💐 even by flowers 💐

Leave a comment April 8, 2019 nourishinggrace

“Rejoice, heavenly ladder by which God came down”
**The Akathist Hymn and Small Compline**

If God does not leave a blade of grass, a flower, or a small leaf of a tree without His good providence, will He leave us? O, let every man be convinced with his whole heart that God is true to Himself in His providence for even the least of His creatures. Let him understand that the Creator invisibly dwells in all His creatures. In the words of our Saviour, God clothes the grass of the field, feeds the fowls of the air. In how many ways does not God rejoice us, His creatures, even by flowers? Like a tender mother, in His eternal power and wisdom, He every summer creates for us, out of nothing, these most beautiful plants. Let us enjoy them, not forgetting to glorify the goodness of the Creator, our heavenly Father; let us on our part, too, reply to His love by loving hearts.

Saint John of Kronstadt : My Life Christ

thanksgiving is

Leave a comment November 23, 2017 nourishinggrace

“I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual.” – Henry David Thoreau

Father Alexander Schmemann of blessed memory says that thanksgiving and joy are the essential elements of a life in Christ and Saint John of Kronstadt says that the soul involuntarily longs to praise God. This blessed gift is already present within each us but requires tending and nurture.

To give thanksgiving is to bless and also to love, for when we give thanks we return and offer back to God what He has bestowed to us.

Gratitude is fertilizer to the soil of prayer germinating seeds of hope, patience in tribulation, and a tissue blessing tears.

Thanksgiving is Eukharistia and seeks not to be right but rather righteousness and it is yielding and forgiving; grounded in reality.

Thanksgiving is healing and the candlelight of vigil. It rejoices with those who rejoice and mourns with those who mourn (Romans 12:35). It seeks no glory but glorifies.

Offering thanks gives much peace to the present moment, and cultivates wonder at the fragrant act of a costly oil of spikenard, poured upon and anointing the feet of Jesus.

our nourisher and hope

Leave a comment May 12, 2015 nourishinggrace

The tree of life in the heart of paradise is Christ.

All men may know and approach this tree and find nourishment and feed on the Holy Spirit.

Saint Silouan the Athonite

What air is to the body, the spirit of God is to the soul.

As you breathe from the air the elements required to nourish your body, so likewise you breathe into yourself from the Spirit of God good inclinations and thoughts…

O Holy Trinity, our Nourisher and Hope!

St John of Kronstadt

My Life in Christ

innumerable gifts

Leave a comment May 11, 2015 nourishinggrace

Nothing is nearer to us than God. He is the God of hearts, of the very hearts, and the heart, in its turn, is nearer than anything to us. It is the whole man, ” the hidden man of the heart,” as the Apostle says.

St John of Kronstadt

My Life in Christ

God hides the mysteries He offers to us, so that He might teach us to search for them in love.

Narsai of Edessa

in simplicity of heart

Leave a comment May 8, 2015 nourishinggrace

The soul is like hardening clay

if it clings to materiality

and like soft wax when it clings to God

Saint Maximos the Confessor

Therefore the Christian, who is called to a heavenly country, who is only a stranger and a sojourner upon earth, ought not attach his heart to anything earthly, but should cling to God alone, the Source of life, our resurrection, and the Life eternal.

St John of Kronstadt

My Life in Christ

infinite Love

Leave a comment April 24, 2015 nourishinggrace

Faith is the beginning of love.

Evagrios of Pontus

All that is best, that attracts our spiritual gaze and the inclinations of our heart in man, is from God, from His Son, and from His Spirit…

God is nearer to us than any man at every time. He is nearer to me than my raiment, nearer than the air or light, nearer than my wife, father, mother, daughter, son, or friend. I live in Him, soul and body. I breathe in Him, think in Him, feel, consider, intend, speak, undertake, work in Him. “For in Him we live, and move, and have our being.”

St John of Kronstadt

lenten pantry

Leave a comment February 28, 2015 nourishinggrace

“it is important to know that the Church considers

the psalms to be an essential spiritual food

for the Lenten season”

Father Alexander Schmemann

Great Lent: A School of Repentance Its Meaning for Orthodox Christians

“…no soul can exist without God, without His Son,

without His Spirit. God is my being, my breath,

my light, my strength, my drink, my food.

He carries me as a mother

carries her infant in her arms.

More than this. Carrying me, my soul and body,

He dwells in me, and is united to me.”