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Church Phone: 402-475-7716
The five Fidelities. Orthodox Christians'
"Spiritual Compass." This is the perfect time to read
and learn and act upon them--as we enter Great Lent.
From the website of "The Blessed Seraphim Hermitage"
in Greenview California.
"Money!
Money! Power! Honor!" These are the temptations
which, unfortunately, many people are unable to resist.
This is the source of all the disputes,
disagreements and divisions
among Christians.
This is the root of people's forgetting the
"one thing needed,"
which is proposed to us by the true Christian
faith and which consists
of prayer, acts of repentance, and sincere,
unhypocritical charity to
our neighbors. The Holy Church always calls us
to this, but especially
now, during the Great Lent!
What is required of
us Christians is not
some kind of "exalted politics," not lofty
phrases and hazy
philosophy, but the most humble prayer of the
Publican: "God, be
merciful to me, a sinner!," acts of repentance,
and doing good to our
neighbors, which proceeds from a pure heart.
And it is for the practice of all of this
that the Church has
established the Great Lent! How powerfully,
colorfully, graphically,
and convincingly, with what ardent inspiration
is all of this spoken
of in the divine services of Great Lent!
No one anywhere has such a wealth of
edification in this regard as
do we Orthodox in our incomparable Lenten
services, which, to their
shame, the majority of Orthodox in our times do
not know at all."
Archbishop Averky of Syracuse (of Blessed
Memory)
[source unknown
"O brethren, as ye
take up the spiritual fast, speak no deceit
with
your tongue, neither put a stumbling block
in the way of your brother
as an occasion for him to fall: but by
repentance let us trim the lamp
of our soul, that with tears we may cry unto
Christ Forgive us our
transgressions, since Thou art the Friend of
man."
Vespers of Wednesday of the Second Week of
Great Lent
"It is
necessary most of all for one who is fasting
to
curb anger, to accustom himself to meekness
and
condescension, to have a contrite heart, to
repulse
impure thoughts and desires, to examine his
conscience, to put his mind to the test and
to verify
what good has been done by us in this or any
other
week, and which deficiency we have corrected
in
ourselves in the present week. This is true
fasting."
St. John Chrysostom
"Beware of limiting
the good of fasting to mere abstinence from
meats. Real fasting is alienation from evil. `Loose the bands of
wickedness.' Forgive your neighbor the mischief he has done you.
Forgive him his trespasses against you. Do not `fast for strife and
debate.' You do not devour flesh, but you devour your brother. You
abstain from wine, but you indulge in outrages. You wait for evening
before you take food, but you spend the day in the law courts. Woe to
those who are `drunken, but not with wine.' Anger is the intoxication
of the soul, and makes it out of its wits like wine."
St. Basil
[in his homilies on the Holy Spirit]
"When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with
one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven,
as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where
they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues,
as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all
filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues,
as the Spirit gave them utterance." - Acts of the Apostles 2:1-
"Beware of despair. You do not serve a tyrant, but your service is
to a kind Lord, Who, taking nothing from you, he has given you all.
And when you did not exist at all, He fashioned you so that you would
be in that [state] in which you now are. Who is sufficient to render
Him thanks for the fact that He has brought us into existence? O the
immeasurable grace! Who can sufficiently honor Him with hymns? For He
has given us knowledge of all things. And not only of those which are
manifest, but also of hidden things. For we know that if there is
anything we do not know, it is necessary for us only to ask this
[knowledge] from Him."
St. Isaac the Syrian
[The Ascetical Homilies]
"Be as
kind, meek, humble, and simple as possible
in your intercourse with all, considering
yourself not hypocritically inferior to all
in respect to your spiritual condition, that
is, more sinful and weaker than all. Say to
yourself, `Of all sinners I am the first.'
From pride proceeds self-sufficiency,
coldness, and insincerity in our behavior to
our inferiors, or to those from whom we do
not expect to obtain any advantage."
St. John of Kronstadt [My Life in Christ]
Archpastoral message from Metropolitan Herman
for the beginning of Great Lent 2007
Contact the Webmaster:
Webmaster
Brian Striman 402-202-0013
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