unhinged censer of the heart

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“You must run after the Prayer (the “Prayer” is the Jesus Prayer).  To have the Prayer you must continually pray inside.  Run after the Prayer, do not be talking rather only be praying.”

blessed Geronitssa Makrina

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“When saying the Jesus Prayer keep your mind empty; with the Jesus Prayer your mind will be clean and full of light.  You will see your every fault.  With the Jesus Prayer you will always say it is my fault NOT someone else’s fault.”

blessed Gerontissa Makrina

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That censer of ours, it is probably twenty some years old. It has a well worn oft used sweet smelling incense patina on the inside and a “let my prayer arise as incense” luster on the outside. Recently – in the past year – it has become unhinged. Not pictured is the candle wax dripped scribbled names in the margin and some crayon markings from the kids Jordanville prayer book which also has pages falling out. So many times I have come so close to purchasing a shiny new brass or nickel censer and crisped white no writing on the pages brand new unbroken spine prayer book but then I always put them down.

Unlike the pages falling out of the prayer book, no page of prayer falls out of the book of God’s heart. The censer : a visual reminder that prayer is oft born of the unhinged censer of a broken and contrite heart… it is such a prayer that arises as incense, a prayer that God knows before even it is spoken and one that God will not despise.

Lenten panang curry sweet potato soup

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Lenten sweet potato curry soup

If we want Jesus to dwell in our heart, let us love and humble ourselves like Christ.

Elder Ephraim : Counsels from the Holy Mountain

This Panang Curry soup was borne out of no idea of what to make for dinner, and of a well stocked pantry. It’s very simple and just a handful of ingredients. Most people think because of my background in nutrition that I have always got a meal plan for the coming week. That’s not always the case (would that it were!). Often I am overcome by events – especially with homeschooling and just life in general with teenagers. What can I say.

But one thing I do well is clean out the temptations of a non- Lenten pantry and fill in its place lots of Lenten staples. This allows us to throw a Lenten dinner together in a pinch and that’s usually where I have found myself these last few years – in a pinch to throw dinner together.

Last nights soup was so delicious – I had to share. And all with just five ingredients.

Lenten Panang Curry Coconut Sweet Potato Soup

Ingredients

  • 3 sweet potatoes
  • 2 cans coconut milk
  • Panang curry paste – like maessri panang curry paste (it’s worth ordering online if you do not have a Thai market near you
  • salt
  • water to achieve desired consistency

Preparation

  • Wrap sweet potatoes in foil and place in a preheated 350F oven. Bake until tender. About 1 hour
  • remove sweet potatoes from foil, cut in half and scoop out sweet potato meat
  • place in a sauce pan and add all but two tablespoons of coconut milk
  • using an electric beater or electric blending wand blend sweet potato and coconut milk.
  • Add 1-2 tablespoons of curry paste. Blend again. You are looking for a silky smooth consistency.
  • add 1 /2 cup water or enough to achieve desired thickness
  • Simmerer until hot. Add salt to taste. Drizzle with remaining coconut milk and serve.

Wishing you every blessing this Lent!

A few notes about curry paste: the supermarket has many brands like A Taste of Thai and others. These fine curry pastes but they lack the intensity and depth of flavor of curry pastes that you will find in an Asian market. I find when I use supermarket brands I need to add A LOT more paste to get the flavor.

A few thoughts about preparing fasting foods: Especially with Lenten food, my kids always tell me they want to eat foods that are meant to be Lenten, rather than fake hamburgers and fake hot dogs… not that we don’t eat those occasionally, its just that they leave us craving real hamburgers and real hot dogs… so I try to make our food taste flavorful and good. Quality spices make a big difference. What I have found in visiting monasteries is their Lenten cuisine is very delicious and so it’s alright to make our foods at home delicious too. Its our offering to our families, nourishing them and blessing them with a good meal.

God wants us to be humble

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handmaidens of the Lord

God wants us to be humble and meek because there is a devil, who never sleeps waiting to swallow us. Stay humble with the sweet name of Jesus, Jesus’ name will soften your heart.  All the day long you will want to say only Jesus’ name. If your mouth is filled with Jesus’ name you will not be able to hurt anyone with your words.  All things that you do will be soft.  If you touch another sister it will be as soft as a sponge.  The name of Jesus will soften you to the point of tears in all things.



blessed Gerontissa Makrina

a peaceful fast {repost}

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O Word supreme in love, who with the Father and the Spirit hast created all things visible and invisible in Thy wisdom past speech, grant that we may spend the season of the joyful Fast in profound peace.

Matins: Tuesday in Cheesefare Week

This past week of Meatfare and this present week of Cheesefare offers Orthodox Christians a wonderful occasion to clean our pantries of leftover meat, dairy and eggs as we ease into the strictness of the Fast – when, through the effort of Lent, we also clean the pantry of our hearts.  During the forty day fast we forgo heavy and clogging meals, seeking instead our nourishment from lighter and more cleansing plant-based sustenance.  All of this fasting fare is, of course, fortified with the Lenten services and soul-restorative calories found as the faithful graze within the beautiful spiritual pastures Lent.

Throughout these past weeks, our Mother the Church, has shepherded, taught and nudged the faithful closer and closer to the bounds of the Great Lent.  It is through these weeks of preparation that the aspiration of this Great Fast has been made clear once again – that it is not the rigidity of dietary restrictions (to which we are certainly called to adhere), but rather the grace of an inner change of heart.

Genuine fasting has as an essential  ingredient the relationships of family and community.  Isn’t it pleasant when brothers dwell in unity… we are not saved alone.   A wise retired priest told me once that being in family and community can be likened to a satchel of sharp jagged rocks.  Through the jostling of life we rub each other, sometimes the wrong way, with our sharp edges.  Friction happens – but through time and forgiveness, those rocky edges become smooth and mellowed.  Forgiveness Vespers seeks to erode those jagged edges of relationship.

And so it is, that this Sunday, the Orthodox Christian Lenten journey is ushered in with love and forgiveness.

How appropriate that the first flavor of this awesome labor of fasting is found in a feast… the blessed taste of forgiveness – that given and received – during the Vespers of Forgiveness this very weekend.   These past weeks of the humility of the Publican, the faithful perseverance of the woman at the well, the coming to his senses of the Prodigal – a return to the Father – these intend to soften hearts.

Great Lent is a walk of  joy, an annual journey of the faithful body of Christ.

Does it really come as any great surprise that the faithful rejoice in this Fast with gladness?  For truly, to savor even a crumb off of Lenten tables laden with fasting, reminds us that we are blessed, we are blessed, we are so very richly blessed!

lenten pantry

you are what you eat

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In the Bible the food that man eats, the world of which he must partake in order to live, is given to him by God, and it is given as communion with God.  The world as man’s food is not something “material” and limited to material functions, thus different from, and opposed to, the specifically “spiritual” functions by which man is related to God.  All that exists is God’s gift to man, and it all exists to make God known to man, to make man’s life communion with God.

It is divine love made food, made life for man.

God blesses everything He creates, and, in biblical language, this means that He makes all creation the sign and means of His presence and wisdom, love and revelation:

“O taste and see that the Lord is good.”

Father Alexander Schmemann

turn over the world to find it

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“Just as we regularly eat in order to maintain the body so the soul should constantly be filled with prayer. The one who prays feels divine blessedness and has the help of God. If we had something previous and we lost it we would turn over the whole world to find it. This is how we must pursue the name of God.”

the blessed Geeondissa Makrina

walk humbly with God

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goodness and mercy

O come ye faithful, let us work the words of God in light. Let us walk honestly as in the day, let us cast away from ourselves every unjust writing against our neighbor and not put a stumbling block as an occasion for his falling on the way.

Friday Vespers : First Week of Great lent

the hopeful ploughman

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From long suffering in prayer, the fruit of life arises, and expectation is a firm helper during prayer to those who posses it. When you pray, bring to mind the ploughman who sows in hope. He Who causes to return twofold the seed that the plougjman sows with hope.

Saint Isaac the Syrian