The Nativity of Christ

St. Nicholas

Troparion, Tone IV:

"The truth of things revealed thee to thy flock as a rule of faith, a model of meekness and a teacher of abstinence wherefore thou hast attained the heights through humility and riches through poverty. O hierarch Nicholas our father, entreat Christ God that our souls be saved."


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St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, pray for us!

In The Flesh

“When God became known to us in the flesh, He neither received the passions of human nature, nor did the Virgin Mary suffer pain, nor was the Holy Spirit diminished in any way, nor was the power of the Most High set aside in any manner, and all this was because all was accomplished by the Holy Spirit. thus the power of the Most High was not abased, and the child was born with no damage whatsoever to the mother’s virginity.”

-St. Gregory of Nyssa

You are at the Olympic Games

"How long are you going to wait before you demand the best for yourself and in no instance bypass the discriminations of reason? You have been given the principles that you ought to endorse, and you have endorsed them. What kind of teacher, then, are you still waiting for in order to refer your self-improvement to him? You are no longer a boy, but a full-grown man. If you are careless and lazy now and keep putting things off and always deferring the day after which you will attend to yourself, you will not notice that you are making no progress, but you will live and die as someone quite ordinary. From now on, then, resolve to live as a grown-up who is making progress, and make whatever you think best a law that you never set aside. And whenever you encounter anything that is difficult or pleasurable, or highly or lowly regarded, remember that the contest is now: you are at the Olympic Games, you cannot wait any longer, and that your progress is wrecked or preserved by a single day and a single event. That is how Socrates fulfilled himself by attending to nothing except reason in everything he encountered. And you, although you are not yet a Socrates, should live as someone who at least wants to be a Socrates."

-Epictetus

Fear of God

"Always have the fear of God in your heart, and remember that God is always with you, everywhere, whether you are walking or sitting."

-St. Gennadius of Constantinople

It is Nothing

"But do not of your own accord make your troubles heavier to bear and burden yourself with complaining. Pain is slight if opinion has added nothing to it; but if, on the other hand, you begin to encourage yourself and say, "It is nothing, – a trifling matter at most; keep a stout heart and it will soon cease"; then in thinking it slight, you will make it slight. Everything depends on opinion; ambition, luxury, greed, hark back to opinion. It is according to opinion that we suffer"

-Seneca, Letter 78

Divine Liturgy - Monastery of Vatopedi

Sunset at the Adelaide Oval, Day 4 of the Second Test

Source: Cameron Spencer, Getty Images.

Patient Endurance

“Patient endurance kills the despair that kills the soul; it teaches the soul to take comfort and not to grow listless in the face of its many battles and afflictions”

-St. Peter of Damaskos

Smith's Wicket Falls

The captain is bowled for 40 in the second test.

After a tense first day, Australia find themselves 209/4 at stumps.