Orthodoxy Or Death - Tumblr Posts
“In the Last Days a man will be saved by love, humility and kindness. Kindness will open the gates of heaven; humility will lead one into heaven; a man whose heart is filled with love will see God. This is my last will and testament: raise your prayers for everyone; your prayers will move the mountains. Love each other.”
– St Gabriel of Georgia
Christ has a special love for those who grew up without fathers.
Can we ever conceive of how much criticism God endured having grown up with a Virgin Mother? How many whispered doubts, how many ruinous rumors, how many family members and friends made funny jokes out of his paternity?
Matthew 13:55 showed us what kind of environment Jesus grew up in. When Jesus was in His hometown of Nazareth, he spoke to the people in parables and the crowd was amazed but they doubted on account of having known Jesus when He was a child.
“And when he was come into his own country, he taught them in their synagogue, insomuch that they were astonished, and said, Whence hath this man this wisdom, and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter's son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things? And they were offended in him.”
Christ was in Nazareth after performing miracles and gaining many disciples, and people only acknowledged him as the Carpenter’s son.
Church tradition states that St. Joseph the Carpenter, had been an elderly man when he was betrothed to the Ever-Virgin Theotokos. He was 80 years old while the Panagia was 13.
How many gossipers saw the family of Joseph, an elderly man, with his sons from a previous marriage (James, Joses, Simon, and Judas) and then saw Mary with her young son and were scandalized? Assuming adultery on her part, on account of the age of the man to whom She was betrothed?
I used to think I couldn’t be Christian because Church was only for perfect families. I grew up in Protestant churches where people judged me because of my broken family. How wrong I was!
Christ our God has a special love for people who grew up in broken families. He understands people like us better than anyone else can.
The envious devil has three traps that steal joy and peace from man: regret for the past, anxiety about the future and ingratitude for the present.
+ St. Anthony the Great (4th century)
If you could see how much grace descends during the Divine Liturgy, you would gather the dust in church and wash your face with it!
+ St. Gabriel the Fool-for-Christ (☦︎ 1995)
"Atheism, true ‘existential’ atheism, burning with hatred of a seemingly unjust or unmerciful God, is a spiritual state; it is a real attempt to grapple with the true God whose ways are so inexplicable even to the most believing of men, and it has more than once been known to end in a blinding vision of Him Whom the real atheist truly seeks. It is Christ who works in these souls. The Antichrist is not to be found in the great deniers, but in the small affirmers, whose Christ is only on the lips. Nietzsche, in calling himself antichrist, proved thereby his intense hunger for Christ…"
~Fr. Seraphim Rose
There are two ways of humility. The first humility is to consider your brother more intelligent than yourself and superior in all things, in a word, consider yourself inferior to all. The second humility is to ascribe to God one's feats, this is the perfect humility of the saints. It is obviously born in the soul from the fulfillment of the commandments. So the branches, when there are many fruits on them, the fruits bend down, but the branch, which has no fruits, rises up and grows straight. There are some trees that do not bear fruit as long as the branches are growing up, if you hang a stone against the branch and bend it, it will bear fruit. So is the soul: when it humbles itself, it bears fruit, and the more it bears fruit, the more it humbles itself. So are the saints: the closer they get to God, the more sinful they see themselves.
Rev. Abba Dorofia