love God abundantly

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Let us make a good beginning so that God may grant us repentance (turning to God), because the person who has repentance does not have pride or egotism. May God grant us awareness of ourselves so that we may have humility. When we humble ourselves, saying, “Forgive me,” and “May it be blessed,” the will of God will be done. The last shall be first and the first shall be last; whoever goes to the back, God will bring to the front. Therefore we should love God abundantly, because we all depend on Him…

Gerontissa Makrina

Words from the Heart

knock again and again

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Red Door of Paris, France

There was a man who was deprived of divine grace for thirty years, but he did not despair; he put his hope in Christ and would say, “My Christ, better late than never,” because Christ does not lie. He is not like us. As perfect God, He is all love, all affection, all joy and peace. Seeing us knocking persistently on the door, with much love and forbearance. Christ will open to us. When we go to a house and ring the doorbell, if they do not open to us, then we ring again and again, waiting because they may be somewhere inside. In the end they come and open to us. If we had left, we would have missed out.

Let us persistently knck on the door, and the Lord will open to us, because He loves us. He loves us so much!

Gerontissa Makrina

♥️ Words of the Heart ♥️

Saint Nicholas Church – Skopelos Greece
Hosios Loukas Monastery Greece

the soul desires these things

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“When we truly love Christ, we will cling to His neck; we will embrace His feet. If there is something troubling our soul, and as human beings we fall we should say, “Help me my Christ; strengthen me; enlighten me; bestow more faith upon me; grant me prudence; grant me obedience.” The soul will seek after these things because it desires salvation.”

Gerontissa Makrina

♥️ Words of the Heart ♥️

carry out their words

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A few brothers who had lay  persons approached Abba Felix and begged him to say a word to them.  But the old man kept silent.  After they had asked for a long time he said to them “you wish to hear a word,” they said “yes Abba”. Then the old man said to them “there are no such words nowadays.   When the brothers used to consult their elders, and when they did what was asked of them, God would show them how to speak.  However now, because they ask without doing that which they hear , God has withdrawn the grace of His Word from the elders, and they do not find anything to say, because there is no longer anyone who carries out their words.”   Hearing this the brothers groaned, saying “Pray for us Abba”

Metropolitan Nafpaktos Hierotheos

A Night in the Desert of the Holy Mountain

sunflower garden 2019

bumblebee on sunflower resting

the need to experience God

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When you live a contemplative spiritual life, when your spirit is in a state of continual contemplation, your mind is never disturbed by distractions. But when you are living in the midst of the world, you struggle to find a few minutes to contemplate God, and afterwards, you quickly fall back into the patterns and routines of everyday life. The same thing can happen to a monk in a monastery: he too can become caught up in mundane activities and daily routines, just like people living in the world. Such a life is not necessarily sinful; it is simply the way life in the world is.

This is why I have to have a succession of spiritual contemplations in my life. We all h ave a great need for inner spiriutal experiences of God, of revelations given to us directly from God, in such a way that these revelations become something uniquely my own; something that I understand, and which I recognize, and which I wholly possess and “love”. This is what it means for something to be “mine” And in this case, what I live, and possess and understand and feel, is obviously God Himself. In this way, my life becomes bound up with the life of God.

Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra Monastery

our task :: our work :: and God’s Grace

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sunflowers of the garden 2019

For the soul to repent it must first be awake. It is in this awakening that the miracle of repentance occurs. This is where human will plays a role. The awakening however is not something that rests solely with the man or the woman. The individual alone is not able to bring it about. God intervenes. Then Divine Grace comes. Without Grace a person can not repent. The love of God does everything. He may use something — an illness, or something else — it depends — in order to bring a person to repentance. Accordingly, repentance is achieved through divine grace. We simply make a move towards God and from then on Grace supervenes.

Saint Porphyrios

the power of bold prayer

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daily devotion
Orthodox Study Bible

By the love which the saints show for God on account of the things they suffer for His name’s sake (when they endure strains and do not forsake that which God loves) their hearts acquire the boldness to gaze toward Him without a veil and to beseech Him with confidence. Great is the power of bold prayer. For this reason, God allows His saints to be tried by every sorrow, then to experience anew and to prove His aid, and to understand how great a providence He has for them, for in their perils He is found to be their Redeemer.

Saint Isaac the Syrian

Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian

we need to dwell on this

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psalms hymns and spiritual songs

But the centre of gravity I wanted to place on the “University of the Church” By that I mean the hymns, canons, midnight offices, mid-hour offices, the Psalter, Paraklitiki, Mention, Theotokarion, Tridion, Pentacostarion — all the service books of the Church. I wanted us, if possible, to read everything that is prescribed in the Book of Liturgical Order, the so-called Typicon. I thought of reading the sections from the Psalter before mid-day so we wont read them during the night, and make the sisters tired.

garden olive tree :: my homage to Greece

Devotion to and occupation with the hymns and readings is a great thing in my view — a very great thing — because in that way, a person is sanctified without realizing it. He acquires love and humility, and everything as he hears the words of the saints in the various liturgical books. We need to dwell on this. This needs to be our daily occupation and delight in the Church.

Wounded by Love: The Life and Wisdom of Saint Porphyrios

SAINT PORPHYRIOS