The Catalog of Good Deeds

A Fastidious Dove

There was a fastidious dove who kept moving from one nest to another because it smelt foul wherever he went. He complained about it to an old and wise dove. The old dove remarked:

— Look, you keep moving from one nest to another but nothing changes. Doesn’t it mean that the smell that bothers you is your own smell?

Preacher

A preacher came to a town to convert people into his faith. At first, people were listening to his sermons but then the crowd dispersed until no one was left. Although no one listened to him, he stood there preaching.

A traveler was walking by, and asked the preacher:

– Why do you keep preaching?

– At first, I hoped to change those people, – he replied. – Now I keep preaching only to prevent them from changing me.

The Pig and the Cow

The Pig complained with the Cow that people treat it badly:

– People like you more than me! People always praise you and say that you’re kind. That’s fine: after all, you give them milk and butter! But don’t I give them even more? I give them sausages, ham, steaks, leather, bristle… They even boil and eat my legs! And yet, no one loves me. Why?

The cow responded after some thinking:

– That’s probably because I give everything while I’m still alive?

A Sly Architect

A rich man called his personal architect and said:

– Build a house in a remote land. You can make it the way you want it to be. I want to present that house to a special friend of mine.

The architect gladly accepted the order and went to the building site, where there were lots of various building tools and materials already.

The architect was a sly guy, though. He thought to himself, “I know my job: no one will notice if I use low-grade materials or apply less stringent quality control. The building will look fine in spite of that. I’ll be the only person who knows about the minor defects. I’ll be able to fulfil the order quicker and earn some more money by selling expensive building materials.”

The work was done by the specified day. The rich man came to inspect the house. He looked at it and said:

– Well done! Now it’s time to present this house to my friend. He is so special for me that I didn’t spare tools or materials to build him a house. You are that precious friend of mine. I present this house to you!

God gives each person a task to perform in life and lets everyone do it freely and use as much creativity as one wants. Each of us will receive the house that he builds in the course of his life on the Resurrection Day.

The Kingdom of Chains

There was a blacksmith in a certain kingdom who made such beautiful chains that he started wearing them. Other blacksmiths liked it and started wearing chains, too. Other people, including the king and his court, followed suit. Soon, the king issued an edict on universal wearing of chains. Teachers would teach school children how to wear chains properly. Skilful jewellers made gold, silver, and gemstone chains. Chains became the highest award in that kingdom. There were tinkerers who developed new improved chains made of ultralight alloys. Scholarly conferences and symposia on chain-ology were held. Scholars even wrote a revised history of the kingdom to prove that its subjects had been wearing chains since earliest times.

Nevertheless, there were some people in that country who refused to wear chains. They were persecuted, thrown into prisons, and forced to wear special chains that caused pain. As they were dying, they bequeathed to their compatriots the following commandment: “Unchain yourselves!” Little by little, there were more and more people who followed that new commandment. Those who released themselves from the weight of the chains explained to everybody else that it was much easier to move.

Other people would nod their heads in disbelief and say that being different is not for everyone and go away, their chains rattling as they were walking.

Over time, the majority of the kingdom’s populace came to realise that it is possible to live without chains. The king issued a new decree that acquitted those who had been persecuted for refusing to wear chains. They even erected a monument in honor of those sufferers. However, many people did not have the courage to take off their chains because they had gotten used to them.

There were two holy hermits who lived in a desert. They agreed to plant a palm tree at the entrance of their cells to provide shade during the daily heat. They met some time later, and one of the hermits asked the other one, “You know, brother, I pray to God asking him to send rain on my palm tree, and He sends it. Then I ask him for the sun, and He sends it. And still, your palm tree grows much better than mine. How do you pray for it?”

The other hermit replied, “Brother, I simply pray, ‘Lord make my palm tree grow. And the Lord sends me sun and rain when it’s required.’”

The Jar of Life

Students filled the lecture hall waiting for the lecture to begin. The lecturer came and put a big glass jar on the table. The audience was surprised.

– Today I would like to talk with you about life. For starters: what can you say about this jar?

– Well, it’s empty, – someone said.

– You’re right, – the lecturer nodded. He took a bag full of rocks and started throwing them into the jar until it was full. – What can you say about this jar now?

– Well, and now it’s full! – one of the students said.

The lecturer took out a bag of peas and started pouring them into the jar. The peas filled the space between the rocks:

– And now?

– Now the jar is even fuller!!! – the students yelled.

The lecturer took a bag of sand and started pouring it into the jar.

– The jar is fully full now! – the students said.

The lecturer smiled, picked two bottles of water, and poured them into the jar.

– Now the jar is really full, – he said. – Let me explain. The jar is our life. The rocks are the most crucial things in our lives: family, children, loved ones, etc.; peas are less valuable things like clothes or cars; sand is the rest of our lives that is small and insignificant, all those minor problems that we have to deal with daily… So if I poured the sand into the jar first, I wouldn’t be able to put the peas or the rocks inside. That is why you shouldn’t let various trifles fill your lives and block more important things. That’s it for today, see you tomorrow.

Translated by The Catalog of Good Deeds

Source: azbyka.ry/days

Fr. Seraphim Holland, rector of the St. Nicholas Church in McKinney, Texas, answers ten questions on the first Sunday after Pascha—Thomas Sunday, also known as “Antipascha.”

Question: When is the Sunday of St. Thomas? Why? On the Sunday of St. Thomas, two hymns normally sung in Sunday matins are not sung. What are these hymns? Why are they not sung?

Answer: St Thomas Sunday is the Second Sunday of Pascha, or, said another way, the first Sunday after the Sunday of Pascha.

The Gospel text for the day gives a clue as to why the celebration is at this time: Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you (Jn. 20:19).

But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe (Jn. 20:24-26).

And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you... (Jn. 20:27).

On the Sunday of St. Thomas, the Resurrectional Evlogitaria sung before the Hymns of ascent which precede the Gospel, and immediately after either the Polyeleos or 118th psalm in normal times) are not sung, and neither is the “Magnificat” (“My soul magnifies the Lord...,” which is usually sung between the eighth and ninth ode of the matins canon). These hymns are omitted because the feast of St. Thomas Sunday is a “Feast of the Lord,” and it supersedes EVERYTHING from the normal Resurrectional service, just as Nativity, or another feast of the Lord would.

Question: A Hymn normally sung once in Sunday matins is sung three times, in the matins for St. Thomas Sunday, and until when? What is the hymn?

Answer: “Having beheld the resurrection” (certainly very familiar to everyone who has sung the Paschal Hours in lieu of morning prayers during Bright week, since it is also sung three times then), is normally sung once in Sunday matins, just after the Gospel is read. During the Paschal season, until and including the Sunday preceding Ascension Thursday, it is sung three times.

Question: How many days after the resurrection were required for Thomas to believe? Why did he not originally believe?

Answer: According to the Gospel of St. John, Jesus appeared unto the Apostles the first time on the evening of Pascha, with Thomas being absent, then the second time eight days later, with him being present. He originally did not believe because of the incredible reality of the Resurrection. He needed to see the evidence.

Question: How does the Holy Spirit, through the services characterize Thomas’ unbelief?

Answer: The church characterizes St. Thomas’ unbelief as “good”, because it led to a greater manifestation of the reality of Christ's resurrection in the flesh:

“As the disciples were in doubt, / the Savior came on the eighth day / to where they were gathered and granted them peace, / and cried unto Thomas: / Come, O Apostle, and feel the palms in which they fastened the nails. / O good unbelief of Thomas, / which hath led the hearts of the faithful to knowledge! / Hence, he cried out with fear: // O my Lord and my God, glory be to Thee” (Sticheron from Lord I have cried, vespers for St. Thomas Sunday).

Fr. Seraphim Holland

Source: http://www.orthodox.net/questions/thomas_sunday_1.html

The Orthodox Church is the Church of the Resurrection, because it gives prominence to Christ’s victory over death. Pascha is the overcoming of death, the passage of the Word to the human heart and not the reduction of the heart to human reason and senses. When one examines the “ethos” of Orthodoxy, one finds that it confers the “spirit” and life that comes out of the Tomb: the “life in the tomb” as the hymns say. It is a blaze of light and the ecstasy of life. This is where the difference between western Christianity and the Orthodox Church can be seen:

Saint Francis, in Kazantzakis’ biography, reaches the highest degree of the spiritual life by feeling “God crucified” in his body. He said of this: “It is a cross, Brother Leone, man’s body is a cross - open your arms and you will see, God is crucified upon it”. And he prayed, “My Christ, my love, I ask one favour of you, one favour for me before I die - that I may feel in my body and soul, as far as possible, Your pain and Your Holy passion…” He reached the point of seeing the wounds of the Cross on his body, and when he asked for another, greater, experience, he heard a divine voice saying: “Do not ask for more; this is where man’s ascent ends - at the Crucifixion!”

On the other hand, the Orthodox saint, St. Silouan the Athonite, saw the Resurrected Christ and experienced Pascha within his being and within creation. Following the vision of Christ resurrected he said: “I was living in a paschal feast. Everything was beautiful; the world was grand, people were pleasing, nature was unspeakably lovely, the body changed and became light, strength was added… the soul overflowed with joy; it had compassion on people and prayed for the whole world.”

This difference between Western and Eastern thinking is seen in the difference between Jean-Paul Sartre and St. Seraphim of Sarov. The former (Sartre), disillusioned by western Christianity said: “The other is my hell!”. The latter (St Seraphim of Sarov) addressed everyone who met him with the greeting: “Christ is Risen, my joy”. Each and every ‘other’ is not ‘different’ a ‘stranger’ a ‘foreigner’, but a brother. The experience of the Resurrection overcomes death, neutralises selfishness, and abolishes Hades. Otherwise, man is enclosed in his own personal hell.

In celebrating “our Pascha” as “the feast of feasts” and as “the death of death, the first-fruits of another life that is eternal” we feel within ourselves and around ourselves the scent of spiritual death, of life that is before the Resurrection of Christ. We live this biological life simply for survival, but, indeed, as yet mortal. We chant “Christ is Risen!”, we celebrate on the outside, but the bitterness of Hades rules within us, often even in church life. The remembrance of death is bitter, so too is the pain of loneliness. These poisonous constraints, even in the field of Christianity are bitter; even in the Church itself, which continues to be the Church of the Resurrection and to preach the mystery of the Resurrection.

It is of course our various passions that keep us away from the existential festival of life. Various pressures also make Church life feel different from this. Christians divided by various political considerations, the Orthodox with various rivalries between themselves; these do not remind us of the Resurrected Christ at all.

So, the crucifixion of the Orthodox Church continues. The wounds of the Cross of the Church in Jerusalem, from its internal weaknesses and external influences blacken the “Holy Fire” that comes from the Sepulchre of Christ. The political opportunism, the nationalistic racists with their all too human passions do not allow the joy of the Resurrection to shine out as light to the people round about.

The domineering powers that can be seen in all Christian confessions drain away the “Joy to all”, the “Peace unto you”, the “be of good cheer”, because they are ruled by other alien powers, foreign to the “spirit” of the Resurrected Christ. Unfortunately, politics, often in ecclesiastical dress, are the nails of the crucified Church, the bride of the Resurrected Christ together with the worldly-led pressures that take place in the name of the term “mother Church”.......

Our Pascha, as the victory over death and the experience of life, is lived out today despite these secular-minded powers and tendencies. It is experienced by those who live humbly and existentially within the sphere of the Church, away from secularisation, racism and political considerations and can be clearly seen in the relics of saints.

Normally, the bodies of those saints that have fallen asleep, which are a just mass of cells, within which are included the cells for ageing, should rot away. However, the power and grace of the Resurrection does not let them break up; something which proves they have overcome death. The saint is a person who is asleep awaiting the last wake up call.

This then is our Pascha, as a mystery of the Resurrection, and not as a Christianity of religiosity with the passions of the love of precedence, of division and of rivalry. ‘Our Pascha’ cannot be replaced by ‘our Religion’, which lives under the rule of death. The Resurrected Christ cannot be made up out of the political expressions of Christianity and the power of the Resurrection cannot fit within the so-called “Christian States”. It is experienced in a life beyond the imagination, thinking and speaking; transfigured by Divine Light, with a loving desire for God and with humility.

By His Eminence, Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos

Source: http://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/voicefromisles/pascha_in_the_west_and_the_east

On the Bright Saturday, the believers have an opportunity to get Artos in churches. What is the origin of the tradition of taking Artos and how should one do this in the right way?

What is Artos?

The word artos is translated from Greek as “leavened bread” – the common bread blessed for the all members of the Church, in other words the communion bread.

During the whole Bright Week, artos is placed on the most prominent place in the church near the icon of the Resurrection, and when the Paschal celebrations are over, it is handed out among the believers.

What is the origin of the tradition of artos consumption?

Artos consumption began with Christianity itself. On the 40^th day after the Resurrection, Lord Jesus Christ ascended to Heaven. The disciples and followers of Christ found solace in prayerful commemoration of the Lord, they recalled His every word, every step and every action. When they gathered for a common prayer, they recalled the last Suppers and partook of Holy Communion. Preparing a usual meal, they left the first place at the table for the Lord who sat there invisibly and put a bread on this place.

What does it symbolize?

Emulating the apostles, the first shepherds of the Church began to put bread in the church as a visible expression of the idea that the Savior, who has suffered for us, became the true bread of life. On an artos we can see a cross with the crown of thorn, but there is no the Crucified One, which is the symbol of Christ’s victory over death or His Resurrection.

There is another ancient church story connected with artos. It states that the apostles always left a piece of bread – the part of the Mother of God – in a reminder of the constant communion with Her. After the meal, they shared that piece of bread between themselves. In monasteries, this tradition is called the rite of Panagia, i.e. the commemoration of the Most Holy Mother of God. In parish churches this bread of the Mother of God is recalled once a year, when artos is shared.

How is artos consecrated?

Artos is consecrated with a special prayer, besprinkling with holy water and censing it at the Liturgy on the first day of Holy Pascha and after the prayer behind the ambo. An artos is placed in front of the Royal Gates on a table or analogion. After the consecration, the analogion with the artos is put on the solea before the image of Christ, where artos will stand during the whole Bright Week. It is kept on the analogion before the iconostasis for the whole week.

Every day during the Bright Week, cross processions with artos take place after the liturgy. On Saturday of the Bright week, a prayer for fragmentation of artos is read. The artos is divided into pieces and given to people during the kissing of the cross after the Liturgy.

How should we keep and consume artos?

Faithful people keep the particles of artos they got in the church as a spiritual remedy from weaknesses and diseases. Artos is taken in special cases, for example, in case of sickness and always with the words “Christ is risen!”.

Source: http://www.pravmir.ru/zachem-razdayut-artos-5-voprosov/

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