Leave the Brain and Enter the Heart

"You should descend to your heart from your head... The life is in the heart, so you should live there. Do not think that this applies only to the perfect. No, it applies to everyone who begins to seek out the Lord."

-St. Theophan the Recluse

No Bounds

“The person who loves God cannot help loving every man as himself, even though he is grieved by the passions of those who are not yet purified. But when they amend their lives, his delight is indescribable and knows no bounds.”

-St. Maximus the Confessor

Grace

"All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful.”

-Flannery O'Connor

Our Love for God and Man

"In the twilight of life, God will not judge us on our earthly possessions and human successes, but on how well we have loved.”

-St. Juan de la Cruz

Poetry

Affliction

"Do not claim to have acquired virtue unless you have suffered affliction, for without affliction virtue has not been tested."

-St. Mark the Ascetic

On the Apostles' Fast

"The contemporary God is much the same as the contemporary diet – we want as much of Him as we want – anytime, anywhere. There is no rhythm to our desire, only the rise and fall of passions. There is no legalism in the Orthodox fast. I do not think God punishes those who fail to fast. I believe that they simply continue to become less and less human. We will not accept the limits and boundaries of our existence and thus find desires to be incessant and unruly. It makes us bestial."

-On the Apostles' Fast



A blessed Apostles' Fast to all Byzantine Christians!

The Beauty of Sorrow

“A continuously happy life produces extremely unhappy consequences. In nature we see that there are not always pleasant springs and fruitful summers, and sometimes autumn is rainy and winter cold and snowy, and there is flooding and wind and storms, and moreover the crops fail and there are famine, troubles, sicknesses and many other misfortunes. All of this is beneficial so that man might learn through prudence, patience and humility. For the most part, in times of plenty he forgets himself, but in times of various sorrows he becomes more attentive to his salvation.”

-St. Ambrose of Optina

Live in the Heart

Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, “Abba as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?” then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, “If you will, you can become all flame.”

-From the Desert Fathers

Storehouse

"When we strive with diligent sobriety to keep watch over our rational faculties, to control and correct them, how else can we succeed in this task except by collecting our mind, which is dispersed abroad through the senses, and bringing it back into the world within, into the heart itself, which is the storehouse of all our thoughts?"

-St. Gregory Palamas 

The Depths of Argentine Despair

Pity Him

"If you see a man who has sinned and you do not pity him, the grace of God will leave you. Whoever curses bad people, and does not pray for them, will never come to know the grace of God."

-St. Silouan the Athonite

Arvo Part - Summa (Dublin Guitar Quartet)

Merveilleux Sénégal

I have adopted Senegal (and Morocco for a second team) for the World Cup this year and the boys have started out the campaign in the best way possible.  A victory over the favorites of the group, Poland!

Go Senegal!  IMPOSSIBLE N’EST PAS SENEGALAIS!!!

Educates Him Wholly

“The Church, through the temple and Divine service, acts upon the entire man, educates him wholly; acts upon his sight, hearing, smelling, feeling, taste, imagination, mind, and will, by the splendour of the icons and of the whole temple, by the ringing of bells, by the singing of the choir, by the fragrance of the incense, the kissing of the Gospel, of the cross and the holy icons, by the prosphoras, the singing, and sweet sound of the readings of the Scriptures.”

-St. John of Kronstadt

Hymns from the Psalter, Mount Athos

The Reality of Hell

“Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire which seemed to be under the earth. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in a huge fire, without weight or equilibrium, and amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, all black and transparent.”

-Account of what the Theotokos revealed to the three children at Fatima (1917)



How I wish I could instill this reality into the hearts of man.  This reality of hell.  This bottomless pit which many will have chosen by their actions in life.

Be alert!  The Bridegroom cometh!

Hide Themselves

"There are two classes of people who hide themselves: the criminal who flees punishment, and the saint who through humility wishes to remain unknown"

-Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange 

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


"We shall wear the beard after the example of Christ and our first saints, since it is something manly, natural, severe, despised and austere."
-Capuchin Constitutions of 1536

Brazilian Friars, circa 1875

Pray the Traditional Divine Office!

"I close my eyes, and while my lips murmur the words of the Breviary which I know by heart, I leave behind their literal meaning, and feel that I am in that endless land where the Church, militant and pilgrim, passes, walking towards the promised fatherland. I breathe with the Church in the same light by day, the same darkness by night; I see on every side of me the forces of evil that beset and assail Her; I find myself in the midst of Her battles and victories, Her prayers of anguish and Her songs of triumph, in the midst of the oppression of prisoners, the groans of the dying, the rejoicing of the armies and captains victorious. I find myself in their midst, but not as a passive spectator; nay rather, as one whose vigilance and skill, whose strength and courage can bear a decisive weight on the outcome of the struggle between good and evil, and upon the eternal destinies of individual men and of the multitude."

-Blessed Cardinal Ildefonso Schuster

Pray Without Ceasing

"Let not one think, my fellow Christian, that only priests and monks need to pray without ceasing and not laymen No, no; every Christian without exception ought to dwell always in prayer."

-St. Gregory Palamas

Fools For Christ

"Either we are fools for the world because of Christ or we are fools for Christ because of the world. O how short-lived is the sound of a word of the world! If the world would say to us ‘fool,’ the world will die and its word will die! What then is the value of its word? But if the heavenly, immortal ones say to us ‘fool,’ that will neither die nor is it removed from us as eternal condemnation."

-St. Nikolai Velimirovich

THE WORLD CUP IS FINALLY HERE!

A month long festival of The Beautiful Game! 

Thank you Pope Leo XIII

"We have begun to have hope, We are fostering it because its realization would be a great cause for joy, and, it is a fact, We are pursuing more strenuously this work so profitable for the salvation of many. Our goal is to discharge to the utmost degree whatever may be hoped for from the prudent direction of the Apostolic See. The reasons for rivalry and suspicion must be removed; then the fullest energies can be marshaled for reconciliation. We consider this of paramount importance to preserving the integrity proper to the discipline of the Eastern Churches. For Our part, We have ever rendered extreme attention and concern for this endeavor. In this vein, We have already given instructions for establishing schools to form young clerics of their nationalities. We shall give a like instruction for erecting other institutes. In them the students will cultivate their rites with the greatest devotion, observe them, and have full knowledge of their usages. In point of fact there is more importance than can be believed in preserving the Eastern rites. Their antiquity is august, it is what gives nobility to the different rites, it is a brilliant jewel for the whole Church, it confirms the God-given unity of the Catholic Faith."

 -Pope Leo XIII, Orientalium Dignitas

The Russicum, Rome

St. Nicholas II of Russia, pray for us!