May our love for the Sun, the will of God, be as strong as the sunflower’s so that even in days of hardship and sorrow we may continue to sail unerringly on the sea of life, following the direction of the barometer and compass of God’s Will that leads us to the safe haven of Eternity.
Saint John Maximovitch
So happy to announce that the Commemoration and Prayer books for Orthodox Women are ready! You may find them in my Etsy Shop | Gladsome Life.
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This is an effort of love that I pray will be blessed. Here is an excerpt from the Introduction as well as a sneak peak of the commemorations!
Every Eastern Orthodox home is a little church, and thus adorned with an icon corner. The icon corner is one of the most sacred spaces in our homes. It is our worship space, carefully tended. In Greek the word for icon corner is εικονοστάσι {eikonostasi} meaning bright shining beautiful corner. The early church met in the homes of the faithful {Acts 2:46, Acts 20:7-12, 1 Corinthians 16-19} and the tradition of the little church of the home continues throughout the ages, for the home is indeed a microcosm of the Church and our every day and very lives are meant to be liturgically lived, in ceaseless prayer and remembrance of the Lord.
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If we have a blackened pot and we scrub it over and over again until it shines, it gives us a sense of satisfaction. However when the pot is blacked and we leave it unattended, the copper tarnishes. Afterwards, we have to use a special cleaner of some sort to successfully clean it. This is how the souls is when we neglect it and don’t try to make it shine.
“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.”
♥️ Words of the Heart ♥️
When the film of pride and the sleep of self-contentedness is wiped from the eye of my heart, I know I am but dust called by the Divine breath into life. Made in the Image of God, there is in me, the possibility of being born “from above” from beyond this world and entering into real life. Eternal life is a gift and a potential; never a certainty or a guarantee. God is ever offering Himself to us in hopes that we are willing to undergo the process of responding to the potentials that are opened up through Communion with Him. We cannot be saved without our consent. In Christ God has proposed marriage with humanity purely from love and waits for our response. We are unique creatures invited to taste the eternal Eucharistic joy of never being complete in and of ourselves alone, but only in response to breathing in the divine Grace and breathing out life and gratefulness beyond words. We are made for love and communion with God.
“We must always pray. But Lent is the time of an increase of prayer and also of its deepening. The simplest way is, first, to add the Lenten prayer of St. Ephrem the Syrian to our private morning and evening prayers. Then, it is good and profitable to set certain hours of the day for a short prayer: this can be done “internally”—at the office, in the car, everywhere. The important thing here is to remember constantly that we are in Lent, to be spiritually “referred” to its final goal: renewal, penitence, closer contact with God.”
Lord and Master of my life, take from me the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, and idle talk
But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to Thy servant.
Yea, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own transgressions, and not to judge my brother, for blessed art Thou, unto ages of ages. Amen.
“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.”
Beware of despair. You do not serve a tyrant, but your service is to a kind Lord, Who taking nothing from you, yet has given you all. And when you did not exist at all, He fashioned you so that you would be in that state in which you now are. Who is sufficient to render Him thanks for the fact that He has brought us into existence? O the immesurable Grace! Who can sufficiently honor Him with hymns? … God is very compassionate and ardently loves to give… He rejoices when a man offers Him prayer.
A clear rule handed down by the Fathers is this: stop eating while still hungry and do not continue until you are satisfied.
Saint John Cassian, Philokalia, Vol. 1 Faber & Faber, 1986, p.74
This fasting is in regard to food. Living in an age in which man much too easily lives for the sake of exterior effects, we can be fooled into thinking that fasting from food should be sufficient for spiritual growth. But in the holy Gospel, our Lord Jesus Christ says, “For from within, out of the heart of man, come….all these evil things,… and they defile a man.” (Mark 7:21-23) Here the Savior teaches us that most important is the purification from within of our heart and soul. Fasting of soul is the defeat of egotism, the renunciation sins and the abstention from passions. It is a a humble realization within ourselves emulating the example of Saint John the Baptist, the greatest man born frogwoman and the greatest faster. He says, He [Christ] must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30) In order to receive Christ in our hearts… we must work to destroy all that separates us from Him. We have the means close at hand to accomplish this”
When we join these efforts to bodily fasting, then our fast truly becomes a knitting together of ascetically effort in both body and soul. All these things we must accomplish with joy of heart as the Lord teaches us when He says: “but when you fast, anent your head and wash your face that your fasting may not be seen by men but by your Father who is in secret and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (Matthew 6:17-18)
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“Life Transfigured”
A Journal of Orthodox Nuns, Volume 50 #3
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