The Catalog of Good Deeds

Archpriest Andrew Lemeshonok, the spiritual father of St. Elisabeth Convent, answers various questions of the parishioners.

It Seems to Me That I Don’t Grow Spiritually. What Should I Do?

Question: Dear Father, your blessing. I go to church every Sunday and I take communion. I read spiritual books and listen to lectures from time to time but nothing ever happens… I don’t seem to change spiritually at all. Sometimes I don’t want to do anything at all (but that must be common for most people). I feel that I don’t move forward. What should I do? Veronica

Answer: The Lord says, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you (Matthew 7: 7). It always happens that when an individual turns to the faith, everything blossoms and smells sweet. He feels as if he can fly. Then there’s a time when that person has to hit the ground. He does his best to change something but nothing changes. That person gets bored and uninspired. I believe that you need to hold on. Do what you have always done: go to church, confess, take communion, and ask God to help you to stand firm in your faith and to remain faithful forever.

The time that you’re going through is really crucial. When God carries you in his arms, it’s easy to believe that you are a hero and that everything is possible. However, when God nudges you to use your own legs for walking, you’ll invariably have problems. Now, you’ve got to learn to walk. A toddler walks down the path, and his feet ache. Don’t spare yourself; keep on walking. Of course, we won’t go very far but at least we’ll learn to be patient and humble, and that’s good enough.

I Can’t Piece My Life Together. Why?

Question: Hello, Father Andrew. I’m unable to piece my life together for some reason. I spent a year in a relationship with a man who turned out to be an alcoholic. He cheated on me, so I left him. I married another man, and he is an alcoholic, too. My dad was an alcoholic. I’ve shed so many tears because of alcohol. Why? What should I do? Veronica

Answer: When people live without the Church and construct their life temerariously using only their own reasoning, the enemy of the human race finds a way to break their life into pieces.

It isn’t God, it is man who chooses the sin. God is waiting for us to request his help. Therefore, the question “Why?” should not be pointed at God. God came into this world to save the sinner. It wasn’t God who concealed himself from us humans: it is us who hid from God. It wasn’t God who broke up with us, it is our own fault. That is why we suffer for our sins.

We were born into this world. Sin is the norm of our life. Only Jesus makes it possible for us to defeat our nature, our flesh and blood, and to start a journey towards a new life in the Heavenly Kingdom. Needless to say, this is a path full of struggle with ourselves, with the devil, and with the world. That is why we should not be asking why. Rather, we should pray, “Lord save me, save my family, make me strong enough to fight the sin and to believe that it will be vanquished in the end.” This is what we should be thinking.

Are Karate Classes Compatible with Orthodoxy?

Question: Father Andrew, your blessing. We’ve decided to enroll our son in karate classes. We met his coach, and the coach told us that he mostly pays attention to general physical agility and discipline during the first couple of years. Then he gradually begins to teach them techniques, etc.

He doesn’t do spiritual practices and doesn’t encourage his students to participate in religious practices or discuss religious matters. However, our friends told us that karate is a kind of Far Eastern martial arts, and therefore contradicts the tenets of Orthodoxy. They added that we shouldn’t let our child be entangled in it. We would like our son to grow into an honest, just, physically and spiritually robust boy and man. What do you think about it? Svetlana

Answer: You are right. You’ve talked with the coach and saw what kind of person he is, whether he is trustworthy or not. You’ve voiced your doubts with regard to the pseudo-spiritual Oriental practices. Your son will grow and develop. I don’t think it will inflict any spiritual harm on his soul—especially since you go to church with your child, and he takes communion. If anything bad happens, you’ll certainly notice it. You love your son and pay attention to him. Don’t hesitate. Children, especially boys, need to grow strong and powerful. Sometimes they need to be able to defend themselves, too.

The main influence on a child comes not from outside; it comes from within the family. That is why, if your family has love and peace, if you live with God, that’s the most important thing. All other things shall be added unto you.

November 15, 2018

St. Elisabeth Convent

By Fr. Andrew Lemeshonok

If we read memoirs of Father Sophrony about Elder Silouan where he recounts how that mighty ascetic fought spiritually until he finally, after several decades of that battle, which is already impenetrable for us, admitted that he simply couldn’t make God listen to his prayers no matter how hard he tried (and he tried really hard, he was a powerful man), do we think that we can do any better? We are lazy. We don’t wage that war.

And yet, every soul wants to live forever. That is why God allows us to face some troubles. We have to accept those troubles as a cross to carry till the end. He that endureth to the end shall be saved (Cf. Matthew 10: 22).

Our life goes on. We are in motion. I would like each soul not to hesitate and not to leave for an alien land (cf. Luke 15: 13), where it won’t find anything or anyone good…

Could youmove overa little, please? Yes, you can. See, there’s some free space for the people who’ve come. That’s so common! One person occupies the chair, and leaves others standing. That’s exactly how people act in our rehabilitation centre. That’s what Christianity begins with. Right? Greatness has humble beginnings.

We are discussing spiritual affairs, and that’s a great example. We can be boasting, “Look how we take communion and pray all the time.” However, we don’t even notice people and things around us… Spiritual life begins with small things. Our prayer begins with short but attentive and persistent prayer, which must later grow into the prayer for the entire world, according to Father Sophrony. He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much (Luke 16: 10).

Recently, we had nuns and schema-nuns together with their spiritual father as guests. We had a great back and forth, during which the priest said that devil hides in trivial things. For instance, a momentary negligence, or a temporary impatience, or a little bit of hurry. Bringing everything to a conclusion is extremely important. If you set out to do something, do it until you finish it. For example, I had been doing something great and worked really hard but then I grew tired of all that and thought to myself, “Nah, I don’t want to do this anymore. Does it matter if I don’t finish doing that?” There are people in our rehabilitation centre who have struggled with their passion for the devil’s water for a year or two. It’s evidently difficult. But then someone gives the man a glass of liquor and he drinks it, and that’s that. He loses several years of his streak! He has to start everything all over again. That is why we need to be vigilant, alert, and wakeful.

Of course, we have plenty of information available nowadays. If we read many books (or even if we read just one book), we can imagine a different world and find an imaginary spiritual life. There are people in our rehabilitation centre who pose as spiritually advanced already. They have long prayer ropes and they walk around with them as if they pray all the time. There comes a lorry with some goods, and they don’t go and help to unload them. They say, “I was doin’ my prayer!” “Listen, buddy, what prayer? The goods are heavy, people are exhausted, can’t you see?” “Oh no-no, I am obedient. I wasn’t blessed to do it.” That is how you can turn everything upside down. On the face of it, he’s right, he obeys orders. Where’s his soul, though? What does his conscience do?

There are inconsistencies like those in the Church. These inconsistencies are human. God is different. For Him, even the least one can become the greatest one. A postulant can please God more than a schema-monk if he lives for the sake of others, if he doesn’t think about himself, if he sacrifices everything, if his life is selfless ministry. When you start to grasp spiritual connections and spiritual values, then you see an outward person who can say whatever he wants and fantasise about lots of things, and then you see his inward self which doesn’t jibe with it completely. We spend our lives incoherently. We can’t avoid it, sure. Let’s at least own it.

November 8, 2018

St. Elisabeth Convent

An Orthodox Christian conscience is created by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ acting within us. It is difficult to form this conscience. But once a Christian acquires it, an alarm is sounded in his heart and mind whenever he comes close to improper actions, lack of charity toward others, false ideas, and deviations from the holy traditions of Orthodoxy.

Here are the ways in which we can cooperate with God’s grace and form this conscience within ourselves:

1. We are to have much love for our Saviour, with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. We are not to divide our love between God and the world. For a beginner this means that when we pray we should struggle mightily to concentrate and avoid distractions: we are to be wholly in God. Furthermore, as St. John of Kronstadt teaches:

“Love for God begins to manifest itself, and to act in us, when we begin to love our neighbor as ourselves, and not to spare ourselves or anything belonging to us for him, as he is the image of God: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God Whom he hath not seen? (1 John 4:20).”

St. John says that this is the only love which is real, and lasting:

“The purer the heart becomes, the larger it becomes; consequently it is able to find room for more and more loved ones; the more sinful it is, the more it contracts; consequently it is able to find room for fewer and fewer loved ones–it is limited by a false love; self-love.”

2. We must pray often, both at church and at home. St. Gregory of Sinai says that the great gift which God gives us in Holy Baptism is buried by us, just as a treasure is buried in the ground – “and common sense and gratitude demand that we should take good care to unearth this treasure and bring it to light.” One of the most important ways to do this is by acquiring the habit of prayer. Blessed Theophan the Recluse explains further:

“Those who only hear about spiritual meditation and prayer and have no direct knowledge [experience] of it are like men blind from birth, who hear about the sunshine without ever knowing what it really is. Through this ignorance they lose many spiritual blessings, and are slow in arriving at the virtues which make for the fulfillment of God’s good pleasure.”

3. We must carefully read and study Holy Scripture. Although many saints had the habit of reading through the entire Psalter and New Testament every week, we should at least read the Gospel and Epistle appointed in the Church Calendar for each day. According to St. Seraphim of Sarov, “It is very profitable ‘to occupy oneself: with the reading of the word of God in solitude, and to read the whole Bible intelligently…in order that the whole mind of the reader might be plunged into the truths of Holy Scripture, and that from this he might receive warmth.”

4. Attendance at Divine Services and frequent reception of Holy Communion is vital to the development of an Orthodox conscience. Of this, St. John of Kronstadt writes:

“The Divine Liturgy is truly a heavenly service on earth, in which God Himself, in a particular, immediate, and most close manner is present and dwells with men…. There is on earth nothing higher, greater, more holy, than the Liturgy; nothing more solemn, nothing more life-giving.”

St. Tikhon of Zadonsk observed: “The Christians of old frequently received communion as the cause and food of immortality, wherefore even up to our own time the Holy Church daily exhorts us to ‘draw near with fear of God and with faith’. At the present day people have neither, as the facts abundantly prove; only once a year, and even then almost under compulsion, do they approach the Table of Immortality …. Men hasten joyfully to banquets, but to this spiritual and most Sacred Table to which Christ invites them they come under compulsion.”

5. We should read the writings of the Holy Fathers of the Church and the Lives of the Saints. Blessed Theophan the Recluse explained this to one of his spiritual children in the following way:

“The spiritual life is a special world into which the wisdom of men cannot penetrate… This is a subject which embraces much and is lofty and sweet to the heart…. If you seriously desire to enter onto this path, then you won’t have time to turn to the study of other subjects… for human philosophizing cannot even be compared with spiritual wisdom.”

Therefore, if we wish to learn ways that are pleasing to God, it stands to reason that we will set aside time in order to study the writings and lives of those who have drawn close to Him while still in this life, for according to St. John of Kronstadt there are rich and poor in the spiritual world just as there are in worldly society:

“As the poor ask charity of the rich, and cannot live without help·from them, so also in the spiritual order the poor must have recourse to-the rich. We are the spiritually poor, whilst the saints, and those who shine even in this present life by their faith and piety, are the spiritually rich. It is to them that we needy ones must have recourse.”

6. We are to practice the presence of God in our daily life. St. John of Kronstadt explains it in this way:

“Believe that God sees you as undoubtedly as you believe that anyone standing face to face with you sees you, only with this difference, that the Heavenly Father sees everything that is in you, everything that you are …. God is nearer to us than any man at any time. Therefore we must always set God before us, at our right hand, and there behold Him; we must be strong, and in order not to sin we must so place ourselves that nothing can thrust God from our thoughts and hearts, that nothing can hide Him from us, that nothing may deprive us of our beloved Lord, but that we may every hour, every minute, belong to Him, and be perpetually with Him, as He Himself is perpetually with us, as He constantly cares for us and guards us”.

7. We should often, if not daily, examine our souls and repent of the sins we find there. St. Mark the Ascetic writes: “The conscience is nature’s book. He who applies what he reads there experiences God’s help.” Thus, Elder Macarius of Optina wrote in a letter of spiritual direction:

“The Lord calls to Him all sinners; He opens His arms wide, even to the worst among them. Gladly He takes them in His arms, if only they will come. But they have got to make the effort of coming. They must seek Him, go to Him. In other words, they must repent. It is not He that rejects those who do not repent. He still longs for them, and calls them. But they refuse to hear His call. They choose to wander away, in some other direction.” Therefore, St. John of Kronstadt explains: “Conscience in men is nothing else but the voice of the omnipresent God moving in the heart–the Lord knows all …. Watch your heart throughout your life; examine it, listen to it, and see what prevents it from uniting itself with the Lord. Let this be your supreme and constant study …. Examine yourself more often; see where the eyes of your heart are looking.”

And then, as Blessed Theophan the Recluse counsels:

“Repent, and turn to the Lord, admit your sins, weep for them with heartfelt contrition, and confess them before your spiritual father.” St. Hesychios the Priest tells us that according to St. Basil the Great, “a great help towards not sinning and not committing daily the same faults is for us to review in our conscience at the end of each day what we have done wrong and what we have done right. Job did this with regard to both himself and to his children [cf. Job 1:5], These daily reckonings illumine a man’s hour-by-hour behaviour.”

8. Struggle mightily to avoid judging others. God alone has the right to judge, for as St. Tikhon of Zadonsk says:

“Do not judge others, for you cannot know what is inside the other man. Do not condemn, for he may still rise whilst you may fall. Be-ware of even talking about others, lest you start judging them. Enquiring into other people’s sin is a curiosity hateful to God and man…because, by judging, man usurps the powers of the only judge, Christ …. Above all, when judging another we cannot know whether perchance he has not already repented and been forgiven by God.”

If we are willing to arrange our lives in the above manner, resolving not to withdraw from this holy labor even if it means suffering and also death, then, from the very moment that we begin, grace starts to flow into us, according to Blessed Theophan the Recluse:

“The help of God is always ready and always near, but is only given to those who seek and work.”

By Hieroschemamonk Ambrose Young

Source: http://www.pravmir.com/how-to-form-an-orthodox-conscience/

Read to me!

Reading aloud used to be a widespread cultural tradition. Nowadays, people often stop reading to their children and together with them as soon as their children learn to read. It’s a mistake. Psychologists recommend reading books aloud to your kids until they turn 14 to ensure their holistic emotional development. Reading together is especially beneficial. Plays are the best way to bond family members together and to share feelings.

James Jebusa Shannon, "Jungle Tales", 1895

Enter home theater!

Theater is a very meaningful pastime. Rehearsing a play is great for esthetic education and for deep immersion into the world of literature, music, fine arts, and dance.

Play is one of the basic and the most vital activities for children aged 1-12. Play isn’t just fun. It’s an entire cosmos. The idea behind a home theater is teaching by playing. Home theater teaches children to feel their feelings, to interact with each other, to be creative, and to behave in a group setting. Well-chosen plays can help your children to become better Christians.

"The Owner of Flower Garden", scene from "The Snow Queen"

Home theater spurs the development of children’s creativity. Children are fond of participating in rehearsals, suggesting changes to the script or inventing and enacting their own scenes. They master their native language, learn to use logical thinking skills, and enjoy the beautiful and diverse world of arts and letters.

Little Secret and Big Miracle

One precious secret of home theater is the long process of preparing for the performance. Yes, you’ve heard me correctly! Making colorful scenery and sophisticated costumes with your own hands and choosing props—that’s what makes home theater so unique. Why hurry? Home theater is the place where you can enjoy spending time together. While you write the script, draw, glue, and rehearse this or that episode, you get more and more united with your kids!

"The Prince Is Sick!" scene from "The Traveler’s Tale"

Amazing Powers of Theater

Performing, making scenery, writing and discussing the script is one thing. The fact that well-chosen plays can be immensely advantageous for the mental well-being of your child is another. When your child plays the part of a negative character, she can spot the same negative traits in her own character and learn to overcome them and acquire positive traits instead. More importantly, you can teach it to your child without having to lecture her, just by playing together.

It is common knowledge that there are numerous methods of therapy based on play and theatrical performances with the chief principle being “laugh with the child, not at the child.” That is why you should write or choose plays and fairy tales where you can laugh together and ridicule laziness, fear, shyness and sheepishness (which isn’t to be mistaken for modesty), cowardice, etc.

Here is a brief beginners’ manual: just begin :-)

Undoubtedly, home theater enhances speech development, teaches dialog skills and improves the child’s ability to share her impressions, which is especially instrumental in the contemporary world of online interactions where we have a shortage of ways to express our feelings verbally (and therefore to think clearly, because speech is inextricably bound with thinking).

"Butterflies", a scene from "Ladybird"

Perhaps, most importantly, a well-chosen repertoire will inspire your children to love the wonderful, the great, and the authentic without lengthy talks and sermons.

Home theater creates an atmosphere of joy, warmth, and love.

Try and organize a fun event at home!

By Michael Mironenko,

a Bachelor of Theology,

the director of the Sunday School at the Church

in honor of St. Prince Vladimir in Minsk,

director at the studio theater "Ladybird" for 9 years,

a father of two children

The Catalog of Good Deeds, 2018

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Three Questions for the Spiritual Father of St. Elisabeth Convent

“Greatness Has Humble Beginnings” or Why Being Humble Is the Only Way to Move forward

A New Icon of Unification and the Question of Our Catholicity

How to Form an Orthodox Conscience

Why so Much Self-humiliation in Prayer?

Home Theater: the Idea of Education and Spiritual Development of Children

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