unshakable peace

Leave a comment February 19, 2015 nourishinggrace

“Precious to all men is peace of soul. With those who have acquired peace of soul, the body can be in constant motion, at work, or in pain, but their souls, cleaving to God, remain always in unshakable peace. Saint Seraphim of Sarov teaches: “We must endeavor by every means to keep peace of soul.”

Bishop Nikolai Velimirovic

Prologue 15 February

rest in God

Leave a comment February 19, 2015 nourishinggrace

The soul that loves God has its rest in God and in God alone. In all the paths that men walk i the world, they do not attain peace until they draw nigh to hope in God.

Saint Isaac the Syrian

bread of Life

Leave a comment February 17, 2015 nourishinggrace

And the Holy Spirit changes this offering (prosphoro) to the Body of Christ, to the Bread of Life, to living bread for all. Bread which heals hunger in a decisive manner. Bread which grants true learning and true freedom. The only true education is the learning of love. The only true freedom is the abolishment of Death, which also abolishes the fear of being deprived of everything material.

“I am the Bread of Life.” (John 6: 35)

Prosphoro and Artos- Communion Bread and Blessed Bread

fermentation and life

Leave a comment February 16, 2015 nourishinggrace

“The prosphoro teaches us patience. It teaches us that everything in life goes through a state of fermentation. The Orthodox Church chooses to work with fermented products – bread and wine – and not with unleavened or unfermented. This teaches us a lot about the mystical way in which everything in life works : with patience and in a slow, quiet, inconspicuous, discreet way.”

from the book : Prosphoro and Artos – Communion Bread and Blessed Bread

with all your heart

Leave a comment February 15, 2015 nourishinggrace

“Let us love God at least as much as we respect our friends.”

Saint John Climacus

the Ladder of Divine Ascent

perfect love

Leave a comment February 14, 2015 nourishinggrace

“He has as yet no perfect love, whose disposition towards men depends on what they are like, loving one ad despising another for this or that, or sometimes loving and sometimes hating one and the same man. Blessed is the man who can love all men equally.”

Saint Maximos the Confessor

First Century on Love

finding meaning

Leave a comment February 13, 2015 nourishinggrace

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“People today are thirsty for spiritual renewal, but they don’t know where to look, where the spring is. They flock to secular psychologists and psychiatrists to find answers and meaning in their lives…. At the same time, so many people today ignore or are ignorant of the rich psychological tradition of the saints, the real psychologists.”

Kyriacos C. Markides

Inner River: A Pilgrimage to the Heart of Christian Spirituality

patient acceptance

Leave a comment February 12, 2015 nourishinggrace

“If you accept patiently what comes, you will always pray with joy.”

~

Evagrios the Solitary

cultivate love

Leave a comment February 12, 2015 nourishinggrace

“Love is the most perfect fruit of the Holy Spirit, and it emerges within one’s life after one cultivates all the other fruits enumerated by St. Paul in his letter to the Galatians (5: 22– 23): love, joy, peace , patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Authentic, divine love is a quality of the soul that manifests last, after the cultivation of all the other virtues, starting with self-mastery and self-control.”

Kyriacos C. Markides
Inner River: A Pilgrimage to the Heart of Christian Spirituality

on the soul

Leave a comment February 11, 2015 nourishinggrace

The human heart is not a splinter, and the human soul – not a cheap thing; it is more valuable than all the world. All the treasures on earth and in the universe are not worth one Christian soul.

Saint Anatoly

Living Without Hypocrisy: Spiritual Counsels of the Holy Elders of Optina