☦️Eastern Orthodoxy:

[sprinkleeninow]

GROWING IN CHRIST, SHAPED IN HIS IMAGE Mother Raphaela

"Questions on the Web:

Delicate threads hold together the web of life. Threads that run through the universe, broken so often by people's blindness; insensitivity. Threads that hold together if not the families of nations, then at least a Christian family, a monastery, a parish, a diocese, a national church, the worldwide communication of God's own people. Threads of care and consideration. Threads of speaking and sharing. Threads of attentively listening and hearing. Threads of openness and trust. Threads of respecting the role and vocation of others. Threads of common goals and tasks. Threads of putting aside one's own ideas and desires so that a larger group may flourish. Threads of laying down one's own life for one's friends. You say you love God: How can you love God whom you have not seen when you do not love your brother whom you see? How can you prove that you love your brother if you cannot live with him?

Do you allow Him to shine through you with His life, word, love, purity and joy or do people see only your opaque flesh doing efficiently the job you think is needed? Are you saying that you are not willing to open to others your mind and heart, to put aside to some degree your personal habits and desires so that you can experience the closeness of others, the closeness of men, women, children, in all states of life, as love rather than annoyance?

Explain to me then, how your love is other than superficial? Or a matter of your own convenience? Explain to me how Someone other than yourself is at the heart of your being?

Answer these questions so that I may know whether you are willing yet to face life and death; judgment and mercy.

You say this is too much? Then how dare you be in a position where you may deny others? How dare you say you are one who represents your Lord?

Or is there another lord in your life that you have not told us about? "
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CHRIST IS RISEN! TRULY HE IS RISEN!
NOT OF THIS WORLD, Fr. Seraphim Rose: ". . . the very core of all Christian life: the conversion of the heart of man causing it to burn with the love for Christ which transforms one into a new being."

Fr. Seraphim warned of the dangers involved in the search for reality--the traps and deceptions he encounters in his search. " A person must be in the religious search not for the sake of religious experiences, but for the sake of Truth."
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A CONVERT'S LETTER CONCERNING ORTHODOXY

"O Lord, why are they multiplied that afflict me? Many rise up against me. Many say unto my soul: There is no salvation for him in his God. But thou, O Lord, art my helper, my glory, and the lifter up of my head. I cried unto the Lord with my voice, and He heard me out of His Holy mountain. I laid me down and slept; I awoke for the Lord will help me. I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people that set themselves against me round about. Arise, O Lord, save me,, O my God, for Thou hast smitten all who without cause are mine enemies; the teeth of sinners has Thou broken. Salvation is of the Lord, and Thy blessing is upon Thy people." Psalm 3

Dear Convert:

Deep down you're burning with zeal and thirst, serving the Church, weeping and shouting for joy at what God has opened up to you--that whole undreamed of heavenly world which the Church gives you the means to approach.

Deep down you want the full uncompromising Orthodox life. You want to give your whole heart and soul and strength to God. You're called to keep the spark alive and communicate it to others, producing fruit in Christ's harvest, perhaps in an unconventional way. Don't forget it! We go to the Lives of Saints and Holy Fathers and get out inspiration from them. Remember what Orthodoxy is: it is something first of all of the heart, not just the mind, something living and warm, not abstract and cold, something that is learned and practiced in life. Coming to Orthodoxy, you will find a wealth of teaching that is totally beyond even the best of non-Orthodox Christians. We who are already Orthodox have this treasure and this depth right in front of us (the Kingdom of God in our hearts).

The more you get your own wings in Orthodoxy by reading more, being exposed to contact with Orthodox people, the more you will begin to be able to feel your way in the realm of Orthodoxy. God is guiding the Church. We know that He is with the Church until the end. If we follow the simple path--distrusting our own wisdom, doing the best we can yet realizing that our mind, without warmth of heart, is a very weak tool--then an Orthodox philosophy of life will begin to be formed in you.

All of our sanctity is based upon having your feet straight on the ground, and while being on earth, constantly having the mind lifted upward, constantly thinking of the higher things; constantly looking upward to the Chief Shepherd Christ to the heavenly world of God's Truth. Bath in the depths of Christ. If you are an Orthodox Christian, you can do this and have people call you crazy or something like that; but still you have your own life--you lead it here on earth while constantly living in the heavenly world and you get to heaven.

All the learning of this world is of no importance beside the duty of worshiping God, accepting the God-man Who died for our sins and preparing for the life of the world to come. For as St. Paul said, " . . .all the wisdom of this world is but folly in the eyes of God." "Every man, by virtue of being human, must choose God or himself. We are but what we have chosen. And with our choice we indicate our preference for one Kingdom or other: for the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of self." Do we choose the acceptance or negation of Christ. Christ is our crisis; He demands from us all or nothing, and this problem He presents us is the only one that need be answered. Do we choose God, Who alone IS, or ourselves, nothingness, the abyss? This is the conscious spiritual struggle that yeilds a spiritual harvest. Our age is founded on nothingness--a wasteland of modern life; but this nothingness presents, for those who can still perceive, the crisis of all men in all ages. Our age tells us, if we can listen, to choose the living God.

I make a prostration before you and beg your forgiveness for my many sins and failings toward you. May God forgive and have mercy on us all.

With love in Christ,

Teresa Duro