Poison

"Those who do not speak the words of God with humility must be advised that when they apply medicine to the sick, they must first inspect the poison of their own infection, or else by attempting to heal others, they kill themselves."

-Pope St. Gregory the Great

Orthodox Pope of Alexandria and Metropolitan of Kiev meet in Svyato-Uspenski Monastery

On Tradition

"Among the variety of meanings that can be noted in the Fathers of the first centuries, Tradition sometimes receives that of a teaching kept secret, not divulged, lest the mystery be profaned by the uninitiate.  This is clearly expressed by St. Basil in the distinction which he makes between dogma [and] kêrygma. “Dogma” here has a sense contrary to that given to this term today: far from being a doctrinal definition loudly proclaimed by the Church, it is a “teaching (didaskalia), unpublished and secret, that our fathers kept in silence, free from disquiet and curiosity, well knowing that in being silent one safeguards the sacred character of the mysteries. 

On the other hand the kêrygma (which means “preaching” in the language of the New Testament) is always an open proclamation, whether it be a doctrinal definition, the official prescription of an observance, a canonical act, or public prayers of the Church. Although they call to mind the doctrina arcana of the Gnostics, who also laid claim to a hidden apostolic tradition, the unwritten and secret traditions of which St. Basil speaks differ from it notably. First, the examples that he gives in the passage that we have mentioned show that St. Basil’s expressions relating to the “mysteries” do not concern an esoteric circle of a few perfect men in the interior of the Christian community, but rather the ensemble of the faithful participating in the sacramental life of the Church, who are here opposed to the “uninitiate”— those whom a progressive catechism must prepare for the sacraments of initiation."

-Vladimir Lossky

Yellowstone during Autumn

Autumn is such a blissful time of the year and this is especially true at Yellowstone.  When we look at the beauty of nature, we should always be reminded of the grandeur of God.  If we find such beauty in this life, how much more sublime must Paradise be?

Obscurity

In this day and age of social media, people, even those who claim to be religious, have felt the need to display the daily workings of their lives to others.  Hence, you will see people talk about nonsense on Facebook, Instagram, etc..

Why?  Should we not think of those countless men and women who lived their lives in obscurity?  They maintained constant communion with God, did their daily duties and loved their families.  Today, people rarely lift their hearts to God, look to inveigle in their daily duties and neglect their families.

Let us love obscurity.  Let us be forgotten by the world.  Let us be loyal to God and love our neighbor.  For what is true prayer but the constant remembrance of God?

The Piety of the Prince

"I have never in my life met a man like him for noble simplicity, and boundless truthfulness. I understood from the way he talked that anyone who chose could deceive him, and that he would forgive anyone afterwards who had deceived him, and that was why I grew to love him."

-Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot

Cancer

When a man learns that he has late stage cancer, it is a death sentence for him.  Why?  It means that the cancer has spread profusely and has gone past a point of no return.

Being born and raised here in the United States, I can say with great confidence that this place is sick from a cultural cancer that has infiltrated all facets of life.  Young men and women have no decency and will engage in many sexual encounters before they decide to marry.   Then, when marriage occurs, more than half end in failure because it is a basic fact that both parties are damaged from their premarital encounters.  Women dress in minimal clothing even when they are with their husbands!  I wish I was lying but I am not.  Men in both traditionally Islamic and Christian (Catholic and Orthodox) countries have always had a protective jealousy regarding our women.  We did not want other men to look on our women in a lustful manner!  What a disgusting thing it is to desire the focus of other men on the women of your family.  How pathetic the men in the diabolical west have become.

Added to this, we also have an increase in STDs, depression (and with it antidepressants), domestic violence, violence against children, drug problems with the youth, homosexuality and countless other ailments.  The Americans are blinded by their passions and this is leading them to the pit of everlasting despair.

The world was never perfect however I feel like things are accelerating to a nadir.  I have to remind myself on a daily basis that this world is a passing thing and that our true home is with God in Paradise.  This life is a test and we can only survive by ceaseless prayer and detachment.

Labour

“The soul that really loves God and Christ, though it may do ten thousand righteousnesses, esteems itself as having wrought nothing, by reason of its insatiable aspiration after God. Though it should exhaust the body with fastings, with watchings, its attitude towards the virtues is as if it had not yet even begun to labour for them.”

-St. Macarius the Great

Reminder

We spend our lives being jealous, lustful, gluttonous, greedy, prideful, hateful, envious, boastful and lazy.  Do we not remember that this flesh will enter the grave?  That it will rot under the natural laws of decomposition? 

Lord, forgive me, a wretched sinner.

The Oasis Within

"Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, sea-shores, and mountains; and thou too art wont to desire such things very much. But this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul, particularly when he has within him such thoughts that by looking into them he is immediately in perfect tranquility; and I affirm that tranquility is nothing else than the good ordering of the mind. Constantly then give to thyself this retreat, and renew thyself; and let thy principles be brief and fundamental, which, as soon as thou shalt recur to them, will be sufficient to cleanse the soul completely, and to send thee back free from all discontent with the things to which thou returnest. For with what art thou discontented? With the badness of men? Recall to thy mind this conclusion, that rational animals exist for one another, and that to endure is a part of justice, and that men do wrong involuntarily; and consider how many already, after mutual enmity, suspicion, hatred, and fighting, have been stretched dead, reduced to ashes; and be quiet at last.- But perhaps thou art dissatisfied with that which is assigned to thee out of the universe.- Recall to thy recollection this alternative; either there is providence or atoms, fortuitous concurrence of things; or remember the arguments by which it has been proved that the world is a kind of political community, and be quiet at last.- But perhaps corporeal things will still fasten upon thee.- Consider then further that the mind mingles not with the breath, whether moving gently or violently, when it has once drawn itself apart and discovered its own power, and think also of all that thou hast heard and assented to about pain and pleasure, and be quiet at last.- But perhaps the desire of the thing called fame will torment thee.- See how soon everything is forgotten, and look at the chaos of infinite time on each side of the present, and the emptiness of applause, and the changeableness and want of judgement in those who pretend to give praise, and the narrowness of the space within which it is circumscribed, and be quiet at last. For the whole earth is a point, and how small a nook in it is this thy dwelling, and how few are there in it, and what kind of people are they who will praise thee. 

This then remains: Remember to retire into this little territory of thy own, and above all do not distract or strain thyself, but be free, and look at things as a man, as a human being, as a citizen, as a mortal. But among the things readiest to thy hand to which thou shalt turn, let there be these, which are two. One is that things do not touch the soul, for they are external and remain immovable; but our perturbations come only from the opinion which is within. The other is that all these things, which thou seest, change immediately and will no longer be; and constantly bear in mind how many of these changes thou hast already witnessed. The universe is transformation: life is opinion."

-Marcus Aurelius, Book IV (The Meditations)

Freedom

“Some people by the word freedom understand the ability to do whatever one wants … People who have the more allowed themselves to come into slavery to sins, passions, and defilements more often than others appear as zealots of external freedom, wanting to broaden the laws as much as possible. But such a man uses external freedom only to more severely burden himself with inner slavery. True freedom is the active ability of a man who is not enslaved to sin, who is not pricked by a condemning conscience, to choose the better in the light of God’s truth, and to bring it into actuality with the help of the gracious power of God. This is the freedom of which neither heaven nor earth are restrict.”

-St. Philaret of Moscow

Ecstasy

Oh Beloved of God, what heights you must have reached to have been worthy enough to taste Him who is pure Light.  Oh Beloved One, in your ecstasy, you communed with the Creator of the Universe.  How did it feel to be in His presence?  Was not your heart moved?  Did not your tears create a river of divine delights?

Death by Reverse Swing

Pure poetry.

The Piety of Alyosha

"There was something about him which made one feel at once (and it was so all his life afterwards) that he did not care to be a judge of others that he would never take it upon himself to criticise and would never condemn anyone for anything. He seemed, indeed, to accept everything without the least condemnation though often grieving bitterly: and this was so much so that no one could surprise or frighten him even in his earliest youth. Coming at twenty to his father’s house, which was a very sink of filthy debauchery, he, chaste and pure as he was, simply withdrew in silence when to look on was unbearable, but without the slightest sign of contempt or condemnation. His father, who had once been in a dependent position, and so was sensitive and ready to take offence, met him at first with distrust and sullenness. “He does not say much,” he used to say, “and thinks the more.”"

-Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

The Era of the Dajjal

Have you noticed all of the one eyed symbolism in society of late?  The Dele Alli eye celebration?  Movie posters and musical artists in which the folks in it are either covering up an eye or where only one eye is present?

I figure this will only increase in frequency as we head into the Antichristic period.  When one sells himself to the great deceiver, one's vision is clouded by the darkness of satan.  Hence, the one eye being blinded is the price these people pay for their worldly success.

Terrible times are ahead for us.

High Mass at Westminster Cathedral (1950)

Peace

“Wherever God is — there is peace. And the opposite is self-evident: where there is envy, enmity, impatience, self-love — there is the devil. Wherever the devil is — there, everything is ruinous, proud and hostile.”

-St. Anatoly of Optina

For a Day

"Everything is only for a day, both that which remembers and that which is remembered."

-Marcus Aurelius

Diversion

"You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts; And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime. And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered."

-Kahlil Gibran

His Majesty, the King of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, King Abdullah I with Palestinian Christians

The men in this picture are dearer to my heart than all of the riches in the world.  Thank you, King Abdullah I for your protection of the Orthodox and Catholics in the dire years after the creation of the diabolical Zionist state.  How painful it must have been for us when some misguided man killed you at Al-Aqsa during the sacred Friday Prayers.

Rest in peace, friends.  May we meet one day in a better land.

Royal House

“One must clean the royal house from every impurity and adorn it with every beauty, then the king may enter into it. In a similar way one must first cleanse the earth of the heart and uproot the weeds of sin and the passionate deeds and soften it with sorrows and the narrow way of life, sow in it the seed of virtue, water it with lamentation and tears, and only then does the fruit of dispassion and eternal life grow. For the Holy Spirit does not dwell in a man until he has been cleansed from passions of the soul and body.”

-St. Paisius Velichkovsky

Patriarch of Moscow Visits Constantinople

May the meeting be a fruitful one between these two brother Patriarchs!