Christ became my life.

 I loved Him and I cannot imagine anyone else who can compare with Him. He is for me the only Lord and God.

I almost constantly carry pain in my heart, fearing that I may lose His mercy because of the multitude of my resistances.

However, despite the struggle with Him, despite the numerous attempts to deviate from His cross, I embrace the cross of Christ, and in a way I lift up the cross that was given to me, my cross (see Matt. 19:24).

And I now bless my God who has pleased me to be reborn through the flame of repentance.

(Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov) Let Us See God as He Is, Holy Monastery of the Holy Forerunner, Essex, England, 2010, pp. 64-5)

Cross of Love!

 

Cross of Patience!

Cross of Forgiveness!

Cross of Pain!

Cross of Repentance!

Cross that is in our Life from the time we are born until the time of our departure from this world!

Every minute and hour we carry it… sometimes light and sometimes heavy!

Sometimes good Simon helps us and sometimes our Christ himself!

Sometimes it is made with labors with sacrifices with sorrows with worries with illnesses and sometimes with beautiful moments and happy ones!

In the course of our Life, a milestone of Victory and Resurrection!

 

I wonder what our life would be like without the Cross??; A storm, a tempest, a disaster!

 

It was the symbol of death and became a symbol of Life!

It was the cursed wood and it became the Life-Giver!

It was hell and it became Paradise!

It was the wood that our Lord stretched out His immaculate body and on it we were reborn and became His children!

We became the children of His Crucified Love!

A Love that gave Hope, Forgiveness and Life!

 

May our Life be Crucified and Blessed!

Let us not fear anything because we are under His shadow…

a shadow that refreshes us with His Blessing and power!!!

 

“Cross of Christ, save us by your power…”

As for the red eggs eaten at the Resurrection

 

As for the red eggs eaten at the Resurrection, many say many things without reason; but the wise man Paisios of Gaza, resolving certain issues with the Tsar of Russia, says that when the Jews said (Matthew 27:25) “His blood be on us and on our children,” they immediately dyed all the things they had in their homes red, and then the eggs as well. Hence, in remembrance of the miracle, we also dye our eggs red at the Resurrection; and this miracle, he says, is from an ancient tradition.

Footnote of the Pedal (89 canon of the Sixth Ecumenical Council. Page 298).

I saw a mother

 I saw a mother

I saw a mother looking at her child who walked for the first time.

Her face shone, her eyes filled with tears, her arms were filled with gratitude.

I admired her love, I admired her bond with her child…

I saw a mother looking at her child being crucified without being guilty of anything.

His body full of wounds being nailed to a cross. Some cursing him, others mocking him, others gambling on his clothes…

And the face of this mother remained unmoved, her eyes filled with tears, but her mouth did not open, no cry or complaint was heard… her heart was filled with forgiveness when she received her dead child in her arms.

I admired this mother, not because she didn't scream in pain, but because she turned her pain into love... and from mother of the God-Man she became mother of us all...

You were not commanded to blame the lazy

 You were not commanded to blame the lazy, nor to control wickedness, nor to reproach laziness, but to relieve poverty, to heal calamity, to stretch out your hand and lift up those who have fallen.

Saint John Chrysostom