This quotation from the Orthodox writer Archimandrite Sophrony (1896-1993). It’s too short for my other blog (see previous post), but it’s worth quoting anyway…
There are three things I cannot take in: nondogmatic faith, nonecclesiological Christianity and nonascetic Christianity. These three – the church, dogma, and asceticism – constitute one single life for me.
H/T Sr Macrina Walker, OSCO at A Vow of Conversation.
Ins spite of the fact that he was one of the most revered of the desert fathers, I had completely forgotten about
I think it is best that a man should have a little bit of all the virtues.
Therefore, get up early every day and acquire the beginning of every virtue and every commandment of God. Use great patience, with fear and long-suffering, in the love of God, with all the fervor of your soul and body.
Exercise great humility, bear with interior distress; be vigilant and pray often with reverence, with purity of speech and control of your eyes. When you are despised do not get angry; be at peace, and do not render evil for evil.
Do not pray attention to the faults of others, and do not try to compare yourself with others, knowing you are less than every created thing. Renounce everything material and that which is of the flesh.
Live by the cross, in warfare, in poverty of spirit, in voluntary spiritual asceticism, in fasting, penitence and tears, in discernment, in purity of soul, taking hold of that which is good. Do your work in peace.
Persevere in keeping vigil, in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness, and in sufferings. Shut yourself in a tomb as though you were already dead, so that at all times you will think death is near.
In the Latin Rite, tomorrow (Sunday October 11th) is the 28th Sunday of the year. In the Eastern Rite, it is the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost and the Sunday of the Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council – Nicea II, which defined the Church’s teaching on the veneration of icons.
At the first session of the Council, Basil of Ancyra, a bishop who had succumbed to the heresy of iconoclasm, made the following profession of faith:
I, Basil, bishop of the city of Ancyra, proposing to be united to the Catholic Church, and to Hadrian the most holy Pope of Old Rome, and to Tarasius the most blessed Patriarch, and to the most holy apostolic sees, to wit, Alexandria, Antioch, and the Holy City, as well as to all orthodox high-priests and priests, make this written confession of my faith, and I offer it to you as to those who have received power by apostolic authority.
And in this also I beg pardon from your divinely gathered holiness for my tardiness in this matter…. I believe, therefore, and make my confession in one God, the Father Almighty, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, and in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life.
The Trinity, one in essence and one in majesty, must be worshipped and glorified in one godhead, power, and authority. I confess all things pertaining to the incarnation of one of the Holy Trinity, our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, as the Saints and the six Ecumenical Synods have handed down. And I reject and anathematize every heretical babbling, as they also have rejected them.
I ask for the intercessions (πρεσβείας) of our spotless Lady the Holy Mother of God, and those of the holy and heavenly powers, and those of all the Saints. And receiving their holy and honourable relics with all honour (τιμῆς), I salute and venerate these with honour (τιμητικῶς προσκυνέω), hoping to have a share in their holiness.
Likewise also the venerable images (εἰκόνας) of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, in the humanity he assumed for our salvation; and of our spotless Lady, the holy Mother of God; and of the angels like unto God; and of the holy Apostles, Prophets, Martyrs, and of all the Saints—the sacred images of all these, I salute and venerate.
Full text available here.
I pray Thee, compassionate Lord, do not allow me to be condemned because of the unworthy and ungrateful manner in which I contemplate the great mysteries that Thou hast revealed to Thy saints and through them to me, a sinner and Thy unworthy servant. For see, Lord, Thy servant stands before Thee, idle in everything, speechless, as one who is dead; and I do not dare to say anything more or to presumptuously contemplate further. But as always I fall down before Thee, crying from the depths of my soul...
St. Peter of
From the website of the Byzantine Catholic Church in America
I found this quotation from Elder Sophrony (a twentieth century Orthodox monk from Mount Athos who founded a monastery in
We shall not care what people think of us, or how they treat us.
We shall cease to be afraid of falling out of favor.
We shall love our fellow men without thought of whether they love us.
Christ gave us the commandment to love others but did not make it a condition of salvation that they should love us.
Indeed, we may positively be disliked for independence of spirit.
It is essential in these days to be able to protect ourselves from the influence of those with whom we come in contact.
Otherwise we risk losing both faith and prayer.
Let the whole world dismiss us as unworthy of attention, trust or respect – it will not matter provided that the Lord accept us.
And vice versa: it will profit us nothing if the whole world thinks well of us and sings our praises, if the Lord declines to abide with us.
This is only a fragment of the freedom Christ meant when He said,‘Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free’ (John 8.32).
Our sole care will be to continue in the word of Christ, to become His disciples and cease to be servants of sin.
On the Laudem Gloriae blog there’s an intriguing little essay on Thérèse. It’s an excellent antidote to some of the more syrupy portraits of the saint, focusing on her general toughness, her use of battlefield imagery (inspired in large part by Joan of Arc), and what Pope Pius XI described as her “manly soul”.
Another insight from the Orthodox blogosphere – this time on prayer – taken from the writings of Archimandrite Zacharias. A longer version of the quotation can be read on Christ in Our Midst (which is both sumptuous to look at and edifying to read).
Prayer is an endless creation; it is a school that teaches us to remain in the presence of the Lord. This effort to remain with the Lord is an exercise that finally overcomes death, which is why our prayer must be neither superficial nor mechanical. We must unite mind and heart in order to learn true mental prayer, in other words, we must pray with our whole inner being, with all our mind and heart.
Prayer is a school, and humility is the key to success in this discipline. Let us be humble. Let us have the certainty of our own nothingness before God, knowing that the only thing that makes us truly human is the breath that our God and Creator has breathed into us. In every other respect we are earth, and earth is trodden underfoot. What makes us truly precious is the breath of God, received by us at the time of our creation and at our re-creation in holy baptism. This breath is what makes us the image and likeness of God.
Dumitru Staniloae was the leading Romanian Orthodox theologian of the twentieth century. Fr Stephen at Glory to God for All Things has excerpted from his book Orthodox Spirituality a short passage on the passions of the soul which is well worth reading.
It’s a subject which tends to receive more attention in Orthodox theology than in Catholic, though St Thomas Aquinas has a lot to say on the subject, which is fundamental to a proper understanding of his teaching on justification, redemption, etc. My guess is that Aquinas would pretty much agree with Staniloae on this subject. Orthodox theologians are frequently highly critical of Aquinas, but it usually emerges that what they’re actually criticizing is a caricature of the Angelic Doctor, not the authentic Thomas.
The passions represent the lowest level to which human nature can fall. Both their Greek name, pathi, as well as the Latin, passiones, show that man is brought by them to a state of passivity, of slavery. In fact, they overcome the will, so that the man of the passions is no longer a man of will; we say that he is a man ruled, enslaved, carried along by the passions... Click here to read entire extract
