God is Heard in the Silence of the Heart The very heart of Orthodox monasticism is found in hesychia, that is, keeping stillness.The hesychast denies in order to affirm. Based on Christ’s injunction in the Gospel of Saint Matthew to “go into your closet to pray”, hesychasm in tradition has
Are you holy enough?
We are not Compelled to Love God We are not compelled to love God, having been created with free will. God does not, nor can He, compel His creatures to love Him. Mutual love requires, by its very nature, freedom to either respond in love, or not. Yet when we
Would you judge an icon?
The Ignored Heart is a Lost Heart It is important that we direct all our thoughts, all our actions, and all our desires towards a burning love for God. Our heart must become inflamed with the love of God, and all our intellectual and emotional striving must be directed towards
Love and forgive like a saint or you will never learn to become one!
When We do the Wrong Things Habitually That we must struggle with our passions is a given. All the holy fathers counsel us to do battle with the passions, yet we continue committing the same sins over and over. Sometimes it is because we’ve allowed ourselves to fall into the
“Although the Good God gives us abundant blessings, acts always for our own good and has made everything to be of service to us and to be sacrificed for us, from plants to animals and birds, whether big or small, and even though God Himself sacrificed His life to redeem
Put Aside All Despondency and Get Up Again It is often the case that we fail to keep God’s commandments and find ourselves despondent, unable, as it seems, to make progress in the battle over our sins. When the same sins constantly plague us, despondency is our enemy. Despondency is
God created us male and female. We created a crisis. How can we find peace, healing, and wholeness when the world has gone mad?