the outcome of love {blessed are the meek}

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“I cant give you an example of what real obedience is. It’s not that we have a discussion about the virtue of obedience and then I say to you, : go and do a somersault” and you obey. That’s not obedience. You need to be entirely carefree and not thinking at all about the matter of obedience, and then suddenly you are asked to do something and you are ready to do it joyfully. If you are busy at work, and not at all in a state of vigilance, and readiness and someone humiliates your, then by your reaction you will show whether or not you have obedience.”

“My obedience was the outcome of love, not coercion. This blessed obedience benefitted me greatly. It changed me. I became sharp-witted, quick and stronger in body and soul. It made me know everyting. I must glorify God day and night for granting me the possibility of living in this way, in this life. Obedience is something I have poured over and studied minutely. The other things that God has given me in my life came on their own. The gift of clear sight was also given me by God on account of obedience. Obedience shows love for Christ. And Christ especially loves the obedient. That is why He says, I love those who love Me, and those who seek me will find grace. Everything is written in Holy Scripture but in a concealed manner.

Saint Porphyrios

Wounded by Love : The Life and Wisdom of Saint Porphyrios

sense and sensibility

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Christ is the summit of desire, there is nothing higher. All sensible things lead to satiety, but with God there is no satiation. He is everything. God is the summit of desire. No other joy, no other beauty, nothing else can rival Him. What is higher than the highest?

Saint Porphyrios

Wounded by Love : the Life and Wisdom of Saint Porphyrios

Hosios Loukas Monastery : Greece

the chant lament of all eternity

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The 15th Antiphon is sung in every single Orthodox Church the world round on Great and Holy Friday,…. and it is the chant lament of all eternity. That night we read the twelve Gospels of His passion. We lament Christ’s Crucifixion – along with all of creation – with every blade of grass, the rocks and with the very rays of the sun which hide in mourning.


Yet if you listen to the hymn – you’ll find in the midst of the darkness of the worlds groaning eison lies an undergirding of the glorious hope of the Gladsome light of Christ’s Resurrection.

It is a hymn that finds its expression most beautifully in a byzantine setting. So, no matter where we worship, it is this very hymn that we always listen to on the way home from Church.


Remember me O Lord in Thy Kingdom

catch hold of Him

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One example of God stooping down to our level is given to us in the Psalms. Do you remember the wonderful image of Christ stooping down in order to drink from a running stream? He shall drink of the brook in the way, it says, therefore shall He lift up His head. (Psalm 109.7). What does this mean? That “although you forget me, I, the heavenly God, stoop down just as you do. I share in your life, so that you can share in Mine. I move and act like you do to show you that I’ve become like you, so that you can become like Me.

Do you grow weary on your journey? So do I. (John 4.6) Do you thirst? (John 4.7, 19, 28) So do I. Do you stoop down to drink water? I do the same. I humble Myself. I empty Myself. (Phil 2.7). I drink and refresh Myself. What more can I do? What do you do that I don’t?

And since I am so close to you stooping down alongside of you, can’t you catch hold of Me?

Elder Aemilianos of Simonopetra

it is a liberation

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It would be a mistake to think of the sacrifices of Lent in purely negative terms—in terms of struggle and deprivation. We are to think of Lent as liberation. Lent calls us to sacrifice many of those things which, while they tend to occupy such a central position in our lives, while they seem to us to be so important, are in reality things we can do without. Lent is thus the rediscovery of that which is most essential in our lives. In this rediscovery, we return to God and to the very meaning of life. Thus, having stripped ourselves of all that is petty and futile, having cast off the burdensome baggage of our worldly and often complex lifestyles, we can truly experience Lent as liberation and purification, as the necessary, fruitful, and wonderful journey to the joy of Pascha.

Father Alexander Schmemman

it contains with it the eternal life {the jesus prayer}

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I pray that the All-good God will send down upon you the All Holy Spirit, as He did to His divinely sent holy Apostles so that you may be enlightened to walk the arduous path of salvation. “Behold now, what is so good or joyous, as for brethren to dwell together in unity with love” There is nothing more beautiful than for a synodia to be replete with godly love. Then everything is radiant, everything is full of beauty, while God above delights, and the holy angelic spirits rejoice above where love is boundless.

Love one another as I have loved you. By this all will know that you are My disciples if you have love for one another.

John 13:35

O, Love, whoever possesses you has a truly blessed heart, for within love what could one possibly want and not find. Humility, joy, patience, goodness, compassion, forbearance, enlightenment, and so on are all there. But in order to obtain this supremely woundrous love, we must constantly call upon the God of love to give it to us. When the name of God is remembered through the prayer:

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me

Κύριε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ ἐλέησόν με

It contains within it eternal life and eternal life is the God of Love. Therefore, he who prays this prayer obtains true godly love.

Elder Eprhaim: Counsels from the Holy Mountain

Κύριε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ ἐλέησόν με 

spiritual springtime

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When love establishes its throne in the soul, it bestows the most beautiful spiritual springtime. Everything glistens with the breeze of love’s refreshing fragrance, for it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endure’s all things, thinks no evil, does not act wickedly, sees all things simply: love covers everything. For this reason it earned the crowing achievement: Love covers everything.

Elder Ephraim: Counsels from the Holy Mountain

the saints have much grace

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May the Grace of Christ be with you, within your soul, my child… to enlighten you and increase your love for Him, so that you may be kept near Him and not be swept away by the current of worldliness and fall away from God and lose your immortal soul which is worth more than the entire world.

The amount of Grace that came to you is small, the saints through had much Grace.

Elder Ephraim, Counsels from the Holy Mountain