Elder Porphyry the Kapsokalivite Sees a Provocatively Dressed Woman

Elder Porphyry Bairaktaris the Kapsokalivite

Years ago, when the Elder served at the Polyclinic of Athens, while walking in the area of Omonoia one day with two girls who were his spiritual children, he saw from across the street a young woman coming with a sexy appearance. She was wearing the familiar “super mini skirt” which was fashionable. When they saw her, the Elder said:

“What do you have to say? What are you thinking? Are you judging that woman?”

“No, Elder”, they responded, understanding their position.

“You do well to not judge her”, said the Elder. “Do not judge people from their outward appearance. That girl you see has a wonderful soul! She has a dynamic soul. That which she is doing now, that is, provoking, is due to the current strength of her soul. Imagine what would happen if that girl came to know Christ, and knew everything that you knew. Then she will certainly reach a high place.”

This was the way Fr. Porphyry counseled and taught. He guided through life and experience.

* ΘΗΣΑΥΡΟΣ ΓΝΩΣΕΩΝ ΚΑΙ ΕΥΣΕΒΕΙΑΣ

Saint Silvanus the Athonite on Suffering

St. Silvanus the Athonite

We suffer because we have no humility and we do not love our brother. From love of our brother comes the love of God. People do not learn humility, and because of their pride cannot receive the grace of the Holy Spirit, and therefore the whole world suffers.

* Orthodox Fellowship of All Saints of China

Hymns of Holy Monday Chanted by the Monks of Vatopedi Monastery, Mount Athos

Fr. Robert Barron on the Saints

Fr. Robert Barron

G.K. Chesterton once remarked, “There are saints in my religion, but that just means men who know they are sinners.” For the great English apologist, the relevant distinction is not between sinners and non-sinners, but between those sinners who know their sin and those who, for whatever reason, don’t. The heroes of the faith – the saints – are precisely those who are ordered toward God and who therefore have a keener appreciation of how far they fall short of the ideal. Saint John of the Cross compared the soul to a pane of glass. When it is facing away from the light, its smudges and imperfections are barely noticeable, but when it is directed at the light, every mark, even the smallest, becomes visible. This explains the paradox that the saints are most keenly aware of their sins, even to the point of describing themselves as the worst of sinners. We might mistake this for false modesty, but it is in fact a function of a truly saintly psychology.

* This excerpt is from “Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith” by Fr. Robert Barron
** Photo credit

Agni Parthene (O Virgin Pure) Chanted at the Boston Marathon Memorial

Saint Ambrose of Optina on Spiritual & Emotional Dissatisfaction

St. Ambrose of Optina

It is useless to accuse those around us and those who live with us of somehow interfering with or being an impediment to our salvation and spiritual perfection… Spiritual or emotional dissatisfaction comes from within ourselves, from inexperience and from poorly conceived opinions we do not want to abandon, but which bring on doubt, embarrassment, and misunderstanding.  All of this tires and burdens us, and brings us to a sorry state.  We would do well to comprehend the Holy Fathers’ simple advice: If we will humble ourselves, we will find tranquility anywhere, without having to mentally wander about many other places, where we might have the same, or even worse, experiences.

* Voice of the Fathers

Elder Paisius the Athonite Boils Milk During Lent

Elder Paisius the Athonite

At Panagouda, the Cell of Elder Paisius, there are two visitors from Thessaloniki. They stand, leaning on the chestnut tree. Both in their fifties, they are pale and cantankerous. They seem to be from an ecclesiastical organization, because they are looking reproachfully at the Elder, and making comments to each other quietly. The children are playing, making a fuss – at which Paisius turns and says quietly:

“Do not make noise, because beside here, beneath the earth, Americans are hidden and we will wake them, and they will come to interrupt our silence.”

The children stop, and are silently puzzled. At the opposite end, John leans sideways against the rock atop his sack. He lights a cigarette. The two visitors, who appear to be harsh pietists, continue to look at the Elder with disapproval as he boils milk and oversees that it does not spill over. One of them can’t stand it anymore and tells the monk:

“Elder Paisius, we are in the first days of Lent, we have a strict fast, and you are boiling milk to drink?”

The Elder is silent. He does not respond. He grabs the pot and lowers it, since the milk is boiled.

He then goes into his Cell, bringing six small, old china cups, he puts them next to each other, and carefully pours the milk into each one. He waits a bit for it to cool off, while everyone looks at him with amazement and silence. The two pietists observe this with disgust, thinking that since there are six visitors and six cups, perhaps the monk will offer them milk during these strict days of the fast.

Elder Paisius takes the full cups one by one, places them on a wooden tray, and carries them seven meters away, where he places them down on the dirt, at the edge of a bush.

He places them there in order, then he comes, sits next to us, and begins to do something with his mouth silently, an eery whistling, while looking towards the bushes. Not a few moments pass, and over there, from the bushes, comes out a viper with five small snakes very carefully – her children. I hold my breath.

The snakes are coming, all of them approaching, one by one, slithering, passing right next to us, and they go slowly-slowly to the cups, and begin drinking calmly, slurping their morning milk.

* This excerpt is from “Επί ψύλλου κρεμάμενος” (Κέδρος 2003), translated by John Sanidopoulos

Saint Josemaria Escriva on Purity & Charity

St. Josemaria Escriva

How beautiful is holy purity! But it is not holy, nor pleasing to God, if we separate it from charity. Charity is the seed that will grow and yield rich fruit under the fertile rain of purity. Without charity, purity is barren, and its sterile waters turn the soul into a swamp, into a cesspool from which rises the stench of pride.

* This excerpt is from “The Way” by St. Josemaria Escriva

Pope Benedict XVI on “Our Daily Bread”

Blessed Teresa of Kolkata & Pope Benedict XVI (then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger)

In his exposition of the Lord’s Prayer, Saint Cyprian [of Carthage] draws our attention to two important aspects of the fourth petition: [“Give us this day our daily bread.” (Matt 6:11)] He has already underscored the far-reaching significance of the word our in his discussion of the phrase “our Father,” and here likewise he points out that the reference is to “our” bread. Here, too, we pray in the communion of the disciples, in the communion of the children of God, and for this reason no one may think only of himself. A further step follows: we pray for our bread – and that means we also pray for bread for others. Those who have an abundance of bread are called to share. In his exposition of the First Letter to the Corinthians – of the scandal Christians were causing in Corinth – Saint John Chrysostom emphasizes that “every bite of bread in one way or another is a bite of the bread that belongs to everyone, of the bread of the world,” Father [Peter Hans] Kolvenbach adds: “If we invoke our Father over the Lord’s Table and at the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, how can we exempt ourselves from declaring our unshakable resolve to help all men, our brothers, to obtain their daily bread?” (Der östliche Weg, p. 98). By expressing this petition in the first person plural, the Lord is telling us: “Give them something to eat yourselves” (Mk 6:37).

* This excerpt is from “Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration” by Pope Benedict XVI

Ash Wednesday: by T.S. Eliot

Thomas Stearns Eliot

Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man’s gift and that man’s scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?

Because I do not hope to know again
The infirm glory of the positive hour
Because I do not think
Because I know I shall not know
The one veritable transitory power
Because I cannot drink
There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is nothing again

Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessèd face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice

And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And I pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgement not be too heavy upon us

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still.

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death
Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.

II

Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree
In the cool of the day, having fed to satiety
On my legs my heart my liver and that which had been contained
In the hollow round of my skull. And God said
Shall these bones live? shall these
Bones live? And that which had been contained
In the bones (which were already dry) said chirping:
Because of the goodness of this Lady
And because of her loveliness, and because
She honours the Virgin in meditation,
We shine with brightness. And I who am here dissembled
Proffer my deeds to oblivion, and my love
To the posterity of the desert and the fruit of the gourd.
It is this which recovers
My guts the strings of my eyes and the indigestible portions
Which the leopards reject. The Lady is withdrawn
In a white gown, to contemplation, in a white gown.
Let the whiteness of bones atone to forgetfulness.
There is no life in them. As I am forgotten
And would be forgotten, so I would forget
Thus devoted, concentrated in purpose. And God said
Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only
The wind will listen. And the bones sang chirping
With the burden of the grasshopper, saying

Lady of silences
Calm and distressed
Torn and most whole
Rose of memory
Rose of forgetfulness
Exhausted and life-giving
Worried reposeful
The single Rose
Is now the Garden
Where all loves end
Terminate torment
Of love unsatisfied
The greater torment
Of love satisfied
End of the endless
Journey to no end
Conclusion of all that
Is inconclusible
Speech without word and
Word of no speech
Grace to the Mother
For the Garden
Where all love ends.

Under a juniper-tree the bones sang, scattered and shining
We are glad to be scattered, we did little good to each other,
Under a tree in the cool of day, with the blessing of sand,
Forgetting themselves and each other, united
In the quiet of the desert. This is the land which ye
Shall divide by lot. And neither division nor unity
Matters. This is the land. We have our inheritance.

III

At the first turning of the second stair
I turned and saw below
The same shape twisted on the banister
Under the vapour in the fetid air
Struggling with the devil of the stairs who wears
The deceitful face of hope and of despair.

At the second turning of the second stair
I left them twisting, turning below;
There were no more faces and the stair was dark,
Damp, jaggèd, like an old man’s mouth drivelling, beyond repair,
Or the toothed gullet of an agèd shark.

At the first turning of the third stair
Was a slotted window bellied like the figs’s fruit
And beyond the hawthorn blossom and a pasture scene
The broadbacked figure drest in blue and green
Enchanted the maytime with an antique flute.
Blown hair is sweet, brown hair over the mouth blown,
Lilac and brown hair;
Distraction, music of the flute, stops and steps of the mind
over the third stair,
Fading, fading; strength beyond hope and despair
Climbing the third stair.

Lord, I am not worthy
Lord, I am not worthy

but speak the word only.

IV

Who walked between the violet and the violet
Who walked between
The various ranks of varied green
Going in white and blue, in Mary’s colour,
Talking of trivial things
In ignorance and in knowledge of eternal dolour
Who moved among the others as they walked,
Who then made strong the fountains and made fresh the springs

Made cool the dry rock and made firm the sand
In blue of larkspur, blue of Mary’s colour,
Sovegna vos

Here are the years that walk between, bearing
Away the fiddles and the flutes, restoring
One who moves in the time between sleep and waking, wearing

White light folded, sheathed about her, folded.
The new years walk, restoring
Through a bright cloud of tears, the years, restoring
With a new verse the ancient rhyme. Redeem
The time. Redeem
The unread vision in the higher dream
While jewelled unicorns draw by the gilded hearse.

The silent sister veiled in white and blue
Between the yews, behind the garden god,
Whose flute is breathless, bent her head and signed but spoke no word

But the fountain sprang up and the bird sang down
Redeem the time, redeem the dream
The token of the word unheard, unspoken

Till the wind shake a thousand whispers from the yew

And after this our exile

V

If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent
If the unheard, unspoken
Word is unspoken, unheard;
Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,
The Word without a word, the Word within
The world and for the world;
And the light shone in darkness and
Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the centre of the silent Word.

O my people, what have I done unto thee.

Where shall the word be found, where will the word
Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence
Not on the sea or on the islands, not
On the mainland, in the desert or the rain land,
For those who walk in darkness
Both in the day time and in the night time
The right time and the right place are not here
No place of grace for those who avoid the face
No time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and deny the voice

Will the veiled sister pray for
Those who walk in darkness, who chose thee and oppose thee,
Those who are torn on the horn between season and season, time and time, between
Hour and hour, word and word, power and power, those who wait
In darkness? Will the veiled sister pray
For children at the gate
Who will not go away and cannot pray:
Pray for those who chose and oppose

O my people, what have I done unto thee.

Will the veiled sister between the slender
Yew trees pray for those who offend her
And are terrified and cannot surrender
And affirm before the world and deny between the rocks
In the last desert between the last blue rocks
The desert in the garden the garden in the desert
Of drouth, spitting from the mouth the withered apple-seed.

O my people.

VI

Although I do not hope to turn again
Although I do not hope
Although I do not hope to turn

Wavering between the profit and the loss
In this brief transit where the dreams cross
The dream-crossed twilight between birth and dying
(Bless me father) though I do not wish to wish these things
From the wide window toward the granite shore
The white sails still fly seaward, seaward flying
Unbroken wings

And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices
In the lost lilac and the lost sea voices
And the weak spirit quickens to rebel
For the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smell
Quickens to recover
The cry of quail and the whirling plover
And the blind eye creates
The empty forms between the ivory gates
And smell renews the salt savour of the sandy earth

This is the time of tension between dying and birth
The place of solitude where three dreams cross
Between blue rocks
But when the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift away
Let the other yew be shaken and reply.

Blessèd sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated

And let my cry come unto Thee.

* This poem is from “The Complete Works and Plays” by T.S. Eliot