Despair Not

"Keep your mind in hell and despair not."

-Christ's message to St. Silouan the Athonite

Who am I?

Who am I?  I feel like the entirety of life is spent in answering this question.  What a better time than Lent to be able to make progress on this question.

Lord Have Mercy

Rest in peace to the brothers and sisters who perished at the New Zealand mosque shootings.  How much evil there is in the world.  How do you go into another person's place of worship and shoot down people in such a savage manner?

Martyrs

Think of the sufferings of the martyrs.  Think and stay silent.

No Limit

“A man who for years had thought he had reached the absolute limit of all possible suffering now found that suffering had no limits, and that he could suffer still more, and more intensely.”

-Victor Frankl 

The Journey of the Great Lent

Suffering for Christ.  Yes.  That is what we must do this Lent.  Even if the suffering is unbearable.  All things pass.  Christ is close to us in the pangs of affliction.

Two Miracles from St. Porphyrios

Humility

“Until you have suffered much in your heart, you cannot learn humility.” 

- Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica

The Great Lent

Suffering builds a man's character.  He learns what he really is when the fire of agony inflicts his body and soul.

Let us enter into the Great Lent by entering into the sufferings of Christ.  Let us mortify our deceptive flesh by the charters of fasting handed down by the Church.  By fasting from meat, dairy, oil and other things we love, we will enter the Great Mystery of Christ.

A man finds himself in fasting.  My Bosnian Muslim friend and I were talking about this earlier and we both agreed that fasting is one of the most powerful ways to connect with God.  How beautiful is fasting!  You don't need a book or anything to fast.  You don't need to buy anything.  It's accessible to all!