| Second, we must return to our places, and persevere in our assigned tasks, mindful of that little used four letter word, “duty”. God will do what seems good to Him, and we have been promised that all things will work together for our good in the end. Our sole task is to do our duty, and work away at whatever God has asked us to do. Finally, we must take heart and know that though we may feel isolated and helpless, we are not alone. We march as part of an army, though our numbers be scattered throughout the world. We may be only a little flock, a tiny band of brothers on earth, but we are joined by an innumerable army of saints and angels watching us, praying for us, and cheering for us in the heavenlies. Elijah had the assurance that he was but one of seven thousand; we have the assurance that we are joined by an even greater multitude. Let us fight on and not heed the wounds inflicted by the world. A chariot of fire is waiting to take us home. Tweet Donate Share Code for blog The Despair of Elijah Archpriest Lawrence Farley The prophet Elijah (whose feast day is July 20/August 2) is perhaps best known for his final ascent to heaven in a chariot of fire. He is also famous for being fed by a raven, and also for the dramatic contest on Mount Carmel. This last event was arguably the pinnacle of his prophetic career ... Since you are here… …we do have a small request. More and more people visit Orthodoxy and the World website. However, resources for editorial are scarce. In comparison to some mass media, we do not make paid subscription. It is our deepest belief that preaching Christ for money is wrong. Having said that, Pravmir provides daily articles from an autonomous news service, weekly wall newspaper for churches, lectorium, photos, videos, hosting and servers. Editors and translators work together towards one goal: to make our four websites possible - Pravmir.ru, Neinvalid.ru, Matrony.ru and Pravmir.com. Therefore our request for help is understandable. For example, 5 euros a month is it a lot or little? A cup of coffee? It is not that much for a family budget, but it is a significant amount for Pravmir. |
| After having spoken in detail about the holy Prophet Elijah, he answered to my question, among other things, the following: “ Holy Prophet Elias " > Elijah the Tishbite , in complaining to the Lord against Israel that in its entirety it had bent the knee to Baal, said in prayer that he alone, Elijah, had remained faithful to the Lord, but they were already seeking to take away his soul also... And what, Batiushka, did the Lord answer him to this? I have left seven thousand men in Israel who have not bent the knee to Baal. And so, if in the kingdom of Israel, which had fallen away from the kingdom of Judea which was faithful to God, and had become completely corrupted, there remained still seven thousand men faithful to the Lord, then what shall we say of Russia? I suppose that in the kingdom of Israel at that time there were no more than three million people. And how many, Batiushka, are there now in our Russia?” I replied: “About sixty million.” And he continued: “Twenty times more. Then judge for yourself how many we have now who are still faithful to God! So it is, Batiushka, so it is: Whom He did foreknow, He also did forechoose; and whom He did forechoose, He also did predestinate; and whom He did predestinate, He will also watch over and glorify. And so, what is there for us to be downcast about!... God is with us! (Rom. 8:29-31.) He that trusteth in the Lo r d shall be as Mount Zion, and the Lord is round about His people (Ps. 124:1-2). The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth even for evermore; the sun shall not smite thee by d ay nor the moon by night (Ps. 120:6-8). And then I asked him what this meant, and why he was saying this to me. “Because,” Batiushka Father Seraphim replied, “in this same way the Lord will preserve, as the apple of His eye, His people, that is, Orthodox Christians who love Him and serve Him with all their heart and all their mind, both in word and deed, day and night. And such are they who preserve entirely all the rules, dogmas, and traditions of our Eastern Orthodox Church, and who with their lips confess the piety which has been handed down by the Church, and who act in very deed in all circumstances of life according to the holy commandments of our Lord Jesus Christ.” |
| “Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you?” ( 1Cor. 6:19 ). And therefore the bodies of Christians who have lived a righteous life or have become holy through receiving a martyr " " s death, are worthy of special veneration and honor. The holy Church in all times, following Sacred Tradition, has shown honor to holy relics. This honor has been expressed: a) in the reverent collection and preservation of the remains of the saints of God, as is known from accounts even of the second century, and then from the testimonies of later times; b) in the solemn uncovering and translation of holy relics; c) in the building over them of churches and altars; d) in the establishment of feasts in memory of their uncovering or translation; e) in pilgrimages to holy tombs, and in adorning them; f) in the constant rule of the Church to place relics of holy martyrs at the dedication of altars, or to place holy relics in the holy antimension upon which is performed the Divine Liturgy. This very natural honor given to the holy relics and other remains of the saints of God has a firm foundation in the fact that God Himself has deigned to honor and glorify them by innumerable signs and miracles – something for which there is testimony throughout the whole course of the Church " " s history. Even in the Old Testament, when saints were not venerated with a special glorification after death, there were signs from the bodies of the righteous. Thus, the body of a certain dead man, after being touched to the bones of the Prophet Elisha in his tomb, immediately came to life, and the dead man arose (IV[II] Kings 13:21). The body of the holy Prophet Elijah was raised up alive into heaven, and the mantle of Elijah, which was left by him to Elisha, parted by its touch the waters of the Jordan for the crossing of the river by Elisha. Going over to the New Testament, we read in the book of the Acts of the Apostles that handkerchiefs and belts (“aprons”) from the body of the Apostle Paul were placed upon the sick, and the diseases of the sick were cured, and evil spirits departed from them (Acts 19:12). |
| Thus, the Old Testament temple, the priesthood and the sacrifices are all fulfilled in Christ Who is Himself the Temple and the Priest and the Sacrificed Lamb of the Kingdom of God which exists for His People whom He has made “a kingdom, priests to His God and Father” (Rev 1.16, 6.10). Prophecy The Old Testament is filled with prophecy. Prophecy means the direct inspiration of God to speak His words to the world. There were many prophets in the Old Testament, not only those whose names are given to the prophetic books of the Bible, but many others, including Moses, Elijah, Samuel and Nathan. In the Old Testament, many prophecies were made concerning the history and destiny of the people of Israel and of the whole human race. Usually the prophecies told what God would do in response to the wickedness and unfaithfulness of His People. The prophecies foretold the tragedies coming to Israel because of the sins of the People. They also foretold the ultimate mercy and forgiveness of God Who is faithful to His promises, Who will not be angry forever, but Who will restore the fortunes of His People and bring all nations to His everlasting Kingdom. The ultimate act of God’s mercy and compassion is His sending of His Son as the Messiah of Israel. Jesus, as we have seen, is the final King of God’s Kingdom which reigns forever. He is the great high priest Who brings completion and perfection to man’s priestly sacrifices to God. He is also the last and final Prophet Who ushers in the time when God creates a whole people of prophets, a whole assembly of those who are taught directly by God to know His Will and to speak His Words in the world. Thus, in the Gospel of Saint John, it is recorded that the people recognized Jesus not merely as a prophet or one of the prophets, but as the final Prophet Whom God would send at the end of the ages. When the people saw the sign which He had done [the feeding of the five thousand], they said, “This is indeed the Prophet Who is come into the world!” ( Jn 6.14 ) |
| 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 Bright Monday: How Do We Keep Bright Week Bright? Source: Faith Encouraged Fr. Barnabas Powell 29 April 2019 Christ Is Risen! What joy! What happiness! What a celebration! Words fail. Songs sung over and over again still cry out for more! Death is conquered by the Unconquered Son. O what news! The whole earth basks in the glow of the Victory of Christ over death! No more fear! No more night! The Son has dawned and there are no dead left in the grave! It all sounds like so much wishful thinking in light of all our world’s troubles and doubt. Even we who say we believe struggle reconciling our hymns with our everyday lives of struggle and pain. And yet, here we are once again, in the Week called Bright or Renewal Week. No fasting. No more mourning. Christ is risen from the dead! So, how do we keep this joyousness in the face of a society perilously close to a post-Christian period? How do we keep Bright Week bright? Look at our Gospel Lesson for today in John 1:18-28: No one has ever seen God; the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known. And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” He confessed, he did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.” And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” And he answered, “No.” They said to him then, “Who are you? let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” He said, ” I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.” Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. They asked him, “Then why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?” John answered them, “I baptize with water; but among you stands one whom you do not know, even he who comes after me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.” This took place in Bethany beyond the Jordon, where John was baptizing. |
| St James said “the prayer of a righteous man avails much” (James 5:16) and he gave us the Prophet Elijah as an example. Yet Elijah is described as “a man with a nature like us” which means he was not perfect. In fact no saint is sinless – only Jesus Christ, the God-man, is without sin. But we need to humbly recognize that we are not the spiritual equals of Elijah, the Virgin Mary, the Apostles or the many saints of the Church. But praise be to God, we are members of the same community with them. We can and should ask for their prayers just as we ask each other for prayers. Don’t we have direct access to God in Christ? Yes, but that is not the same as a one-dimensional “me and Jesus and no one else” thing. God has given us the intercession of the community to teach us that we are one family extending from earth to heaven, unbroken even by death. It is to teach us that we need each other. He has saved a people for Himself, not just a collection of individuals. The saints in heaven can hear us because the Holy Spirit gives them power to do so. God is the God not of the dead but of the living. This has been the universal and unquestioned practice of the Christian faith for 1,500 years. Its abuse at some points in the Church’s history does not invalidate the underlying truth. Only after the Reformation (in the 15th Century) did a contrary teaching emerge among some groups, supplanting what has been Christian practice from New Testament times. But back to your question – St. John is not telling us to judge who will never repent and are therefore bound for hell. We can call on Christians closer to the Lord and holier than we are to pray for these people. And God, in His sovereign mercy, may well work wonders in response to the prayers of His Church. Tweet Donate Share Code for blog Praying for Those Who Wander Lost admin What does the Orthodox Church say about the verse “If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin not unto death, he shall ask, and He shall ... Since you are here… …we do have a small request. More and more people visit Orthodoxy and the World website. However, resources for editorial are scarce. In comparison to some mass media, we do not make paid subscription. It is our deepest belief that preaching Christ for money is wrong. |
| The next weekday at breakfast the brothers were gone. The pilgrims themselves pass by large plates and pots of food, serving themselves each what they want: nuts, halva, Turkish Delight, olives, salad, bread smeared with peanut butter, cups full of tea and caffeine-free coffee—you have to sleep after the night services! The church of the Prophet Elijah Monastery and church surroundings After sleeping a few hours after the service I quietly got up—my neighbors were still sleeping—and went to look around the monastery. Everything around was filled with the freshness and sunlight of the early morning. There are palms of several types, larches, pines, various cacti, multi-colored shrubbery—more than 2,000 types of plants providing shade and coolness, the sound of water in fountains decorated with stone lions and eagles. Flowers in flowerbeds, in stone vases, and usual ceramic pots gladden the eye. A bit farther, in the monastery garden are oranges, lemons, grapefruits, pistachio trees, and date palms. There’s a small vineyard and olive grove. A worker, gathering the citruses, gave me a couple of lemons. I was struck by the beautiful churches, varying in size and style. The main church is named for St. Anthony the Great—the father of ancient monasticism—and St. Nektarios of Aegina—a highly venerated Greek saint having the grace to heal cancer. The icon of the Mother of God “of Arizona” was painted and sent from Greece for the cathedral. It is venerated as wonderworking. Its style is reminiscent of the well-known “Queen of All” icon. Some distance from the monastery, on a hill is seen the snow white church of the Prophet Elijah, with blue cupolas. Fr. Seraphim gave me the key and a blessing to enter this remote church all alone. He suggested that I return to the guest house for a bottle of water. I didn’t want to return, which I ended up regretting, because we had to walk not far but in the heat, without any shade along the road, then up the steps to climb the mountain to the church. |
| 77 . And since in speaking of holy Elijah’s dwelling in the desert, we have passed by without notice the names of places which were not given without a purpose, it seems well to go back to what they signify. Elijah was sent to the brook Cherith, and there the ravens nourished him, bringing him bread in the morning, for it “strengthens man’s heart.” 3829 For how should the prophet be nourished except by mystical food? At evening flesh was supplied. Understand what you read, for Cherith means “understanding,” Horeb signifies “heart” or “as a heart,” Beersheba also is interpreted “the well of the seventh,” or “of the oath.” 78 . Elijah went first to Beersheba, to the mysteries and sacraments of the divine and holy Law, next he is sent to the brook, to the stream of the river which makes glad the City of God. 3830 You perceive the two Testaments of the One Author; the old Scripture as a well deep and obscure, whence you can only draw with labour; it is not full, for He Who was to fill it was not yet come, Who afterwards said: “I am come not to destroy but to fulfil the Law.” 3831 And so the Saint is bidden of the Lord to pass over to the stream, for he who has drunk of the New Testament, not only is a river, but also “from his belly shall flow rivers of living water,” 3832 rivers of understanding, rivers of meditation, spiritual rivers, which, however, dried up in the times of unbelief, lest the sacrilegious and unbelieving should drink. 79 . At that place the ravens recognized the Prophet of the Lord, whom the Jews did not recognize. The ravens fed him, whom that royal and noble race were persecuting. What is Jezebel, who persecuted him but the Synagogue, vainly fluent, vainly abounding in the Scriptures, which it neither keeps nor understands? What ravens fed him but those whose young call upon Him, to whose cattle He gives food as we read; “to the young ravens that call upon Him.” 3833 Those ravens knew whom they were feeding, who were close upon understanding, and brought food to that stream of sacred knowledge. |
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