☦️🕯️“Concerning prayer in church, know that it is higher than prayers at home, for it is raised by a whole group of people, among which many are most pure prayers, offering to God from humble hearts, which He accepts as fragrant incense. Along with these our prayers are also accepted, even though they are feeble and worthless.”🕯️☦️
♰ St. Macarius of Optina ♰
♰ St. Macarius of Optina ♰
☦️ On the Second Commandment ☦️
Q: What is a graven image, as spoken of in the second commandment?
— The commandment itself explains that a graven image, or idol, is the likeness of some creature in heaven, or earth, or in the waters, which men bow down to and serve instead of God their Maker.
Q: Are we not hereby forbidden to have any sacred representations whatever?
— By no means. This very plainly appears from hence, that the same Moses through whom God gave the commandment against graven images, received at the same time from God an order to place in the tabernacle, or movable temple of the Israelites, sacred representations of Cherubim in gold, and to place them, too, in that inner part of the temple to which the people turned for the worship of God.
Catechism of the Orthodox Church
Q: What is a graven image, as spoken of in the second commandment?
— The commandment itself explains that a graven image, or idol, is the likeness of some creature in heaven, or earth, or in the waters, which men bow down to and serve instead of God their Maker.
Q: Are we not hereby forbidden to have any sacred representations whatever?
— By no means. This very plainly appears from hence, that the same Moses through whom God gave the commandment against graven images, received at the same time from God an order to place in the tabernacle, or movable temple of the Israelites, sacred representations of Cherubim in gold, and to place them, too, in that inner part of the temple to which the people turned for the worship of God.
Catechism of the Orthodox Church
“We should zealously cultivate watchfulness, my brethren; and when — our mind purified in Christ Jesus — we are exalted by the vision it confers, we should review our sins and our former life, so that shattered and humbled at the thought of them we may never lose the help of Jesus Christ our God in the invisible battle.”
St Hesychios The Priest
The Saint explains what watchfulness is:
"Watchfulness is a continual fixing and halting of thought at the entrance to the heart... If we are conscientious in this, we can gain much experience and knowledge of spiritual warfare."
It means our efforts in examining our thoughts and intentions for compliance with God’s commandments.
St Hesychios The Priest
The Saint explains what watchfulness is:
"Watchfulness is a continual fixing and halting of thought at the entrance to the heart... If we are conscientious in this, we can gain much experience and knowledge of spiritual warfare."
It means our efforts in examining our thoughts and intentions for compliance with God’s commandments.
“Woe is he who abides in sin and can find no time for repentance, for in that place shall he repent, mourning his sins to no avail unto the ages.”
St. Ephraim the Syrian
Repentance does not mean just being sorry for something. It means changing of mind and intentions, thinking differently, acknowledging own unworthiness and seeing those who we offended as God’s image.
St. Ephraim the Syrian
Repentance does not mean just being sorry for something. It means changing of mind and intentions, thinking differently, acknowledging own unworthiness and seeing those who we offended as God’s image.
🌟 Prayer is the only propitiation and the bird of heaven, which on its wings can in the twinkling of an eye deliver to the mind messages from God and our Savior, in order to reconcile both sides and unite the Immaterial God with man, let us say, insignificant and material.
St. Joseph the Hesychast
Venerable Kazan Icon (Saint Petersburg) in the photo. Many of us stand in the queue to it from time to time.
St. Joseph the Hesychast
Venerable Kazan Icon (Saint Petersburg) in the photo. Many of us stand in the queue to it from time to time.
In Vologda, a strongly Orthodox northern region. Many saints lived there, a number in 15th century in particular.
Shame is normal at the Confession, the more shameful, the more salvific. The devil hates Confession most of all. It's possible to take Communion and stayed uncommuned, as St. Seraphim of Sarov and a number of others explained, but true Confession breaks the chains upon which the enemy counts, and sets the soul free to go to the Kingdom of Heaven.
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A Russian boy was attacked by big man. The Christian attitude is nothing like giving up to violence, the latter is a teaching of Leo Tolstoy, who was officially excommunicated for his heresy.