an offering either to the church, a monastery or the poor on one’s feast day, in honor of the saint, for the saints were not only offerings to God, but also teach us to show mercy and give alms. Godparents Those serving as Godparents in parishes with a large percentage of converts, have learned well that among their responsibilities as a Godparent they are to pray for their Godchildren, help instruct them in the Faith through example, gifts of books, icons, etc., remember them on their feast days, share in their other special days (graduations, birthdays, etc.), take an infant or young Godchild to the chalice for communion, etc. Many Godparents still feel that they should be doing more. They are right. The canons state that he who is a father to someone spiritually is more a father than the one who is the biological father. (This “fatherhood” also applies obviously to those who are God mothers ). Just as a biological parent has financial responsibilities regarding the birth of the child, so the Godparent also has certain such responsibilities at the child’s/individual’s spiritual birth. These responsibilities include all of the expenses surrounding the baptism: the baptismal cross, clothing, towels, offering to the church/priest, and festive meal following the service. Icons We know that icons are venerated in our Faith, that we have icons in our churches and homes, even in our vehicles. We need to remember that these are holy and must be treated as such. Saints died for the sake of venerating icons, yet we who venerate them, who “collect” them, who adorn our homes with them are often iconoclasts! Just as no one would smoke a cigarette in church, he should also not do so in a room or vehicle which has an icon in it. Icons should be put in places of honor, not laying on top of a coffee table where something will spill on it, not placed on the floor, not in a place of dishonor like a bathroom or inside a barn. Many church bulletins, newspapers and other printed matter have icons on them. These are still icons and should not be thrown into the trash can when we are done reading them. The proper way to dispose of any holy item is to burn it and then bury the ashes in a clean place (not in a garden which is fertilized with manure). Icons on bulletins, newspapers, etc. can also be cut out, mounted or framed, or sent to missions which are in need. |
| St. Paul reminds us of the gravity of the situation that we all face. He writes that “when Christ, Who is our life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.” Our Savior is born to make us participants in His divine glory by grace so that we will become perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect. That is ultimately what it means to share in His banquet as partakers of the divine nature. That is why the Second Adam is born, to fulfill our vocation to become like God in Whose image we are all created. We cannot achieve these great spiritual heights by ourselves, of course, which is precisely why Christ is born to save us. But the One Who enters our world as a helpless baby in a barn does not force us to do anything. He calls us, but we must choose to respond by cooperating with His grace in doing all that we can to accept His invitation for the healing of our souls. St. Paul instructs us to do that by dying to all that stands in the way of preparing ourselves to receive Him. He lists especially “fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” Then he mentions “anger, wrath, malice, slander, and foul talk from your mouth.” He follows that up with a warning not to “lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old nature with its practices and have put on the new nature.” The recent Gentile converts to whom St. Paul wrote needed these reminders about how to live lives pleasing to God. We need them just as much today in a time when many celebrate lust for material possessions, violent hatred of those they consider to be their enemies, and unrestrained sexual pleasure. And just like those to whom St. Paul first wrote, we are also susceptible to these and other powerful temptations. If we do not recognize that and stay on guard against them, they will seem much more appealing to us than truly preparing to enter into the Kingdom. In the weeks before Christmas, we must focus on embracing the healing and restoration of our humanity that Christ is born to work in us. We died to the corruption of the first Adam in baptism and now we must live intentionally as those who have been restored to a new and holy life through the Second Adam. He makes it possible for us to share in the true humanity that He has healed as the God-Man. That is why the Savior is born at Christmas. |
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