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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Tuesday

22Sep2009

I once related to him (St. Herman of Alaska)...

Sep 22, 2009 |

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…how the Spaniards in California had taken fourteen of our Aleuts prisoner, and how the Jesuits (more likely Franciscans - CJH) had tortured one of them to try and force them all to take the Catholic faith. But the Aleuts would not submit, saying, “We are Christians, we have been baptized,” and they showed them the crosses they wore. But the Jesuits objected, saying, “No, you are heretics and schismatics; if you do not agree to take the Catholic faith, we will torture you.” And they left them shut up two to a cell until the evening to think it over.

In the evening they came back with a lantern and lighted candles, and began again to try and persuade them to become Catholics. But the Aleuts were filled with God’s grace, and firmly and decisively answered, “We are Christians and we would not betray our faith.” Then the fanatics set about torturing them. First they tortured one singly while the others were made to watch. First they cut off one of the joints from one foot, and then from the other, but the Aleut bore it all continued to say, “I am a Christian and I will not betray my faith.” Then they cut a joint off each finger - first from one hand, then the other; then they hacked off one foot at the instep, then one hand at the wrist. The blood poured, but the martyr bore it all to the end, maintaining his stand, and with this faith he died, from loss of blood. On the following day it was planned to torture the others, but that same night an order was received from Monterey that all the captured Russian Aleuts were to be sent under guard to Monterey. And so in the morning those remaining alive were sent away. This was related to me by an Aleut who was an eyewitness - a colleague of the man put to death - and who later escaped from the Spaniards. At the time I reported all this to the Head Office in St. Petersburg.

When I finished telling him this, Father Herman asked me, “What was the name of this tortured Aleut?” “Peter,” I replied, but I cannot remember the other name.”

Then the Elder stood before the icon, devoutly crossed himself and said, “Holy, newly-martyred Peter, pray to God for us!”

from a letter of Simeon Ianovskii to Igumen Damascene of Valaam, 11/22/1865
St. Peter the Aleut, commemorated 24 September

for St. Peter’s troparion and an icon of him, go to: http://www.comeandseeicons.com/p/cap27.htm