Which virtue is the most important?

 16. Where outward ascetic practice is concerned, which virtue is the most important? The answer to this is that the virtues are linked one to the other, and follow as it were a sacred sequence, one depending on the other. For instance, prayer is linked to love, love to joy, joy to gentleness, gentleness to humility, humility to service, service to hope, hope to faith, faith to obedience, and obedience to simplicity. Similarly, the vices are linked one to another: hatred to anger, anger to pride, pride to self-esteem, self-esteem to unbelief, unbelief to hardheartedness, hardheartedness to negligence, negligence to sluggishness, sluggishness to apathy, apathy to listlessness, hstlessness to lack of endurance, lack of endurance to self-indulgence, and so on with all the other vices.

St Symeon Metaphrastis: Paraphrase of the Homilies of St Makarios of Egypt: I: Spiritual Perfection

15. The patriarch Abraham, when he was receiving Melchisedec, the priest of God, made him an offering from the firstfruits of the earth and so obtained his blessing

 

15. The patriarch Abraham, when he was receiving Melchisedec, the priest of God, made him an offering from the firstfruits of the earth and so obtained his blessing (cf. Gen. 14:19-20). Through this incident the Spirit indicates that the first and highest elements of our constitution - the intellect, the conscience, the loving power of the soul - must initially be offered to God as a holy sacrifice. The firstfruits and the highest of our true thoughts must be continually devoted to remembrance of Him, engrossed in His love and in unutterable and boundless longing for Him. In this way we can grow and move forward day by day, assisted by divine grace. Then the burden of fulfilling the commandments will appear light to us, and we will carry them out faultlessly and irreproachably, helped by the Lord Himself on account of our faith in Him.

St Symeon Metaphrastis: Paraphrase of the Homilies of St Makarios of Egypt: I: Spiritual Perfection

The virgin soul that desires to be united to God must keep itself pure

 5. The virgin soul that desires to be united to God must keep itself pure not only from overt sins like unchastity, murder, theft, gluttony, backbiting, falsity, avarice, greed and so on; but to an even greater degree it must keep itself pure from sins that are hidden, such as desire, self-esteem, love of popularity, hypocrisy, love of power, wiliness, malice, hatred, unbelief, envy, self-love, affectation and other things of this kind. According to Scripture, these concealed sins of the soul are just as pernicious as the overt sins. 'The Lord has scattered the bones of those who seek to please men', it says (Ps. 53:5. LXX); and: The Lord will abhor the bloody and deceitful man' (Ps. 5:6), thus making it clear that deceitfulness is just as abhorrent to God as murder. Again, it numbers among the 'workers of iniquity' those who 'speak peace to their neighbor but have evil in their hearts' (Ps. 28: 3), and elsewhere it speaks of those who commit lawless acts in their hearts (cf. Ps. 58:2). It also says: 'Woe to you, when men speak well of you' (Luke 6:26) - that is to say, when you want to hear people say good things about you and when you hang upon their glory and praise. It is true that those who do good cannot escape notice altogether. Indeed, the Lord Himself says: 'Let your light shine before men' (Matt. 5:16), though here it is understood that we do good for the glory of God and not for our own glory or because we desire men's praise. If this is not the case, then we are lacking in faith, as the Lord makes clear when He says: 'How can you have faith when you receive honor from one another, and do not seek the honor that comes from the only God?' (John 5:44). St Paul bids us to do everything, even to eat and to drink, for the glory of God; 'for.' he says, 'whether you eat or drink, or do anything else, do it for the glory of God' (1 Cor. 10:31). And St John equates hatred with murder when he says: 'Whoever hates his brother is a murderer' (1 John 3 : I 5).

St Symeon Metaphrastis: Paraphrase of the Homilies of St Makarios of Egypt: I: Spiritual Perfection

A saintly Fool for Christ in the heart of Athens (Part 1)

This excerpt was taken from the newly-circulated book about Crazy John, a modern-day ”Fool for Christ”

"Foolishness for Christ" was always appreciated as one of the most moving chapters in the voluminous Book of Saints of our Orthodox Church. One more pebble that was added to this chapter is the history that a humble levite of the Gospel who lives in the blessed mountains of Agrafa in Northern Greece narrated to us.

His narration pertained to a contemporary "fool for Christ", who lived in one of the many faceless, inaccessible and remote neighborhoods of Athens.

Crazy John - who is the central character of his narration - lived in a tiny, humble apartment that he had inherited from his mother; one of 20 apartments that comprised the condominium building.  He worked at the neighborhood bakery and began work at daybreak. From that bakery where he worked, he would customarily fill two bags with loaves of bread and bread rolls every day, and would rush to distribute them to the elderly men, women and students in his neighborhood.

«Here you are - I thought I might give you some freshly-baked bread, a gift from mister Apostoly the baker, so that you will commemorate him in your prayers" he would say.

The truth was that Crazy John would use up a large part of his wages to provide bread to the poor of his neighborhood.  He would tell mister Apostoly that he was only helping out some sick friends, and that he was being paid for his trouble...

But how did he know who the poor in his neighborhood were?  

Well, he made it a habit to indiscriminately ring the doorbells, not only in his own condominium, but also in neighboring apartment buildings. He would introduce himself to everyone and would ask them if they needed anything that he could help them with:

Some mornings, my brothers, we wake up in a bad mood

 

Very Rev. Ananias Koustenis

Some mornings, my brothers, we wake up in a bad mood and with bad thoughts!

Let us get out of bed immediately.

Let us light our candle!

Let us burn incense.

Let us kiss our Icons.

Let's say "Our Father".

Let's fight bad thoughts with good ones!

It matters, my brothers,

to rise up,

to fight,

For there are no depressed Christians.

Only fighters!