The Catalog of Good Deeds: Personal Thoughts on Orthodoxy

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Our life is filled with difficulties but after all, don’t they happen to us because of our own passions? Don’t they happen because of our “ifs”? Don’t they happen because of our self-righteous manner of speaking and acting? Because of our hypocrisy and falsehood? Don’t you agree with me? Nonetheless, self-knowledge and recognition of this fact will help us to love our neighbor, to become more forgiving, sincere, and genuine—basically, to become more human. If we become more human, we’ll become God-like, too. When we land, we shall fly. You have to stand on the ground firmly before you can take off and fly. First you make one sure-footed step, and then defy gravity. First you should become a real human and then a God-man.

It is a great achievement to be simple, humble, natural, and friendly. You should always make sure that you are who you are: a real person. We all should be striving for that.

An abbot from Mt. Athos used to share some memories of his life. That’s what he told us about the spiritual father he had when he was young, “One day, my spiritual father and I went to Athens by car. A pretty girl who wore fancy clothes crossed the street when our car stopped at the traffic lights. She made people feel uncomfortable. My spiritual father said, ‘Oh how many beautiful creatures of God are walking the streets! There are so many pretty girls in this world. They stir everyone up!’” The abbot continued his story: “Then I asked my spiritual father, ‘Geronda, are you aroused as well?’ ‘Of course, my dear. How can you not be aroused when you see such a girl? Everyone would.’ And I said to myself, ‘That’s why I love my Geronda! He’s a real deal. He is godly but also genuinely human.’ Later, in Athens, I met a woman who told me about her spiritual counselor, ‘My spiritual father has transcended everything. He is an Angel. He doesn’t touch the ground. Nothing bothers him.’” The old abbot added, “That’s what I responded, ‘No-no! I don’t want a Geronda like that. I prefer my Geronda. He is a simple man, a regular guy like any of us.’”

Here is an example of a spiritual father who you can approach without fear and terror. Saints say that this was the reason why Jesus left apostles and priests as his successors to hear confessions and to interact with the world. It was made so that the believers could feel comfortable, so that they wouldn’t be afraid of their leaders and knew that they are like us. They can understand us because they go through the same temptations. That’s right: whatever you do, I do the same.

The story that I’ve mentioned was shared with me by the abbot of the Docheiariou Monastery Father Gregory, who died a couple of weeks ago. His spiritual father, who admitted his own temptations, was the recently-canonized Saint Amphilochius of Patmos.

The real people: the sinners and the zealots, the repentant, the saints who are constantly asking for God’s mercy and live honestly and authentically, with all it entails… They don’t shock me. I’m not especially fond of them, and still they don’t make me nervous. On the contrary, they make me feel relieved, hopeful, and inspired to do good and avoid sanctimony. O Lord have mercy on us thanks to the prayers and the intercession of your saints!

Fragment of a book by the Archimandrite Andrew (Konanos)

"Marriage and Its Problems"

Translated by the Catalog of Good Deeds

Source: https://pravlife.org/ru/content/arhim-andrey-konanos-o-duhovnoy-zhizni-bez-licemernoy-svyatosti

I read the Bible through the first time when I was in high school. I was part of a youth group that made it a project. We made a big chart with all of the books of the Bible in columns on it with everyone’s names at the side and each Sunday we would check off whatever books (or parts of books) we had read during that week. Since my main social reality in high school was with my Church friends and not my school friends, it worked well for me to read my Bible during my lunch break at school most days. And although at that time I had the rather competitive atmosphere of my youth group providing most of my motivation to read the Bible diligently, I also thought it was a good idea. After all, if I was going to be a Christian, I figured, then I should read the Christian holy book through at least once in my lifetime.

However, there was also another, deeper motivation. I wanted to know God better and I wanted to be able to help others know God too. At some deep level, this also was my motivation–even though I experienced it faintly at that time and perhaps I couldn’t even identify that as a motivation at the beginning. However, as time went on, as I kept reading the Bible, my awareness of that deeper motivation continued to grow. But it took time. And that is what I want to talk about today. In those early days of diligent Bible reading, I discovered that often verses or ideas I had encountered several months earlier in my reading would suddenly take on life for me as I read other passages or as I encountered new situations in my life.

When I say diligent Bible reading, I am distinguishing it from either casual Bible reading (reading a little here or there when I felt like it) or crisis Bible reading (opening the Bible hoping to be divinely guided to a verse that spoke directly to a crises I was experiencing in my life at that moment). There is nothing wrong, I think, with reading the Bible casually or in a crisis; but if we are really going to grow, not only in our knowledge of the Bible as a text, but also to grow in our knowledge of God through the holy text, then we have to devote ourselves to diligence in reading. And while a casual reader might often find something interesting or beautiful to think about whenever she picked up the Bible; and while, in His mercy, God usually provide some help, guidance or comfort to anyone who looks to Him for help by picking up and reading a Bible in a time of crisis, yet reading the Bible diligently does not usually produce immediate results.

As those who have read the Bible diligently know, especially in the early years, you can go for months at a time reading faithfully and not encountering anything that strikes you as particularly beautiful, interesting, or divinely inspired. Unlike casual reading and crisis reading, the desired results are not so immediate, but they are longer lasting. And this makes sense, even on a purely literary level. To really appreciate a very well written novel, for example, you often have to read it twice or more. The first time I read The Karamozov Brothers by Dostoyevsky, I appreciated some bits, but I had no idea what was going on. Ten years later, when I reread it, I got the plot and saw some of the spiritual aspects of the novel thus appreciating the novel so much more. Ten years after that, on my third reading (now in my forties), I saw Dostoyevsky’s profound grasp of human psychology and was in awe of his ability portray with accurate detail and compassion (and mostly it is the compassion that awed me) the inner lives of the several very different characters in the novel. Now I am sure that I was able to see these things in my forties because of my own life experience, but if I had not already been familiar with the novel, I almost certainly would not have been able to have gained so much from reading it at that point in my life.

But if this principle of diligence bearing fruit is true at a merely literary level, it is even more profoundly true on a spiritual level. In homily 25 of St. Isaac the Syrian’s Ascetical Homilies, the saint talks about this very experience in the spiritual life as it applies to prayer. St. Isaac says:

“It is a sign of the beginning of a man’s recovery from his [spiritual] illness when he desires hidden [i.e. spiritual] things. There is, however, a delay until he witnesses true health.”

When a person begins to be healed of spiritual illness, when he or she begins to actually repent and draw near to God; then the sign that this is really taking place, according to St. Isaac, is that the person will also begin to desire spiritual, or hidden, things. This desire for hidden things is then the motivation that empowers one to diligently pursue a spiritual life. This pursuit of the spiritual life can take various forms depending on one’s personality, calling and circumstances in life. In my case, as a young man in a Protestant context, this pursuit of God took the form of Bible reading. In contrast, my wife, or the young woman who would become my wife, who was in the same high school youth group, diligently sought God in ways that worked well for her. Although she also did her fair share of Bible reading, that wasn’t where she found life in her pursuit of God. Bonnie is an artist, and since there was very little room for artistic expression in the frigid iconoclastic air of the Protestant context we found ourselves in, Bonnie found life in the diligent pursuit of God through music: playing the guitar and writing songs that were really more like prayers than songs.

And just as I had to slog through Leviticus and the prophecy of Habakuk, getting very little immediate edification for my effort, Bonnie had to slog through music theory (“the circle of fifths,” I think, is what she called her tedium). Discipline and diligence are necessary if one is going to pursue God whether it is through prayer or reading or painting or music. The hidden things in our heart, the spiritual treasures of a relationship with God, do not reveal themselves to the lazy. St. Isaac names the two enemies that keep us from acquiring the spiritual treasure we seek. These are “tedium” and “despondency.” “Tedium” refers to what we might nowadays call the “boring” nature of what we are doing. Let’s face it, until you know something about the history of Israel and the spiritual interpretation of the Old Testament, most of the Old Testament is just plain boring. But the only way to learn is to begin to read. You have to pass through the boredom to the life. The same thing is true with beginning a prayer rule or learning music theory or basic drawing and brush strokes. You have to be faithful through the tedium before you can start to enjoy the fruit of life in what you are doing.

“Despondency” refers to my own downward spirals, my own inability to motivate myself, my own struggle with bad days or weeks or months. When I am despondent, I just cannot motivate myself to do what I need to do, nor even, sometimes, what I want to do. When I struggle with despondency, it seems like it takes a herculean effort for me just to get my Bible open and to read the same few verses over and over again, as though my mind has been greased and every word slides right off. Or I have to force myself with all my might just to light the vigil lamp in my icon corner, open my prayer book and stand there just whimpering for a few minutes. In times like these when I struggle with despondency, a saying from my days of athletic training has helped me a great deal: “Something is always better than nothing.” To open my Bible is itself a prayer. To read the same verses over and over again making no sense out of it: this too is prayer. To light a vigil lamp is a prayer. To stand before an icon and just whimper, that too is prayer. Something is always better than nothing.

St. Isaac advises us that when we find ourselves confronting either tedium or despondency, we need to call to mind why we are doing what we are doing. Why do I pray? Why do I read my Bible? Why do I do any spiritual discipline that I do? I do it because I desire the hidden, spiritual realities. I desire to know God. St. Isaac tells us that we must allow this desire to generate expectation in us: expectation that God will come to my aid, expectation that soon something hidden will indeed be revealed to me; expectation that this simple act of being diligent and hanging in there will indeed bear fruit.

Jesus loved agricultural metaphors. He sure used a lot of them. A sower sows, farmer plants and the crop grows. The farmer labors in hope, in expectation. Even though there is nothing he can do to hurry the crop along, the farmer knows that if he keeps at it, eventually he will have more fruit than he will know what to do with it all. But he has to hang in there. There is a delay, as St. Isaac tells us, between the beginning of our efforts in spiritual growth, between our desire to enter into the hidden things of our heart, and the time when we do actually begin to enjoy the fruit of our labor, what St. Isaac calls the witness of true spiritual health. And the meat, you might say, that we have to sustain us during this long growing seasons, through the tedium of weeding and through the droughts of despondency, the food that will sustain us during these sometimes dry and sometimes boring times, this food is expectation, expectation that we will indeed, if we do not give up, come to see and know the hidden things of our hearts, the hidden things of God and His kingdom.

By Fr. Michael Gillis

Source: http://holynativity.blogspot.com/2015/03/fighting-boredom-and-despondency.html

We often call Christmas the “season of giving”. If you are like me, most of that giving is in material things. Toys for little ones, maybe nice clothes for older ones… maybe something really expensive for those precious ones. And of course, there is always the receiving of these fine gifts from others who have entered into the “season of giving”. Most everyone really likes being on the receiving end of a gift.

Now this article is not about to condemn such activities. In fact, I think it is really nice that we have a chance to give gifts to those we love and care about. And, it’s really nice to be on the receiving end too! At the same time, it is called the “season of giving” for a much different reason. Perhaps this story will help shed a little light.

Wealth More Precious than Jewels (Author unknown)

A wise woman who was traveling in the mountains found a precious stone in a stream. The next day she met another traveler who was hungry, and the wise woman opened her bag to share her food. The hungry traveler saw the precious stone and wanted it, so the woman gave it to him. She did so without hesitation. The traveler left rejoicing in his good fortune. He knew the stone was worth enough to give him security for a lifetime.

A few days later, he came back to return the stone to the wise woman. “I’ve been thinking,” he said. “I know how valuable this stone is, but I give it back in the hope that you can give me something even more precious. Give me what you have within you that enabled you to give me this stone.”

Even though this traveler had gotten hold of a precious stone that was worth a fortune, he realized that he was missing out on something even more valuable. The Giver of the gift had something of much greater worth than that stone. The traveler came back desiring that greater treasure.

We can be a lot like that traveler as we go through life. We may suddenly find ourselves in a bad situation. It could be serious, as in a health problem or divorce or death of a loved one. It could be less serious, as in feeling depressed or stressed out or in need of some material thing. Next thing we know, we find ourselves asking God for help. I imagine every one of us can recount a time when God intervened to bring us that gift we asked for.

Many of us have gone on our merry way after receiving His gift of help, forgetting that just maybe there was something far greater behind that gift. Is it possible that the One, who could give us that gift of help we needed, might actually have something more valuable to give us? Indeed, the real message of Christmas is not just that we have a God who is able to heal our broken health, or to bring comfort in the midst of great grief, or to bring peace of mind when our world is stressed out beyond belief. The message of Christmas is far deeper and greater for those who would bring their gift of life back to God and seek the more precious gift.

For those who would like to look further into that gift of Christmas, here’s some great reading from the Giver of Life Himself:

Luke 2:1-20; Galatians 4:1-7; John 1:1-13; 3:13-21.

God’s richest blessings to each of you this Christmas season!

By Fr. Stephen Powley

Source: https://upwordglance.com/2016/12/14/could-you-give-back-your-best-gift/

Learning to Swim

I learned to swim at an early age. I remember, before I started taking official lessons, my father taught me the basics of swimming. He would hold me on my back and teach me to float. In time, I learned to float on my belly and do the “doggy paddle.”

At some point, probably when I entered elementary school, my parents enrolled me in the city’s swim classes. I thought it was great. Our instructors were high school lifeguards. To me, they were the coolest people I’d ever met. They taught us how to kick, how to do proper strokes with our arms, and how to breathe. All was going well...until they wanted us to dive.

At first, it wasn’t so bad. We stood on the side of the pool and learned how to point our hands above our heads, how to lean into the dive, and, then, how to jump into the water. But, it turned horrid very quickly. They wanted us to dive off the diving board!

Jumping into the Deep End

Are you kidding me? They wanted me to climb up a steep ladder, walk out onto a wobbly and narrow plank, and jump into water that is deeper than I could ever imagine! And, they wanted me to trust them to catch me if all went wrong! How could I do that? They were, after all, only high school kids.

What I lacked, however, was trust. I didn’t trust everything I’d been taught, even though, by this point, I did know how to swim. I also didn’t trust the lifeguards. I had everything I needed, except trust.

Sermon on the Plain

In many ways, Jesus’s vision of the Christian walk is like diving into the deep end. The Orthodox Church has been reading through the Gospel of Luke, and, when Jesus gives the Sermon on the Plain (a lot like St. Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount but this is St. Luke’s version), Jesus asks us to take a big jump.

Jesus tells us that being a Christian may mean becoming poor. It may mean going hungry. We may end up weeping. And, to top it all off, people will hate us, exclude us, and revile us. (Luke 6:20-23)

But, despite our treatment, we are to love our enemies–even do good for them! We are to allow people to hit us by turning the other cheek. We are to give away our clothing to those who beg for the shirts on our backs. And, when people upset us, we are to forgive them–over and over and over again. (Luke 6:27-31, 37-38).

Is Jesus really asking us to live this way? It sounds like he’s asking us to jump into the deep end with no life preserver.

Jesus Is Our Lifeguard

As scary as the Christian walk sounds, it is the only true way to live. (Just imagine if everyone lived this way!) And, the good news is that Jesus is there for us. He’s our lifeguard. This is the meaning of the gospel lesson we read on Sunday: the raising of the widow’s son at Nain. (Luke 7:11-17)

After the Sermon on the Plain, where Jesus asks us to jump into the deep end of Christian living, he tells us that to live this way is like building a house on a solid foundation. He then shows us the power of this way of life.

First, Jesus heals the centurion’s servant from afar. All it took was for the centurion to have trust. Then, Jesus raises the widow’s son. Entering Nain, he sees a funeral possession and he tells the widow, “Do not weep.”

Remember, our Christian walk may leave us weeping. But Jesus promises that we shall laugh. We may become poor or hungry, but Jesus will give us the kingdom and fill us. Loving our enemies and forgiving others may lead to our death, but our master, the Lord Jesus Christ, has the power to raise us from the dead. He shows us this by raising the widow’s son. This is the power of God, a god who has visited his people.

Cross and Resurrection

The Christian walk is hard. It requires a lot of patience from us and a lot of compassion for others. It requires us to trust and dive into the deep end. Perhaps, we’ll drown. The martyrs, over 2,000 years, have shown that following Christ isn’t always about a happy ending...at least not in this life. But, this is the way of the cross. Jesus, who dived into the deepest water humanity has ever known, ended up crucified.

But, the good news is, Jesus is risen! Christ’s resurrection is confirmation that the Christian walk is the true way. It’s vindication that loving our neighbors, even when they hate us, is the right path to follow. It shows us that we should pick up our cross and jump off the diving board.

Take a deep breath, trust God, and jump. Jesus is there waiting to catch us.

By Fr. Dustin Lyon

Source: http://www.dustinlyon.org/?p=1763

The Advent Season, which began for us on November 15/28, is a time for anticipating the "Good News" of the Lord's Birth. As with all things in life, Scripture reminds us that we must be careful of being "in the world, but not of the world". This is especially true of the celebration of Christmas. Many lament that the stores are decorated for Christmas from the end of October - an example of the over-stressing and "early-stressing" of this great Christian Holy Day. But what do we do in our homes? I have noticed that on the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving, people begin to put up their decorations and turn on their Christmas lights and trees.

Our Orthodox Advent tradition gives us some guidelines of which many of us perhaps are not aware. Within this 40-day preparation period, a slow progression of events and remembrances unfolds. This is seen in the general attitude, hymnology, prayers, and fasting practices which begin to intensify on the Feast of St. Nicholas (December 6/19), and progress through the feasts of St. Spyridon (December 12/25), St. Daniel (December 17/30) and St. Ignatios (December 20/Jan-uary 2). The latter is specifically called "the day of preparation". What do you think this tells us?

Add to this the tradition of the "Twelve Days of Christmas" that begins on Christmas Day, and runs to January 5/18, the day before Theophany, the next great feast. The 'food fast' is most intense on the 12 days preceding December 25/January 7, and there is no fasting on the 12 days after Christmas, not on Wednesday or Friday! Again, what do you think this tells us?

It is interesting to note that historically we do not have an exact date of Jesus' birth. The date of His Nativity was specifically selected by the early Church to coincide with the pagan celebrations held in late December. They were rather riotous and foolish in nature, not becoming of a follower of Christ. Thus this date had a dual purpose: (1) to mark the Lord's coming to earth in human form, and (2) to do it at a time which would help defeat an attitude and lifestyle which went against the Lord's teachings. The early Church leaders knew that these Christians struggled with the temptation to return to their former ways. Once again, what would you think this tells us? The Orthodox tradition is clearly not to "pre-celebrate" Christmas, but rather to withhold the celebration until the designated time. Once it arrives, we are to celebrate it joyously, not with over riotous activity as did the pagans. Some 40 or 50 years ago here in America, people decorated their Christmas trees on Christmas Eve. Slowly, through the influence of merchants and media, we started to put up our decorations and trees earlier and earlier each year. As a result, we take them down earlier and earlier, not waiting for the Theophany observances of January 5-7 [January 18-20], which are specifically part of the 12-day cycle beginning on Christmas.

Every year there are more and more parties held during the height of the Christmas Fast, instead of during the festive period of December 25-January 5 [January 7-18]. On the day after Christmas we hear people say that Christmas is over, and the Christmas trees are out on the curb. Since they have pre-decorated and pre-celebrated and feasted, in their minds "it's over", when really it should just be beginning.

I offer the following practical applications of our Orthodox theology and practice:

- Do decorate, but don't pre-decorate. Use the December 6-20 [December 19-January 2] guide as a starting point.

- Do celebrate, but don't pre-celebrate. Use the December 25-January 5 [January 7-18] time frame for your festivities.

The Scriptures instruct us: "In all things be not like the pagans, but rather calm, joyful in praise and giving of love to glorify Christ who came for us." Since we Christians are called to be "in the world, but not of the world", we are to transform the world and not have the secular world transform us. Secularism has crept into our Christmas observances. It is up to us as individuals to purify the celebration. This begins with our families, our households, doing the more proper and fitting things and teaching others to do likewise by example. I urge you to plan for a Christmas observance that will hold true to our Orthodox view and pattern for celebration.

By Fr. Andrew George,

taken from “Orthodox Family Life”

Source: http://www.theologic.com/oflweb/xmas/precele.htm

There’s a slim chance of finding someone who will openly claim that she wants to be sick. It seems natural to want to be healthy and to wish the same for other people. For instance, if you ask a young mother what she wants for her baby, she will immediately reply, “I want her to be healthy,” and possibly forget to mention anything else at all. Is it always useful to be healthy and pray for health? What is the place of physical health in the system of Christian values?

“You Should View Your Illness as a Wake-Up Call from Heaven”

I’ll limit my answer to physical health because there is spiritual health, too. Certainly, physical health isn’t among the chief Christian values, as aren’t our clothes.

In fact, our flesh is our temporary garment, the leather robes that we received from God. Yes, it is important and significant. Our bodies are the temple of the soul, which is why the Lord often healed people. It was one of his main occupations on earth. However, we all remember how He told a man who had been paralyzed for a long time, “Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee” (John 5: 14). We also remember the lepers who lived outside of the city walls and begged Jesus to heal them. Only one of them returned to Him later to say thank-you. Where did the other nine go? They returned to their passions and desires. Only one leper was fully healed in the end. He was healed both physically and spiritually.

Of course, we ought to strive for the ideal. We know that Christ didn’t fall ill because He had neither sinful thoughts nor passions. Even ascetics fall ill sometimes. It isn’t caused by their sins, though. Their illnesses are a way for them to receive crowns, to acquire more grace and more spiritual gifts. The reasons why saints and ascetics fall ill are a distinct and separate topic.

We can interpret illnesses as a way to heal our souls. They are remedies for the ailing souls. Take, for example, a dreadful illness like cancer. Tumors are frequently overlooked until the entire body is affected and it’s too late to do anything. That’s when people learn that they’re ill. Nevertheless, this illness can be immensely beneficial for one’s soul. There are many people who call it affectionately “cancerling”. There is even a saying, “Cancer isn’t kidding: it grabs your hand and drags you into the Paradise.” Cancer really provides an opportunity to put all things in their rightful places little by little and get rid of all excessive and unnecessary things that we used to rely on when we were healthy. Patients’ souls are purified, and they get saved and return into their heavenly home.

There have been quite a few miraculous healings, too, even when doctors were unable to help. People are cured by their tears of repentance, the Sacraments of the Church, heartfelt prayers, and God’s Providence. I know a woman from the country of Georgia who learned of her cancer when it was already in the terminal stage. She wasn’t a staunch believer yet. She went to Moscow and saw a famous doctor who admitted that it was too late for him to be able to do anything. He added, “Go ask God to heal you!” God’s Providence led her to the Convent of Blessed Matrona. She stood by the saint’s shrine and went away. That night, Matrona appeared to her and said, “Why don’t you pray to me? Why aren’t you asking me to heal you?” The woman replied, “I don’t know Russian, you don’t know Georgian. How can I pray to you?” She was a simple woman, you know. Today that woman is completely fine. She honors Matrona very much and never sees doctors anymore. She went through dozens of doctors but it was prayer that turned out to be her only remedy.

Of course, we should aim for a healthy body. But when a person is spiritually asleep, he can perish. You should treat your illness as a wake-up call from Heaven, “Behold, there’s something wrong with your soul. You can die. You must take care of your soul as quickly as possible.” That’s why when you fall ill, your first impulse must be to think, “What have I done wrong?” You should re-consider your lifestyle, your relationships with God and people, repent of your sins and take the Unction. It will suffice in most cases.

Of course, we’re not opposed to medical professionals. We have God-inspired doctors among our saints, e.g., Saint Luke of Crimea and Saint Panteleimon. The problem with physical health is that people unthinkingly do whatever it takes to have it. They never ask themselves what they need it for. Sadly, more often than not, they need it to be able to enjoy sinful worldly delights and to pursue their sinful passions. That’s what they think: Is my life worth living if I cannot eat delicious food and if I don’t have earthly pleasures? That was how people used to live without God. We remember the Ancient Rome where noble people would even commit suicides as soon as they learned that they could no longer indulge in the pleasures of the flesh. They didn’t know God. When you don’t know anything about the eternity, your physical fitness becomes central, and that’s obviously dangerous. That is why the Lord lets us fall ill so that we could take some time to think about our souls.

We are Christians and therefore we should be thinking first of all about our souls and not about all possible ways to get rid of our ailments. Speaking of severe cases or terminal illnesses, yes, we should ask for God’s healing so that we could continue living and becoming better persons, cleansing our hearts, and putting to use the talents that the Lord has given us. A human body is a donkey that is meant to take us to the paradise. Non-severe illnesses sometimes advance one’s spiritual growth. I can confirm that from my own personal experience. For instance, you suffer from the sin of gluttony. You pray to God and ask Him to deliver you from that sin. The Lord sends you an illness that affects your digestion, which is not severe and not terminal. When I had pains in my pancreas, my doctor told me, “You must eat simple food. I prescribe to you hunger, cold, and rest.” I smiled. That was precisely what I was after. Why do I need to get rid of that illness? Let it be. It gives me an opportunity not to fall prey to the sin.

Some people say that all illnesses are caused by anxiety. Where does the anxiety come from? Its roots are in our pride and selfishness. We must learn to be humble and to accept everything that God sends us with gratitude. It may be life or death, wealth or poverty, illness or health. If we maintain that peaceful stance of complete submission to God, we will most likely never fall ill again. If we start sinning, being nervous, hasty, or scared, we’ll receive a pushback in the form of an illness. That’s why we should seek the cure for our soul. Our chief doctor is the Lord and His Gospel. Human physicians are merely His helpers. Let’s improve spiritually and take our medicines.

By the Rev. Lev Arshakyan,

the spiritual father of Elvira Fellowship

for Social Support of Deaf-Blind People

Translated by The Catalog of Good Deeds

Source: http://pravoslavie.ru/105888.html

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Fr. Andrew (Konanos): Spiritual Life Must Be Without Sanctimony

Fighting Boredom While Reading Bible or Why Discipline and Diligence Are Necessary

The Season of Gifts and Our Ability to Give What's the Most Precious to Us

The Parallel between Swimming and Living a Spiritual Life

"Do not Pre-celebrate Christmas!" or Some Features of the Orthodox Advent Season

What Does Physical Health Mean for Orthodox Christians?

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