“If you want to know God, read the Holy Bible. If you want to know your neighbor, read the Fathers of the Church. If you want to know yourself, read Dostoevsky.”
- Fr. Iakovos of Simona Petra Monastery
An Icon of St. Peter and St. Paul
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If i give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Therefore make Love your aim.”
-1 Corinthians 13
“Sin lies in yielding to evil thoughts, not in having them. We are never free from these thoughts, for such is our nature, obscured by sin; even the saints had evil thoughts. Our voluntary yielding to evil thoughts or our struggle against them - herein lies our defeat or our victory.”
- Fr. Alexander Elchaninov
+ FOOD FOR THOUGHT +
The only survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a small, uninhabited island. He prayed feverishly for God to rescue him. Every day he scanned the horizon for help, but none seemed forthcoming. Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a little hut out of driftwood to protect himself from the elements, and to store his few possessions. One day, after scavenging for food, he arrived home to find his little hut in flames, with smoke rolling up to the sky. He felt the worst had happened, and everything was lost. He was stunned with disbelief, grief, and anger. He cried out,
‘God! How could you do this to me?’
Early the next day, he was awakened by the sound of a ship approaching the island! It had come to rescue him!
‘How did you know I was here?’ asked the weary man of his rescuers.
‘We saw your smoke signal,’ they replied.
—————-
The Moral of This Story: It’s easy to get discouraged when things are going bad, but we shouldn’t lose heart, because God is at work in our lives, even in the midst of our pain and suffering. Remember that the next time your little hut seems to be burning to the ground… it just may be a smoke signal that summons the Grace of God.
“A woman’s heart should be so hidden in God, that man has to seek Him just to find her.”
- Max Lucado
“Life is a precious and unique gift, and we squander it foolishly and carelessly, forgetful of its brevity. Either we look back with yearning on the past or else we live in the expectation of a future in which, it seems to us, life will really begin; whereas the present -that is, our life as it actually is - is wasted in these fruitless dreams and regrets.”
- Fr. Alexander Elchaninov
“It seems to me the most absurd thing in the world to be upset because I am weak and distracted and blind and constantly make mistakes! What else do I expect? Does God love me any less because I can’t make myself a saint by my own power and in my own way? He loves me more because I am so clumsy and helpless without Him - and underneath what I am He sees me as I will one day be by His pure gift, and that pleases Him, and therefore it pleases me, and so I attend to His great love which is my joy.”
