Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Monday
II Cor. 12:10-19; Mark 4:10-23
The Lord breathed the breath of life, and man became in the image of God. It is the same with one's own rebirth: the beginnings of a new life are established and one's image is renewed by the breath of the Spirit of God; and whence and how it comes is not known. This is the point of departure; from here the work of raising up the image to a perfect likeness begins. When we are reborn according to the image of the Creator by the Lord's Spirit, we are transfigured from glory to glory-but not without us, our work and effort. However, it is God Who creates and restores us by the grace of the Most Holy Spirit, according to faith in the Lord. Behold the ideal and method of fulfilling in oneself the image and likeness of God! People so often write about and discuss education will proceed successfully to its goal. This is God's path, but it does not exclude human paths-on the contrary, it gives them direction and crowns their success. When only the human remains, education is usually insufficient, even detrimental, and often totally perverts those being educated; then the rest of life goes awry. Where those educated in a distorted manner multiply, all of society becomes more and more distorted, both in life and in its attitudes. The end is universal distortion; one bends in one direction, another bends in another.

-From St. Theophan the Recluse


Thursday, September 22, 2016

Monday
II Cor. 8:7-15; Mark 3:6 -12

The Lord forbade both people and demons to praise Him when He was on the earth, but required that people believe in Him and fulfill God's commandments. The Lord has the same law now, and it will be the same at the Judgment: Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; but he that doth the will of My Father which is in heaven (Matt. 7:21). This is why in church (the great doxology) begins with "Glory to God in the highest," and toward the end it says, "Heal my soul...Teach me to do Thy will." Without this, praise of God has no worth. For then it does not proceed from the soul, but is only sent up from the tongue in someone else's words, and that is why the Lord pays no attention to it. One must arrange things so that others praise the Lord when they see our works, so that our life will be praise to God, for He does all things in all people, as long as you do not get in the way. It is to Him that praise for one's deeds ascends. Each person must become the fragrance of Christ; then even without praise there will be unceasing glorification of the Lord. A rose does not speak, but its fragrance spreads far in silence. This is how all Christians ought to live.

-From St. Theophan the Recluse

Sunday, September 11, 2016

Monday
II Cor. 5:10-15; Mark 1:9-15

The Lord began His sermon thus: The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the Gospel (Mark 1:15). At the end of the ages it will also be said; the time is fulfilled, the Kingdom is at hand. But this statement will not be followed by repent ye, and believe but by "come out to the Judgment." The time for repentance and labors of self-improvement will have ended. Let everyone give an account of what good or evil things he did in his body. And so, while there is time, hurry to use this time unto your salvation. The Father's embrace is open to receive all who come with a sincere feeling of contrition about the past and with a desire to serve God henceforth by the zealous fulfillment of His holy commandments. For each of us death is the end of this age; it is the door to the other life. Look into this more often and determine for yourself more truly: what will happen then? And having determined this without pitying yourself, begin laboring to prepare that which in you is not ready, that you might enter the place where joy is unending. Labor to push aside all that could give the servants of outer darkness the right to prevail over us and carry us away to their realm, whence there will no longer be a way out.

-From St.Theophan the Recluse


Wednesday, September 7, 2016

St. Basil Prison Ministry Pancake Breakfast - September 25


What is Christian Fellowship
(Part 3)

In the past two articles, we’ve looked at what makes Christian fellowship unique.  We’ve done this by looking at two goals within Christian fellowship that make it different from secular fellowship – that fellowship in the church is driven by gratitude for what Jesus Christ has done for us, and that Christian fellowship is worried primarily about the salvation of our neighbor – obviously, neither of which would be present in fellowship that isn’t God-centered.  We also looked at Holy Communion as the center of all fellowship – the event on which all fellowship is established for us.

Today, in our last look at fellowship in this series, we will look at something the scriptures tell us needs to exist for true fellowship to flourish within the church – that being transparency.  True Christian fellowship assumes that our community knows who we really are and not just a façade that we put forward.

  1. You can’t pray for needs you aren’t aware of

If the church is a community centered on and always directed towards Jesus Christ, which means that pray is the heart of the church.  If all that people at church know about us is how great our life is (when it is (perhaps?) behind the scenes not as clean and tidy) how can our fellow Christians pray for the real needs that we have.

  1. “Confess your sins to one another…”

St. James, in his epistle, writes the following to the early Christian Church:

Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much (5:16).

In the early church the sacrament of confession was not with the priest alone, but before the whole congregation – because all sin is a sin against all of creation – and so the church understood that we needed forgiveness from the whole community.  Even today when the priest hears confession, he hears it not as an isolated individual, but as the person assigned by the church to represent the church in offering forgiveness and absolution.

  1. Even AA admits that without transparency there’s never a healthy community.

It’s noteworthy that even not self-consciously Christian organizations, like Alcoholics Anonymous affirm the need for transparency in healing and community.  Step number five in the 12-step program reads,Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.”  Without community we can never be healthy – and the ultimate source of both healing and community is Jesus Christ and His church.

And, in the end, isn’t true community at the core of what we all long for?  May today be the day we begin, as a congregation to consciously struggle to make our parish a beacon of this self-sacrificing, other-center, sacramentally-focused, transparent love that Jesus Christ has called us to be, for our own health and salvation, and as a witness to the love of God for the world around us.


- Offered by Fr. Panteleimon Dalianis