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Prayer, fasting, vigils, and all other Christian practices, however good they may be in themselves, certainly do not constitute the aim of our Christian life: they are but the indispensable means of attaining that aim. For the true aim of the Christian life is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit of God. As for fasts, vigils, prayer and almsgiving, and other good works done in the name of Christ, they are only the means of acquiring the Holy Spirit of God. Note well that it is only good works done in the name of Christ that bring us the fruits of the Spirit.
~St. Seraphim of Sarov




In order for one to understand the Saints and Fathers of the [Orthodox] Church, it is not sufficient to merely read them. The Saints spoke and wrote after having lived the mysteries of God. They personally experienced the mysteries.

In order for one to understand them, he too must have progressed to a certain degree of initiation into the mysteries of God by personally tasting, smelling, and seeing. You can read the books of the Saints and become very well versed in them with a ‘cerebral’ knowledge without even minutely tasting that which the Saints tasted who wrote these books through their personal experience.

In order to understand the Saints essentially, not intellectually, you must have the proper experience for all that they say; you must have tasted, at least in part, of the same things as they. You must have lived in the fervent environment of Orthodoxy; you must grown in it… A Whole new world must be born in a Westerner’s heart in order for him to understand something of Orthodoxy.
~Alexandar Kalomiros, Against False Union, 1959



The mysteries of our Faith are unknown and not understandable to those who are not repenting.
~Archpriest Nicholas Deputatov, ‘Awareness of God’ in the Orthodox Word Magazine, July-August 1976

 

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Thursday
15May2008

It was a custom...

…with the brothers of our God-loving and holy father Pachomius, to assemble every evening in an appointed place in the monastery to hear his teaching. Once, as they were assembled as usual to hear the great man, he commanded a certain Theodore, who had been in the monastery twenty years, to speak to the brothers. Straightway, without any disobedience, he spoke to them about things profitable to them. Some of the eldest brothers, when they saw what was happening, did not want to listen to him. They said within themselves, “He is a beginner and he is teaching us! We will not hear him.” They left the synaxis of the brothers and withdrew to their cells.’

When the brothers were dismissed from the instruction, the great man sent for and called those who had withdrawn. They came to the holy man and he asked them, “Why did you leave us and withdraw to your cells?” They said, “Because you have made a boy a teacher of us, a large group of old men and of other brothers.” When the great man heard this, he groaned and said, “Do you know from where evil first had its beginning in the world?” As they said, “From where?”, he replied and told them, “From pride, for which `the bright star dawning in the morning was dashed in pieces upon the ground,’ and for which also Nebuchanezzar, the king of Babylon, `dwelt among the wild beasts.’ (Is 14:12, Dn 5:21) Or have you not heard what is written, `The man with an arrogant heart is abhorrent to the Lord? For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled.’ (Pr.15:9, Lk 14:11) Now you have been despoiled by the devil of all your virtue, not knowing that pride is the mother of all evils. For it was not Theodore whom you left when you went away, but you fled from the word of God and you fell away from the Holy Spirit. Truly wretched are you, and worthy of all pity. How is it that you did not understand that it was Satan who was causing this in you, and because of this you have been separated from God? O what a great wonder! God humbled Himself and became obedient even unto death for your sake; and yet we, who are by nature lowly, puff ourselves up. The order is overthrown by us: He who is above all things and exceedingly great brought the world to Himself through His humility, when He could have burned it up by a mere glance! And we who are nothing make ourselves proud, not knowing that by this we are pushing ourselves into the depths of the earth.

Did you not see that I was standing and listening to his teaching? In truth I tell you, I profited greatly from listening to him. For it was not to test him that I enjoined him to speak to you, but because I expected to draw profit for myself. How much more then ought you to have heard his word with great eagerness and humility? Verily, I, your father in the Lord, was listening to him with all my soul as one who does not know his right from his left. Therefore, before God, I tell you that if you do not show great repentance for this error, and if you do not weep and mourn for yourselves so that what happened may be forgiven you, you will go to perdition.”

from the Paralipomena (Left-Overs) of the Greek life of St. Pachomius, chap. 1
St. Theodore the Sanctified, commemorated 16 May

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