Praying to the Guardian Angel: Whom Christ loves, His Angels Love Too!
It is a
wonderful truth that the Angels in Heaven love our children – indeed, all children
– and we can take great comfort that at the moment of our Baptism, when we are
received into the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, and He provides each one of us
with a Guardian Angel. This Angel remains with us throughout our lives,
watching over us, in the same way that we each benefit from the prayers and
loving care of our Patron Saint, after whom we are named at our Baptism. The
hosts of Heaven love and care for us!
I would
like to now share with you the daily prayer to our Guardian Angel:
O Holy Angel of God, guardian and protector
of my soul and body, pray that I may be
forgiven
for every transgression I have committed this
day.
Deliver me from all evil influences and
temptations,
so that I may not anger my God by any sin.
Pray for me that the Lord may make me worthy
of His grace
and to become partaker of His eternal
kingdom. With the help
of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of all the
Saints. Amen.
To be
great partakers of the eternal kingdom that our God has promised to us, we must
begin with prayer, offering our true love for Him and those who dwell within
His Kingdom. Because of our Lord’s great and eternal love for us, He has
ordered His holy angles to be our guardians, as we read in St. Matthew chapter
18, when in response to the question “Who is greatest in the kingdom of
heaven”, Jesus took a little child and said “Unless you are converted and
become as little children you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.
Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the
kingdom heaven”. In verse 10 Jesus goes on, “Take heed that you do dot despise
one these little ones, for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see
the face of My Father who is in heave.” Our Lord Jesus in this verse makes it
absolutely clear that in heaven the angels have been assigned to us –their
angels and that these angels are always in His presence. Christ also identified
Himself with little children saying, in verse 5, “Whosever receives one little
child like this in My name receives Me.”
We have
the assurance, then that since our Lord God loves us, He loves all of the
children, your children –every child, everywhere! Every child is protected
under the wings of a Guardian Angel and their Patron Saint. When your child is
going through any difficulty or having any health problems, our Lord God is
quick to respond. “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them,
for of such is the kingdom of heaven” (St. Matthew 19:14). Here is the
foundation of spiritual education and Christian understanding – letting the
children come to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is because of His arms
wrapped around each child in love that the angels love and protect children.
So when
your beloved child walks out the door of your house, or goes to school
(including Sunday School) or goes outside to play, be assured that our Lord God
watches over your beloved child, just as He has commanded both the child’s
Guardian Angel and Patron Saint to do.
Even as
we get older what continues to remain in us and with is the love of Lord God.
He never leaves us or forsakes us. He continues to watch over us, even in the
most difficult times, whether in illness, or during any of lives struggles. God
is with us, and cares about us. What a loving God we have, who sends us not
only the comfort of the Holy Spirit, but even provides us with the further
blessings of a Guardian Angel and our Patron Saint whose prayers for us are
always rising to the Throne of Grace.
Let us
then walk with our God, our Guardian Angel, and our Patron Saint, and ask for
their guidance and strength.
Humbly in
Christ our Lord,
Very Rev.
Archimandrite Nektarios Serfes
Who prays
for you and with you!
Source: http://www.serfes.org/spiritual/november2009.htm
Seven Stories and Parables for the Week: Issue 3
A monk
came to his mentor and asked:
— Father,
I’ve been coming to you for so long. I’ve confessed my sins over and over
again. You have given me so much advice but I still cannot improve. What is the
use of my visits to you if I fall into the same sins again even after our
meetings?
The
spiritual father replied:
— My son,
take two pots — one empty and the other filled with honey.
The
disciple did so.
— And
now, — the elder ordered, — pour the honey from one pot to the other several
times.
And so he
did.
— Now
look at the empty pot and smell it.
The
disciple looked and smelled and said:
— Father,
the empty pot smells of honey and there is some honey on its bottom.
— This is
how, — the spiritual father said, — my instructions sink into your soul. If you
acquire at least some virtue in the course of your life, for Christ’s sake, the
Lord in his mercy will add up to it and save your soul to live in the paradise.
For a cook never puts pepper in a pot which smells of honey. Likewise, God will
not reject you if you only keep in your soul the basics of righteousness.
Air is
like God. It is always near, and you can’t see it. You learn how necessary it
is when you lack it.
Sun is
like God. It can both warm you up or burn you. You cannot look at it directly
without pain in your eyes. All living creatures are drawn to it. All living
creatures are fed by its power.
Sea is
like God. When it is transparent and tender, it is like a Big One being tender
towards a Small One. When it roars and seethes, you can’t argue with it.
A man is
like God when he provides for his family and is ready to fight for it. And when
he spares his words and seldom smiles.
A woman
is like God, too, when she breastfeeds and when she gets up to her crying baby
at night. When she dissolves in her children and breaks the habit of thinking
about herself.
There’s
so much in this world that is like God. Where do atheists come from?
Gagarin
journeyed to the outer space. The Soviet radio announced that “we have flown
into the space, and yet we haven’t seen God. Now we know for sure there is no
God.”
Upon some
consideration, a Christian retorted with, “Yes… seems you didn’t fly high
enough...”
A new ship was roaming the seas for several years. It was light, fast, and could withstand any storm. It was pleasant to look at. Suddenly, in spite of calm and sunny weather, it sank for no evident reason whatsoever. When divers set out to inspect it, it turned out that the bottom of the ship had been eaten away by wood worms. The worms had multiplied and devoured the wood. The small holes that they had made proved to be fatal for the huge vessel.
This is true of the soul, too. Even a single worm of passions, left unattended, can multiply a thousandfold, generating new vices, conquering all parts of one's soul and corroding its healthy tissues.
Dirty laundry
needs to be washed sooner or later. You can dump the dirty clothes into a huge
vat to postpone the unpleasant moment when you have to wash that huge pile. The
problem is that over time the dirt penetrates deeper into the fabric, and it
becomes harder to rub it off. You may have to boil the laundry, burn your
fingers and rub skin off your palms, and rub, rub, rub it as hard as you can…
Many days, many years. Imagine how many dirty shirts can one accumulate in her
lifetime? Alternatively, you can do the laundry as soon as your clothes become
dirty. While the spots are still new, you can wash them away with water. Other
spots will require soap. The deepest blemishes will require caustic alkali,
which irritates your eyes. Every laundress will tell you that grease and blood
are the most difficult kinds of dirt to wash. Our sins and bad actions are our
dirty laundry, and each of us is his own laundress. We have a unique
opportunity — great in some ways and bitter in other ways — not to accumulate
our sins throughout our entire lives, until the very last moment when our
actions will be judged, but to start compensating for them during our earthly
lives, i.e., during the time when it is still possible to change something. It
is a proper and reasonable way to go, so we shouldn’t be surprised when each
white stripe in our lives is followed by a black one: imagine what blackness
would await us after absolute whiteness?
An elder
told a brother, “The devil is your enemy, and you are a house. The enemy never
stops throwing all kinds of rubbish at you, trying to shove it onto you.
However, you must be diligent in throwing the rubbish away and keeping your
soul clean; if you become neglectful, your house will be filled up with the
rubbish and you won’t be able to get inside. From the very beginning, as soon
as the devil starts throwing his rubbish, you must collect it and throw it
away, so that your house remains clean thanks to the grace of Christ.
A young
disciple approached an elderly hermit and complained of being haunted by sinful
thoughts. The elder took him outdoors into the open field.
— Spread
out your lap… Open your bosom!
The
disciple obeyed him.
— Can you
stop the wind from blowing into your clothes?
— No, I
can’t!..
— The
same is also true with thoughts... We cannot stop their motion. We can only
prevent them from remaining permanently in our souls…
Source: https://azbyka.ru/days/
10 Ways That Can Set Children Up for Moral Failure: An Orthodox Christian Perspective
Life gets
busy and we don’t step back enough to see what we might be doing as parents to
hurt our children’s spiritual growth. Being an intentional Orthodox Christian
parent is hard work…but it’s worth it. We have a legacy of faith, wisdom and
experience we can pass on to our kids if we pay attention. But if we don’t—we
could cause more harm than good.
1. Buying them smartphones. People
look at us like we’re freaks, but my husband and I refuse to buy smartphones
for our kids. Not only are they expensive, but they allow unsupervised access
to the internet, among many other faults. Some parents trick themselves into
believing their kids will use internet on their smartphones for “educational”
purposes. Yeah right. Don’t fool yourself. The internet, like the TV, is the
devil’s playground when it’s not properly supervised. Your job as a parent is
to protect your child’s innocence as long as possible. There’s a whole lot of
nasty garbage out there that puts thoughts and ideas into their heads that they
don’t need. Right now, their souls are like flowers just barely beginning to
bloom. Don’t kill that spiritual growth with the world’s evils. And texting?
Really, why do kids need texting? Have you looked around lately at all the kids
glued to their phones because they’re so hooked on them they can’t put them
down. Geez, don’t assist them in losing their childhood. Let kids be kids.
Unplug them now because they don’t know how and they need your help.
2. Unsupervised computer use without parental
controls. As with smartphones, the internet is full of temptations kids
don’t have the ability to deal with. Statistics show the average nine year old
has already been exposed to porn on the net.
Do not
put a computer in their room. And if there already is one in there, take it out
and put it in a prominent area of your home. Seriously, this is their innocence
and their soul we’re talking about here. Our kids work on the computer in our
family room where the screen is in our view. They can’t log in without our
passwords, and we also have them keep to a two-hour computer time limit (which
the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends) with breaks in between. Then, we
send them outside to get fresh air and to do what kids are supposed to do—play.
3. Encouraging dating in early teen years. We’re
pushing off dating as long as possible. Why? I don’t believe putting kids in
tempting situations is good for them. Just because you may have dated at an
early age and survived doesn’t mean they will. STD’s are at an all-time high.
Early intimate relationships also increase risk of depression and suicide. They
are still growing and learning about life. Doing things adults do in
relationships is not only dangerous, but it’s a heck of an emotional load to
put on a kid. They’ve got enough to worry about with homework, sports and
college. You might think it’s cute, but when your child ends up telling you
they’re pregnant or they have Herpes—it’s not so cute.
4. Being lax about prayer and going to
church. In a world where the word religion is looked at as a bad
word, and kids are being told rules don’t matter anymore—church is desperately
needed. We do not pray enough. Our kids need to see us pray, and they need to
see us make church a priority. And what if they tell you they don’t want to go?
Go anyway. You’re the parent. Kids need structure, and they need to see you as
an example of someone who strives to put God first, before everything else.
5. Not talking about the issues they face. Just
because they act like everything is okay doesn’t mean it is. It’s crucial to
connect with your kids every day. Show you care by asking about their day and
actually listening to them. Take them out for dessert or to a coffee shop for
one-on-one time. Ask their opinion on things with school, their teachers,
friends, church—whatever. Help them by offering a non-judgmental, loving
example of the Church’s viewpoint on current issues. Kids are confused today
because the world is telling them so many things are okay that the church is
saying are not. You can be the voice of reason and sanity for them, and by
showing them respect and listening—they’re more likely to hear you.
6. Paganizing Christianity. Some
things just aren’t Christian, no matter how you try to make them that way. While
it’s great to have healthier alternatives, we can’t Christianize everything.
Sadly, public school dances in many schools have now become a showcase of
blatant immorality. My jaw almost dropped to the floor when my teenage daughter
told me her junior high school’s dance last year included lap dancing and pole
dancing. Then she mentioned later that “grinding” was rampant, and the punch
got spiked. Huh? Yes, that’s right. Because the parent chaperones were afraid
to say something, the kids got away with it. Throw in oversexualized lyrics,
peer pressure, hormones and brains that haven’t grown completely—and you get a
recipe for disaster. Come up with your own ways to celebrate that don’t include
being immoral. This year, to substitute for a school dance, we’re looking at
renting a boat and having our kids invite a friend to come along. We don’t mind
spending a little money to give our kids a fun time with friends. Why waste a
miserable night chaperoning a dance when our kids could have a better, cleaner
time doing something fun with friends?
7. Too much freedom. It blows
me away how many parents don’t know where their kids are these days. First of
all, friends are important, but it’s the family that sticks around for the long
haul. Parents should not feel embarrassed to require their kids to be home for
dinner and to know their whereabouts. And no, I don’t drop my kids off at the
mall. What good things happen at the mall anyway? Involve them in church youth
groups and volunteer organizations and sports, but be careful how much time
they spend wandering aimlessly with friends who might not always be the best
influence. Don’t let them back you in a corner. It’s okay to put your foot down
and say no on some of their activities. As long as they know you love and respect
them, they will eventually understand ( it might be when they’re 30, but they
will thank you later).
8. Ignoring the value of hard work. Do your
kids do regular chores? If not, why not? You are robbing them of valuable
opportunities that will raise their self-esteem and help them learn skills they
will use all their life. Aside from that, they live in your house, and you are
not a maid. Enough said.
9. Not teaching them manners. The
other day, two teenage boys walked into a door in front of me and let the door
swing back in my face. They just kept talking and didn’t even look back. I can
hold a door open myself just fine, but I think it’s a good thing to teach teen
boys and girls to look out for the person behind them. Teach them to say excuse
me when they bump into someone or walk in front of them. Kids today could
really use a lesson in manners. You will do the world a lot of good to teach
them to respect and honor others like our faith teaches.
10. Money doesn’t grow on trees. One day,
they will be on their own and will need to know how to pay bills. Teach them at
an early age that doing work is how they get money. Have them do jobs to earn
their spending money. Teach them to tithe 10% to charity, like the Bible
teaches, and show them how to invest. Proverbs has a lot of great verses to
show kids the importance of being wise with finances and planning ahead. There
is a time to give money to kids, but be careful. Many kids are getting money
way too easily, without understanding its value.
There isn’t
a blueprint out there for how to raise morally aware kids, in an increasingly
immoral world. But there is hope. We have more power than we realize.
Remembering
that we have the church to guide us, and Orthodox Christian friends and family
who are going through the same thing, helps.
It’s so
important that we do the hard things sometimes, and step up to the plate. Our
kids need us to be strong and guide them to the right thing.
By Christina Pessemier in The Sounding Blog
Source: http://myocn.net/10-ways-orthodox-parents-set-children-up-for-moral-failure/
A Interview with Fr. Vladislav Tsypin: Concerning Relics and Their Fragmentation
The bringing of the relics of St. Nicholas the
Wonderworker from Italy to Russia triggered much discussion about the
veneration of holy relics and particularly about the propriety of their
fragmentation. We gathered some most common questions of our readers and
addressed them to Archpriest Vladislav Tsypin, a professor, a doctor of Church
history and a lecturer of the canon law in Moscow Theological Academy and
Moscow Theological Seminary.
- Fr. Vladislav, while the veneration of holy relics
do not cause any questions in the Orthodox environment, the tradition of their
fragmentation can seem strange to some people. Does it not contradict the
Orthodox dogmatics?
- It does not
contradict at all. In the Ancient Church, at the time of persecutions, there
was a tradition of serving the Liturgy on the relics of martyrs. When the
number of churches began to increase after the Milan edict of Emperor
Constantine, it led to the tradition of the relics' fragmentation, so that in every
church people could serve the Liturgy on the relics. On the other hand, it also led
to the fact that people began to use for that not only the relics of martyrs,
but of other saints too. On its turn, it led to the appearance of antimensions,
which have the signature of the bishop and consequently serve as a "document" which proves that a priest serves the Liturgy not by his own will, but by the
will of the bishop. By the way, according to the canon law, a bishop is
allowed to serve the Liturgy even without an antimensions, if it is necessary.
Archpriest Vladislav Tsypin |
- Does the size of the relics’ particle, which you want to venerate, matter?
- The size
itself does not matter. However, psychological perception of people can be
different, when they see the whole relics or just a part of them. God acts it
the way known to Him only. And this way is called God’s grace. According to the
decision of the 7th Ecumenical Council, relics are honored on an
equal basis with icons. The way God’s grace works through them is similar to
the way it works through icons. When we appeal to the saints’ relics, it is
more important that we believe in the power of God’s grace and the holiness of
the saint. It means that our conscious faith matters.
- Why was it so that many saints asked their disciples
and even ordered them to let the animals eat their bodies or just leave them in
a forest? Why did they want that their burial sites remained unknown?
- The saints
who asked for that did that because of their great humility. They considered
themselves the worst people. Here we can observe a "typical" Christian paradox:
the best of us, Christians, pay attention to their sins, but not to their
merits. They were those "of whom the world was not worthy", as Apostle Paul
said.
- Then why was
it so that in most cases that order was not followed in Christianity?
- First of all,
their disciples fulfilled the usual duty of burying their close people. It is
natural even from the secular point of view. Secondly, in most cases the
disciples and the followers of saints preserved their relics to glorify the
Lord for granting them such a person and to show future generations the example
of following Christ.
- In the life story of St. Demetrius of Thessaloniki, it
is said that he was against the fragmentation of his relics. Once Leontius, an
Illyrian nobleman, wanted to take a part of the saint’s relics to build a
church in St. Demetrius’ honor in his homeland. Another time the ambassadors of
Emperor Justinian, who wanted to get the relics of St. Demetrius to bless the
newly built church in honor of St. Sophia, were stopped by the pillar of fire
from which they heard the voice: "Stop and do not dare to do this". What can we say
about this case?
- In the life
stories of saints, there are various episodes, but not always and not in all
circumstances they can be enlightening for us, Christians. There can be found different miraculous things, which perhaps should serve as an example, but only in case we
clearly understand the context of the events and the spiritual condition of the
people who got involved in this or that situation. This is why something what
we know from the life story of a particular saint cannot become a rule which must be observed. As for the will of St. Demetrius saying that he did not
want his relics to be divided anymore, we should consider that this practice could
turn into misuse: perhaps, there was a danger of destroying the relics at
all. It became also a spiritual danger for Christians, freedom from which is
recalled in the akathists to the saint.
- Are there any statements concerning relics in the
canons of the Orthodox Church?
- There are. In
the rule 94 of the Carthage council, devoted to the churches
constructed without permission of the authorities, it is said that local bishops are prescribed
to destroy such churches if there are no body or parts of the relics of a saint
in them. Here we can see that the parts of relics are compared by their value
to the bodies of martyrs. What is more, no one doubted that the particles of
relics could be honored on the equal basis with the whole relics.
- What is the origin of the tradition of relics’
fragmentation?
- Perhaps the
tradition appeared because of the fact that the relics of many saints were divided
from the very beginning: the saints were executed, their remains were burnt –
only their bones remained. What is more, there was a need for holy relics for
antimensions, which made this practice unavoidable, because it was just
impossible to have the whole relics for each from the hundreds of thousands of
churches.
Many relics,
for example, the relics of St. Savva of Serbia, were destroyed. Some relics
disappeared, while others were just stolen – especially after the 4th
Crusade, the Ottoman conquests and so on. However, we cannot stop honoring a
saint only because his relics have disappeared. In my opinion, destruction and
disappearance of holy relics should be considered the consequence of our
unworthy behavior.
We need to keep
in mind one thing: quite often we can see only the outer side of what is going
on in the Church and the world. The heavenly sense of the ongoing events is not
always clear to us. Perhaps, we act very self-confidently when we ty to
understand the deep meaning and the sense of what is happening.
- You are talking about a prudent and Christian
approach to the actions of saints: not in every situation a particular reaction
of a saint, about which we read in his life story (or in a legend about him),
should become a general rule.
- That is right.
One must not turn a particular case into a general obligatory rule. Any action
must be authorized by the Church to become a universal rule. We have no right to
refer to certain episodes from the saints’ lives and base certain rules on their
reactions, without paying attention to all the circumstances which led a holy
(I stress!) person to this or that reaction. For example, we have no right to
refer to the episode in which St. Nicholas slapped heretic Arius during the 1st
Ecumenical Council and consider this episode a permission to beat anyone who
does not agree with us, no matter whether they are people of the same faith or
not. You will agree that it will be strange to make this a norm. There were so
many cases when it seemed as if a slap was given because of “pious zeal”, but
in fact those were just the examples of bad behavior, which had nothing in
common with righteousness.
- What is the difference between Christian and pagan
approach to the worship of relics?
- There is a
wide range of different pagan beliefs. For example, the Romans had nothing similar
to the worship of remains. In ancient Egypt people artificially made mummys and
tried to connect that with their specific belief in immortality.
As for the difference
between Christian and pagan worshipping, we need to remember the same rule
which is applied to the worship of holy icons: we worship the foretype, which
means we glorify God the Creator, Who gives His creation freedom and strength
to follow Him. At the same time, we honor the feat of those people, who have
managed to fully use their freedom, and ask them to help us in our prayer for
strength we need to come to Christ and be true Christians.
An interview with Fr. Vladislav Tsypin
Translated From Source: http://www.pravoslavie.ru/103681.html
A Short Video of the Liturgy on the Nativity Of Theotokos in St.Elisabeth Convent
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Welcome to the official blog of the Catalogue of St.Elisabeth Convent! The blog includes recent ministry updates of the convent, sermons, icons, personal stories and everything related to Orthodox Christianity. Join our Catalog of Good Deeds and become part of the ministry of St.Elisabeth Convent! #CatalogOfGoodDeeds