How easily God forgives! The only thing that must occur is to open the door of your souls to Him. God does not wait for any reward for that which He gives to men. And even if your sins are millions or billions, for God this is counted as nothing. What is the worth of […]

Husbands never call her simply by her name, but with terms of endearment, with honor, with much love.  Honor her and she will not need honor from others she will not want the glory that comes from others, if she enjoys that which comes from you.  Prefer her before all, in all accounts both for […]

Because our Orthodox faith is one of tradition and liturgical structure, it is easy to fall into the trap of being nothing more than a Pharisee. Being strict in one’s observance of Orthodox practices can easily lead to pride and arrogance. If you find yourself feeling better than others and proud of your piety, you […]

With all your power, ask the Lord for humility and brotherly love, because God freely gives His grace for love towards one’s brother. Do an experiment on yourself: one day ask God for love towards your brother, and another day – live without love. You will see the difference. St. Silouan the Athonite

“Children, I beseech you to correct your hearts and thoughts, so that you may be pleasing to God. Consider that although we may reckon ourselves to be righteous and frequently succeed in deceiving men, we can conceal nothing from God. Let us therefore strive to preserve the holiness of our souls and to guard the […]

The longer we go on without confessing, the worse it is for us, the more entangled we become in the bonds of sin, and therefore the more difficult it is to give account. We ought to confess our sins more frequently, in order to strike and scourge the sins by the open avowal of them, […]

Faith originates in love; love, in contemplation. It is impossible not to love Christ. If we saw Him now, we should not be able to take our eyes off Him, we should “listen to Him in rapture”; we should flock around Him as did the multitudes in the Gospels. All that is required of us […]

“Those with no experience of prayer find it hard to believe how prayer broadens the horizons of the spirit.  Sometimes prayer consumes the heart like fire; and when the heart succumbs to the burning flame, unexpectedly there falls the dew of divine consolation. When we become so conscious of our frailty that our spirit despairs, […]

Waging war against  the flesh Since the eyes and the ears are the doors of the soul, an Orthodox Christian must not leave the body without attention. Unlike the religion of Gnosticism, which teaches the separation of soul and body, with the physical world being evil and something to be overcome, historic Christianity teaches the […]

There is nothing on earth that I need, except that which is most essential. What do I need, what is most essential? I need the Lord, I need His grace, His kingdom within me. On earth, which is the place of my wanderings, my temporary being, there is nothing that is truly mine, everything belongs […]