Word from the Desert

Meditations on the Orthodox Life from the Early Church Fathers, Ascetics, Saints and Righteous

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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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Friday

16Oct2009

Now it happened one year...

Oct 16, 2009 |

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…that the Nile did not rise enough to water all our fields, and a multitude of the poor came to Abba Aaron weeping and saying, “Our holy father, we and our children are going to die because the waters have not risen!” He said to them, “Believe in God and He will deliver you. As it is written, ‘The prayer of the poor man who is downhearted, he pours out entreaty before the Lord.’ Again it says, ‘The Lord has heard the desires of the poor.’” He quoted them numerous other passages from scripture and explained them to them, and he comforted them, and in this way they departed from him praising God. Now the holy man Aaron was not unconcerned about their distress, and he would go to the river each evening and immerse himself in the water up to his neck and he would pray to God, saying, “My good Christ, compassionate one, have compassion upon your image and likeness.” Indeed, he continued this practice until God had compassion for his tears and made the waters of the Nile flow over the face of the whole country.

Paphnutius, Life of Abba Aaron, 131 (trans. Tim Vivian)