Good Advice to the Faithful

Before you ask forgiveness from the Lord, you must forgive first... That is in the Lords Prayer. Silence is good for the soul. When we talk, it becomes difficut sometimes to not judge or engage in gossip. But there is also silence which comes when someone is angry and that is bad. In order to protect your lips from evil, Apostle Augustine would do as follows: he kept a sign above his table that said "If you like to judge others and gossip about them behind their back, you have no place here." Always remember a rule of spiritual life: if you get annoyed or irritated by a bad habit or a weakness of another person and will judge him for that, you will also ended up doing the same and will suffer from the same weakness. Whoever does not seek from God a heart that is contrite and humble, he will not receive any benefit from his works. ~ Author unknown

A Word about Repentance from St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco

Repentance means changing one's mindset and disposition, changing one's thinking and the whole internal person. Repentance means analyzing your worldview and changing your lifestyle. How can one attain changing him or herself? Imagine, you are in a dark room looking around, examining your surroundings. In the dark, you are not able to see everything that's in the room and can not even imagine what is there because it is so dark. Many things appear to be different from how they are in real life. You have to move around carefully since you do not see the obstacles. And then light enters the room and all of a sudden you can see everything and start moving freely. The same happens in our spiritual life. When we are deep in sin and our mind is occupied with wordly cares we stop being aware of the dirt that is in us! So much sin and so many lies! Some actions that we thought were good turn out to be the opposite. We begin to clearly see wthat we are doing something wrong and it becomes clear which path to take. If we realize our spiritual poverty, our sinfulness, we will desire from our whole heart to be changed and then we become close to salvation. From the bottom of your heart cry out to God: "Have mercy on me of Lord according to Your mercy!" "Forgive me and save me!" "Let me see my transgressions and not just my brother!" When it is lent, let us forgive each other all offenses and hurts. Let everyone hear the words of the Gospel: "If you forgive men transgressions, so will your Father in Heaven forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive yours!" Matthew 6 -14:15.

What is The Church ? Part 1.

One of the tragic aberrations of so-called modern religion is "Churchless Christianity."The assertion is that it is Christ who saves us, not the Church, so "all you need is Jesus."
Few who claim to be Christians, would argue that it is Christ who saves. For He is the eternal Son of God who has assumed human flesh, and has done so "for us and for our salvation." Thus Paul writes, "for there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus" (1Ti 2:5). But because this Mediator established the Church which is His Body, we who are joined to Him are joined to His Church as well. To say we love Christ, who is the Head of the Church and at the same time reject His Body is to deny New Testament teaching.
The first use of the word "church" in the New Testament comes in the Gospel of Matthew, when our Lord gives His approval of Peter;s confession of faith and promises, "I will build My church" (Mt 16:18). Jesus Christ builds and we cooperate with Him.
The Book of Acts amplifies what Jesus meant in Matthew 16. When Peter;s sermon on the day of Pentecost concludes, those present ask for guidance toward salvation: "What shall we do?" (Acts 2:37). Following Peter's word, they are baptized and join with the other believers, three thousand of them (Acts 2:38, 41).
Having been joined to Christ and HIs Church, these baptized believers begin living as the body of Christ . We find them looking after each other, using their personal resources for one another's care, continuing together in prayer and in the Eucharist (Acts 2:42-47). From this point on " the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved" (Acts 2:47), and through out Acts, we see the Church being built as the Gospel of Christ spreads.

Credits: from the Orthodox Study Bible.

Give blood and receive Spirit

1920s... For the Russian Orthodox Church these were times of very strong temptations - times when true faith of the people was revealed. Then, one day of standing in the Diving Truth was equal to a whole lived in peaceful times when confessing one's faith was free and without any danger. The Church tried to avoid confrontation with the new government and called for peace in the society; however, in spite of this, persecutions of the faithful were only growing and getting more severe. Repressions against the clergy and the monastics, forceful confiscation of the church property, robbing the faithful of their civil rights were all going on. No monk in St. Sergius Monastery leaving for the service was sure that he will come back to his cell.

Great spiritual fathers of St. Petersburg were arrested at that time. Together with Metropolitan Benjamin were arrested more then 90 people due to their "anti-revolutionary organization of the clergy."These people were church clergy, laymen, and monastics.

Metropolitan Benjamin was arrested on June 1st, 1922 without being given any reasons. The only reason for arrest served a wire sent from Moscow to St. Petersburg: "Metropolitan Benjamin must be arrested and tried at court. Gather all convicting material. Arrest his closest friends and helpers ... Menjinky."

Court proceedings started on June 10th. A famous anti-church man by the name Krasikov who came for the trial, loudly proclaimed: "All Orthodox Church is a anti-reolutionary organization! Therefore, the whole Church must be imprisoned!"

All faithful were following the trial with pain and sorrow. When Metropolitan Benjamin appeared in court, all the faithful started singing: "Save the Lord, Your people.. " and His Highness would bless the believers.

Before the judge proclaimed the verdict, Metropolitan Benjamin was offered to say his last words. What he said shook even the non believers: "I don't know what the verdict will be - life or death... but whatever it is, I will look at the Heaven, sign myself with the sign of the cross and say " Glory be to you, our Lord and God, for everything!"

Metropolitan Benjamin and three other people with him were killed on August 12th, 1992. Memory Eternal to the Man of God!

How to ward off thoughts - Philokalia

Novices in the faith are unable to ward off thoughts if God does not help them. Only the strong in the faith are able to fight with their thought and drive them away. But even in their case, it is God who helps them in their battle. You, on the other hand, whenever thoughts come, call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ often and with patience and those thoughts will leave you. For not tolerating the warmth given to us though prayer, the thoughts disappear. Use the name of Jesus to beat them evil for our God is fire that consumes the evil. the Lord is hasty to come and help those who sincerely ask Him day and night. Those who do not have prayer, tend to ward off their thought like Moses. For when he gets up and raises up his hands and eyes, God drives them away.

Philokalia

87) The one who has love does not know how to envy, is not proud and is not puffed up; does not act inappropriately towards his neighbor; does not seek his own benefit only, but also his neighbor's, does not get irritated at those who offend him, does not blame another person when he himself is suffering from evil, does not rejoice in iniquity of his friends, but rejoices with their truth; he covers everything bad happening to him, believes all things in his simplicity, and hopes to receives all blessings that God has promised us; is patient in all temptations and does not do evil for evil; and never will a doer of love be moved away from the love for his neighbor (1 Cor. 13 : 4-8).

Silence of the Minds by Fr. Basil Tudora

Why do we always have to say something? Or for the same reason why do we have to listen to something all the time: radio in the car, TV at home, iPod when working out and we can go on and on. Put three people in an elevator for a couple of minutes and you will immediately see the beginning of a conversation. Weather, local sport teams, the financial crisis and other general subjects flourish in any communal moving vehicle. No one wants to just travel in silence and everybody feels the need to say something, or at least to smile, nod, interact in some way with the others. One thing is clear everyone hates uncomfortable silence.

The term itself however is paradoxical: why would silence be uncomfortable? After all silence is associated with peace, tranquility which is the opposite of annoying.

The answer might be that there is something we are afraid to be alone with. Archmandrite Meletios, from the Monastery of St. John in California, says it is our thoughts. Our mind generates an uninterrupted stream of thoughts, or logoismoi, as the Greek Fathers call them. This stream of thoughts, originating in the primordial separation between our mind and our heart (nous), is what drives us nuts when there is silence around. Suddenly we have to deal with all our inner turmoil, all our frustration, all our depression, all our deep seated feelings that are masked by focusing our attention on something else. Conversation and any other surrogates of sort are like a Band-Aid on an eviscerating wound.

The problem of inner thoughts is a very important one because the thoughts are the root of all we do. No sin is done without passing through the mind that gives the command. Stop the command and you will stop sin. In our minds we are at war, an unseen warfare, as people like to call it, in which our path in life as persons is defined.

The mind is so affected by these unstoppable thoughts that it becomes unbearable at times; this is where the discomfort in silence comes from. The only way to stop it is to do what St. Theophanes the Recluse says: “Get out of the head and into the heart.” The heart or the nous (I’ll use these two terms interchangeably) is the only part of us that is not affected by the logoismoi because is the part that could establish the contact with God and God does not have to be explained in words, He just Is. The goal becomes then to sink our mind into our heart and embrace the peace that comes from the presence of God in our heart. Until we completely surrender our mind to God we will continue to be bothered by thoughts.

Talking about the Kingdom of Heaven, St. Isaac the Syrian said that the language of the future is silence. This may seem odd for many that cannot imagine eternal Communion with God as being silent, without words. We imagine that at the End we will be able to ask and find answers to all our questions and God will preach explaining everything we want to know. I doubt that this will be the case because in the presence of God there are no more questions and answers, no noise, distractions or entertainment, just love that flows and fills everything. The very presence of God is enough to fulfill any need or question we might have. He, the Logos, the Word incarnate is the answer. He was, is and will always be the answer to all our questions. We just have to shut-up and listen.

A beautiful article taken from the Orthodoxy and the World