Flee

"Abba Macarius the Great said to the brothers at Scetis when he dismissed the assembly, 'Flee, my brothers.' One of the old men asked him, 'Where could we flee to beyond this desert?' He put his finger on his lips and said, 'Flee that,' and he went into his cell, shut the door and sat down."

We Choose Christ and His Catholic Church

We as Catholics should always be loyal to Christ and His Church.  When we die, Christ will not ask how loyal we were to the Founding Fathers of the United States and the Constitution.  No, He will bring to us the account of our sins and ask us how loyal we were to His Church.

Do not lose your soul in order to please your fellow denizens.  

RIP, Jose Fernandez

This hurts for any baseball fan.  Jose Fernandez, the star ace of the Miami Marlins, was found dead early this morning.

He was one of the best pitchers of the game and as a 24 year old, he had his whole future ahead of him.

Please pray for his eternal repose.

Before

"You may think that your voice did not reach the saints, our Panagia or Christ.  On the contrary, even before you cried out, they rushed to your aid."

-Blessed Elder Joseph the Hesychast

Lives Wasted

There are many people in the world that are wasting their lives by engaging in sins against the flesh and other iniquities on daily basis.

Since the Law of God is written on all hearts, I am sure that they know that their lives are incomplete and are missing something critical.

Life is supposed to be much more.  Sex, drugs, partying, wasting time, gossiping, useless noise...a life wasted.

If you will it, you could be all flame.

The Silence of Bl. Francisco

"Francisco was a boy of few words. Whenever he prayed or offered sacrifices, he preferred to go apart and hide, even from Jacinta and myself. Quite often, we surprised him hidden behind a wall or a clump of blackberry bushes, whither he had ingeniously slipped away to kneel and pray, or ‘think’ as he said, ‘of Our Lord…’ I asked him: ‘Francisco, why don’t you tell me to pray with you, and Jacinta too?’ ‘I prefer praying by myself,’ he answered, ‘so that I can think and console our Lord,…’

"Sometimes, on our way to school, as soon as we reached Fátima, he would say to me: ‘Listen! You go to school, and I’ll stay here in the church, close to the Hidden Jesus. It’s not worth my while learning to read, as I’ll be going to heaven very soon [the Blessed Mother had promised him as much!]. On your way home, come here and call me.’ … Francisco went [to kneel before the tabernacle]. … and that was where I found him on my return [from school, hours later.]"

-Sr. Lucy of Fatima on Bl. Francisco

Moment of Silence

“I have discovered that it is enough when a single note is beautifully played. This one note, or a silent beat, or a moment of silence, comforts me.”

-Arvo Part 

Minor to Major to Death

This is one thing that many people forget about sin.  Many souls, who do not commit grave sins, might be content with a spiritual life in which they are committing minor sins.  Actually, content might not be the perfect word however it does not bother them too much.

However, a soul that does not see minor sins with a great deal of repugnance, will in only a matter of time start to engage in sins that are much greater in evil and which will be darker in nature.  Also, when it comes to sinning, a soul can fall into a abyss which has no floor.

Sin can take you to a very dark place.  However, God always always has a Plan B.  He always gives us a chance to turn it all around.

Brink of Despair

"Often near to the brink of despair, the soul does not know that it stands already at the border beyond which begins a new path."

+St. Barsanuphius of Optina

Long Live the Beard

“The beard signifies the courageous; the beard distinguishes the grown men, the earnest, the active, the vigorous. So that when we describe such, we say, he is a bearded man.”

-St. Augustine

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“But for one who is a man to comb himself and shave himself with a razor, for the sake of fine effect, to arrange his hair at the looking-glass, to shave his cheeks, pluck hairs out of them, and smooth them, how womanly! […] For this is a meretricious and impious form of snare. For God wished women to be smooth, and rejoice in their locks alone growing spontaneously, as a horse in his mane; but has adorned man, like the lions, with a beard, and endowed him, as an attribute of manhood, with a shaggy chest – a sign of strength and rule. […]

“This, then, the mark of the man, the beard, by which he is seen to be a man, is older than Eve… In this God deemed it right that he should excel, and dispersed hair over man's whole body. Whatever smoothness and softness was in him He abstracted from his side when He formed the woman Eve, physically receptive, his partner in parentage, his help in household management, while he (for he had parted with all smoothness) remained a man, and shows himself man. […]

“Wherefore males have both more hair and more heat than females… It is therefore impious to desecrate the symbol of manhood, hairiness. But the embellishment of smoothing (for I am warned by the Word), if it is to attract men, is the act of an effeminate person,— if to attract women, is the act of an adulterer; and both must be driven as far as possible from our society. […]

“Let the head of men be shaven, unless it has curly hair. But let the chin have the hair. But let not twisted locks hang far down from the head, gliding into womanish ringlets. For an ample beard suffices for men. And if one, too, shave a part of his beard, it must not be made entirely bare, for this is a disgraceful sight. The shaving of the chin to the skin is reprehensible, approaching to plucking out the hair and smoothing. For instance, thus the Psalmist, delighted with the hair of the beard, says, ‘As the ointment that descends on the beard, the beard of Aaron.’ Having celebrated the beauty of the beard by a repetition, he made the face to shine with the ointment of the Lord.”

-St. Clement of Alexandria

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"We have now for many centuries triumphed over nature to the extent of making certain secondary characteristics of the male (such as the beard) disagreeable to nearly all the females—and there is more in that than you might suppose."
-C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters.

Orthodox Kiev's Seminary - School Year begins

Prayers for the students for the new school year!

Arvo Part's Spiegel im Spiegel

Do Not Forget

“The Lord sometimes allows people who are devoted to Him to fall into such dreadful vices; and this is in order to prevent them from falling into a still greater sin–pride.

Your temptation will pass and you will spend the remaining days of your life in humility. Only do not forget your sin.”

-St. Seraphim of Sarov