The Catalog of Good Deeds

An accident …

Sergei is totally paralyzed except for his head, neck and shoulders. By our hero’s own admission, nothing remained for him but to learn how to do something with the muscles that still had some potential for movement. This desire proved to be enough to find his calling in life. His sole chance to maintain contact with the world was via the computer, and his old friend Igor Sitnikov, now living in Canada, encouraged him to paint icons. His friend’s idea found a place in his heart, and besides, he had always drawn well, although, admittedly, it is hard to imagine with what difficulty Sergei could do this!

“With the help of my shoulder joint I can manage my disobedient right hand, laying it on my computer mouse.”

“To paint one icon takes between three and five weeks, with twelve to sixteen hours of work a day. My icons are painted with the help of special artistic programs, subject to, naturally, the Orthodox canons. Of course, I wouldn’t be able to do all this on my own, if not for my partners from the guild. Besides me, there are a few other people, including a carpenter and graphic designer. We have worked together since 2008. People who order icons from us say they bear a special grace.”

“I want to emphasize that I have no merits in this, except for patience,” says Sergei, sharing the secrets of his skill.

Before and After

Listening to Sergei’s story, I caught myself thinking that his story shocked me to the depths of my soul. Of course it would seem so, with such a feeble body but such a powerful spirit! For us, the healthy and carefree, everything is different. It seems to me that this young man, entirely dependent on outside hep and compassion, is truly an example for us all—an example of how to live, not feeling sorry for yourself; how not to whine, overcome daily pain, and to bless God for every trial sent to us. It’s not Sergei who needed to talk to me but me who needed to communicate with him, to understand how it’s possible to live and even create, being bedridden, when life itself seems to have lost all meaning. To live, and not grumble about your circumstances. To enjoy every day, do all within our power for our neighbors… But Sergei doesn’t just live; he supports himself in life and also helps his neighbors. Caught in a difficult situation, he became a deeply believing man. After all, that he is even still alive is itself a true miracle. With such injuries as Sergei had you just don’t survive. Seven cervical vertebrae were cracked into splinters, tearing up his spinal cord. It’s the same as having your head torn off.

Here we need a small digression. I knew Sergei from school (we were in the same grade). Many of my girlfriends were in love with him. Tall, handsome, blue eyes… We girls sensed then nobility and a generous soul in him.

Not so long ago, unaware of the drama happening in Sergei’s life, I asked a mutual friend: “How’s Kozlov?” and I heard: “He’s paralyzed. He had an accident diving into a river…”

This is how his classmates remember him:

Svetlana Andreeva:

“In school Sergei was an active, happy, fun-loving guy. Incidentally, he also drew very well. Basically all the girls liked him. And of course! He was so handsome—tall and handsome. He got married very early, ahead of all our male classmates.”

Tatiana Lazareva (Prokopova):

“I can say only good things about Sergei Kozlov. I remember his infectious laugh, how he ‘neighed’ to the whole class and everyone roared with laughter…”

The fateful fall…

It happened in 2002, by some mystical confluence of circumstances, on July 7, the day of St. John the Baptist. Legend has it that on this day mermaids gather young men into their kingdom. On the same day the Orthodox Church celebrates the Nativity of St. John the Forerunner and Baptist of the Lord. And now it is Sergei Kozlov’s second birthday… Such sad thoughts were spinning around in my head when I spoke with Serezha. I sat and listened, and he daunted me with every phrase:

“God forbid that I should return to the state in which I lived for thirty years,” he said unexpectedly. “I am thankful to Him that this happened to me.”

“Serezha, do you remember that fateful day?”

“I remember it like it was yesterday. Some friends and I went to the Bityug River. As usual, it was noisy and fun—just some pleasant, non-committal hanging out. Of course, no one was thinking of anything bad. We were at the river for five or seven hours and were planning to leave when I decided one last time to dive from the shore, as I had done many times. The next second I felt impact with the bottom, and a loud crack ringing in my ears. At that moment I had the thought: ‘I need to swim to the top, and figure out everything up above.’ And then I realized—my body was not listening to me. Slowly sinking to the bottom of the river, I couldn’t help but admire the underwater life. Looking at the bright greens and the fish frolicking in them, I suddenly perceived that I needed to take a breath—and that breath is now the most important event in my miserable life. My friends were gathering their things to go home just then, and no one was watching after me. By the time they remembered me twenty minutes already had passed. By that time it was a blue corpse they took from the river. The spectacle, of course, was not for the fainthearted. At that moment my friends were panicking. No one knew exactly what to do. Just imagine—the human brain can go without oxygen no more than five minutes, and after seven minutes it dies. In my case about twenty minutes went by. When finally they began to do CPR on me, trying to bring me back to life, no one suspected that anything was wrong with my body. Who knew that I had broken vertebra? And that to touch someone in such a situation is extremely dangerous? Frantically trying to save me from death, my friends were unaware that splinters from my vertebra were permanently mutilating my spinal cord.”

“You don’t blame your rescuers?”

“What?! It was God’s providence. No, I don’t blame those who saved me at all. Until the end of my life I will be grateful to them, because they forced the water out of my lungs, and I would now be living at the bottom of hell. From my first breath then I received a new birth. The Lord gave me another chance to reevaluate my life.”

A premonition of trouble…

“Many people say that just before some tragic event in their lives they have a premonition of trouble, experiencing inner discomfort and inexplicable anxiety. Such a feeling, that the soul feels something ahead of time, is very difficult to explain with words. Sergei Kozlov’s story is no exception. According to him, there was a horrible premonition. A sense of expectation of those terrible events did not leave the heart of Tatiana Ilychina—Sergei’s mother. She felt an inexplicable agitation; her soul was tossed about, not finding any rest, until they wrote to her that her son had had an accident. Sergei himself had a similar feeling. The day before they had buried his friend, and before this planned trip to the river Kozlov saw his departed friend in a dream.

“It was on the border between sleep and waking—I opened my eyes and I saw my friend Sergei’s huge face, who had tragically died in a car accident a few days before. For some reason Sergei smiles at me, and then suddenly rushes into some unknown distance, and, finally, disappears into the darkness. It was an amazing vision—I didn’t know what to make of it, but I felt that it’s somehow connected with the subject of death,” Sergei said, sharing his recollections.

He is convinced that death does not come abruptly—it always gives signs of itself, and man feels it. It’s a primal, inexplicable fear. A little later Sergei would again call to the lady in black, staring her in the eye more than once…

“No electricity comes through a broken cable”

After being miraculously saved, Sergei had to endure, in his expression, “real torments of hell in my own body,” as no one gave him any hope that he would live. When Kozlov was loaded unconscious into an ambulance, the doctors had no hope for a favorable outcome. On the road to the hospital he howled like a wild beast. The pain was unbearable. Even less comforting was the medics’ prognosis: “He has a few hours left to live.” They told Sergei’s mother right away that she should prepare for his funeral, explaining that such a trauma is fatal. But the night passed, and Sergei lived. They moved him to another hospital. He regained consciousness just as two young doctors were discussing his fatal trauma. “What happened to me?” Sergei asked with difficulty. Silence was the answer.

The first operation lasted seven hours. It seemed like an eternity to his family. And again—no encouraging prognoses. It stretched into horrible weeks and months. Literally every day he had to fight for his life, watching as people with similar traumas were dying.

“A month later, I turned into a mummy—at a height of 6’ 3’’, my weight was eighty-eight pounds,” Sergei recalls about that time.

Then his attending doctor decided on another operation. It also lasted seven hours, only practically without anesthesia, because strong anesthesia would have led to cardiac arrest.

“I felt it as they hollowed out the damaged parts of my spine through my opened neck with a hammer and chisel and replaced them with new ones; how they carved the bone tissue out of my hip,” Sergei recalled.

The details are not for the fainthearted… Just imagine—Sergei clinically died three times during his operation! He kept dying and returning to life.

“It was like I left my body and saw myself from outside when they saved me again. I’ll remember this state of lightness and weightlessness my whole life. I was shown what man truly is, that in reality our bodies are just visible shells, temporary dwellings for the soul. For me it was a kind of consolation, given by God.

Then there was another operation, and another, and another, but they didn’t change anything.

“For five years I worked hard on my body with a masseuse and a medical gymnast, but, as you know, no electricity comes through a broken cable. Then I came to the conclusion that a multifunctional bed is precisely what I’d been dreaming of all my life,” Sergei concluded, serious or joking.

A happy couple ordered Sergei’s icons for their wedding. Photo: gitie.ru

He’s been lying in bed since then—his reckless youth, early marriage, and divorce remaining in his past. Now his mother is always with him, and his visitors, his beautiful daughter Yana, his comfort and joy, who gave him his beloved grandchildren Ilya and Ivan. Today these remarkable tots fight amongst themselves for the right to distract their young grandpa from his work.

“Health is a gift, but sickness is a priceless gift!”

When everything is good and smooth like butter we barely remember the Most High; rather, we are more ready to believe in our own importance than in Him. But should any of us be faced with difficulties, stumble, lose our loved ones or become seriously ill, we immediately remember the higher powers, clumsily asking the Lord for a miraculous healing or comfort. Human nature is so ordered: We do not protect what we have, but we weep when it’s lost…

According to Sergei, he always felt the presence of his guardian angel nearby:

“With delight and pride I told my friends about it. I loved to reflect upon Holy Scripture, but in reality, I was in no rush to allow God into my heart. Only my accident spiritually healed me. I felt that the Lord is near.”

Every day in his prayers Sergei thanks God that He didn’t allow him to drown, and saved his soul. Deeply believing, he, it seems, has acquired peace of soul.

“It is my air—now I breathe by Him. It is my path along which I walk, and I have no right to leave it,” he shared with me. Hope that his earthly sufferings will not be eternal, and that his soul, like an angel, will soar with ease into Heaven, gives him strength.

“And what now do you ask God for, Sergei?”

“I always ask Him for one thing—that He would forgive my sins. What else can I ask for? I don’t ask for a better lot. The meaning of my life is now to worthily exit into the other world. I do not fear death, as I have stared it in the face more than once. We are all mortal. But the question is, how will we die? There’s no other way for us but repentance. No podvigs are required from us—only to learn to gratefully accept all sorrows and sickness from God, which He sends us for the salvation of our souls.”

“How do you manage not to complain about your circumstances?”

“In general, despondency is a great sin. As I already said, it is necessary to thank the Lord for all sends us. Then everything will be seen to be relative. We complain that we have periods of throbbing back pain; but, thank God, the pain goes away. And I’m already accustomed to living with constant pain. I remember only twice being awakened because the pain had left, and even then it only lasted three minutes at the most. I woke up because I had no pain, do you understand? There was a moment when I thought, ‘Am I alive?’ That’s how unusual this feeling was—like in a dream where I am always healthy. In real life I just lie in bed, and in another—I’m running on my feet. Basically, I accept what happened to me as my due. It is my cross. I moved towards it my whole conscious life, not finding any peace in my former worldly life. I wanted to devote myself entirely to some beloved work, holding nothing back. But I found no such thing. My soul was tossed about until what happened happened. But I can’t just lie here. I realized that I had to somehow provide for myself, to at least earn money for my own medicine. I couldn’t just depend on my parents! I began to look on the internet for a way to occupy myself. And there the field is unplowed—just pick something and do it! I began with Photoshop. I took orders for touching up old photos. Here again you need artistic skill, and from childhood I had drawn pretty well, so I had to recall some nearly forgotten skills. They came in handy later when I began to explore a special program for drawing icons. I had finally found my beloved work. A wise man once said: ‘Health is a gift, but sickness is a priceless gift!’ The difference is unmatched—the feeling of spiritual peace instead of worldly vanity—the constant presence of God instead of the enemy of mankind.”

It seems Sergei has only one regret—the daily hassle he brings his mother. She is ready, together with her son, to walk this path to the end; for “where your heart is—there will be love.” Love, supported by their faith in God.

Source: http://stillwaterorthodox.org/2017/03/paralyzed-iconographer-sergei-kozlov-disability-invaluable-gift/

Introduction

A great deal is made nowadays of "the technological revolution", as seen from both sides, those in favour and those who are very much against.

In the realm of Orthodox theology, however, is there really any essential difference between the age-old problem of technology and today's reality?

We could, of course, talk about the last century with the industrial revolution and all its consequences- social, political, moral, religious and so on.

When people speak of a new era in the history of mankind, of the third, technological revolution, are they not perhaps exaggerating the extent of the undoubted change in the conditions under which we live? Would it not be more realistic, instead of talking about a revolution, to recognize a process which began long before the industrial revolution and reached its culmination in the developments and consequences there of?

The basic feature which is new, however, in modern technology, is that it has turned everything on its head. While in former times people attempted to use science to improve their dominion over nature, it has now infiltrated into the very innermost laws of nature, with results likely to prove positive but also with terrible and limitless opportunities for intervention in these laws themselves. And where might this inversion bring us? To the further extension of these opportunities or to voluntary restrictions to ensure the sovereignty, dignity and survival of nature?

For this reason, the problem is not, in essence, , that of the relationship between Man and Nature, but rather that of our felicity in choosing among what might be infinite possibilities, so that we do not fall victim to the works of our hands. Why mention this? Because with justification we recall the words of Job: "She has hardened herself against her young, as though not bereaving herself, she has laboured in vain without fear" (Job 39:16). In other words, our era acts with harshness and indifference towards its children, as if they were not its own. And its indiscriminate and foolhardy attitude reduces every attempt and effort to naught, and, in the end, misfires.

Finally, it is not our function to note the revolutionary changes, but rather to point out to our contemporaries the true purpose of technology and to propose Orthodox theological and moral criteria.

Let us now see when technology begins.

A. Anthropology and Technology

Adam in Paradise was "naked in simplicity and artless in life" (Gregory the Theologian, PG 36, 632C), unclad and without "art". His call, his essential occupation was contemplation, gazing upon God, sought and found in supervision of the tree of knowledge. Which is why He made Man "a farmer of immortal plants" (ibid.), so that through agriculture in Eden, he would be constantly occupied with God.

Technology, therefore, makes its appearance after the Fall.

Adam's first-born son (Gen. 4:1-26), Cain, was a farmer; Abel was a shepherd; both of them, therefore, bound up with nature.

The third son, Enoch, became a mason and a builder of cities. Of the other descendants, Jobel founded the nomadic way of life. His brother, Jubal was the inventor of stringed instruments with the psaltery and harp. Thobel was a smith, forging iron and copper.

Finally, the son of God-fearing Seth, Enos, loyal to the name of God, set up the first public congregation, thus instituting the worship of God, so that all these technologist descendants of Adam could find both a place and means of gazing upon God and could work wherever they went, until they achieved dominion over the earth.

Through the blessings of God and wearisome toil, the gradual appearance of technology from agriculture through to industrialization thus provides Man with the opportunity to retain his position as lord over nature, despite the ancestral Fall. Technology is occasioned by Man's powers of reason and is a way of compensating for his weakness, as against animals, which have sufficient strength to survive, as against the forces of nature, the necessities of life (Gregory of Nyssa, PG 44, 140D-144AB) and so on.

We might mention here that for the ancients and for Scripture, no distinction was made between art and artifacts (technology), which, if they corresponded to the needs of our nature, could hardly be foreign or hostile to "beauty". Art precedes mechanics, being of greater necessity, while technology developed, not to serve the highest concerns of Man, but with the aim of greater production and profit.

In the course of its development, then, if Man is to live as overlord, technology in general must remain discreetly within a certain logical framework. It should not be an end in itself, but rather a disposition, a means to an end, and a conduit into the innermost laws and elements, not only of the earth, but of that which is above the earth. Because, according to Gregory of Nyssa, people have "an upright bearing, stretch up towards heaven and look upwards. In the beginning, these things and their regal worth are noted" (op. Cit.. PG 44, 140D-144AB).

B. Control Over Technology

The automation of the industrial age and, particularly, the information technology of the post-industrial age, together with the ecological crisis, pose a single question: Why should we be served by modern technology, which is a gluttonous idol of worship, a machine beyond our control? Why should the whole of our society be organized technologically, simply to feed the machine? A distinguished Russian hierarch (Filaret, Metropolitan of Minsk), for example, has revealed that the entire production of the enormous iron mines was put to no other purpose than to make new mining equipment for the same mines!

It is natural that the rapid progress in nuclear physics and in genetics should open up new scientific horizons, but also create problems and dangers for the human race, so it is obvious that there is an imperative need for moral intervention in the field of technology. What is worrying is the absurd and "carefree" optimism of many scientists and political agencies. According to them, technological development contains within itself the solution to the problems which it causes, and hence it ought not to be trammelled, so that "technical solutions" to the various problems can arise. For example, who can exercise control in an ideological regime, when they are deliberately seeking to create a type of technological man? The saying of Saint Paul applies here: "Let do us do evil, that good may come" (Rom. 3:8).

There are also those, on the other hand, who, using historical arguments and invoking our inability to predict the way in which inventions will evolve in future, reject all moral intervention.

Technology per se is not, of course, harmful, being the fruit of the reasoning and intellect of Man, who was formed in the image of God. But when, unrestrained and unbridled, it rushes headlong towards its destination, then it becomes Luciferous, though not bearing light but rather pitch darkness. The danger for us is the absence of accountability in the way in which technology is administered and exploited, a way which has as its aim the stifling domination of human life and the solution of problems by technical means, regardless of moral and metaphysical principles.

Finally, however, let us hear the voice of our Orthodox Tradition.

C. The Position of the Church Regarding This Particular Problem

The Church of Christ retains in unadulterated form the Orthodox Tradition, a real, unique force, on which it draws from its life and experience, as well as from a never-failing spring of asceticism and the voice of its treasury of monastic tradition, which is always profound and vital.

Monastic tradition can give applicable criteria of behaviour to the members of the Church as regards technology. The Church and monasticism are not hostilely disposed towards technological progress. On the contrary, monks over the centuries have proved to be powerful agents of scientific and technical invention.

In the Medieval West, the monks restored civilization, which had been destroyed in the barbarian invasions. The monasteries became focal points for the natural sciences, where mathematics, zoology, chemistry, medicine, and so on developed. The most important inventions of the monasteries formed the basis of industry. Likewise, through their reclamation of large tracts of land, the monks created the opportunity for agricultural development.

So that there would be no need for monks to miss services, our own saint Athanasios the Athonite built -- on the Holy Mountain -- a mechanical kneading device, which was driven by bullocks. This instrument, says the Life of the saint, "was the best, both in terms of attractiveness and art of manufacture" (Life of Blessed Athanasios on Athos, I, 179, Noret, p. 86, 1, 46). The same was true throughout the lands where Orthodox monasteries were established.

The Orthodox monastery always lived as an eschatological reality and a fore-taste of the Kingdom of Heaven, and was therefore also a model for an organized society with a way of life faithful to the Gospel, embracing human dignity, freedom and service to one's fellows.

Given this, the holy Fathers subjected technology in the monastery to two criteria, as Basil the Great characteristically remarks concerning work and the choice of technical applications.

a) Restraint

With this criterion in mind, those technical applications are chosen which preserve "the peace and tranquility" of monastery life, so that both undue care and torturing effort are avoided. Let us have as our aim "moderation and simplicity". For Basil the Great, technology is "necessary in itself to life and provides many facilities" (PG 31, 1017B), provided the unity of the life of the brotherhood is preserved, undistracted and devoted to the Lord.

In general terms, our watchword should be: "Let the common aim be the meeting of a need" (PG 31, 968B). And Saint Peter the Damascan adds: "For everything which does not serve a pressing need, becomes an obstacle to those who would be saved; everything, that is. which does not contribute to the salvation of the soul or to the life of the body" (Philokalia, vol. III, p. 69, 11. 32-34).

These principles are certainly not for monasteries alone. They could be guidelines for control over technology, unless we want to be exterminated.

b) Spiritual Vigilance

The most dreadful enemy created by post-industrial culture, the culture of information technology and the image, is cunning distraction. Swamped by millions of images and a host of different situations on television and in the media in general, people lose their peace of mind, their self-control, their powers of contemplation and reflection and turn outwards, becoming strangers to themselves, in a word mindless, impervious to the dictates of their intelligence. If people, especially children, watch television for 35 hours a week, as they do according to statistics, then are not their minds and hearts threatened by Scylla and Charabdis, are they not between the devil and the deep blue sea? (Homer, Odyssey, XII, 85)

The majority of the faithful of the Church confess that they do not manage to pray, to concentrate and cast off the cares of the world and the storms of spirit and soul which are to the detriment of sobriety, inner balance, enjoyable work, family tranquility and a constructive social life. The world of the industrial image degenerates into real idolatry.

The teachings of the Fathers concerning spiritual vigilance arms people so that they can stave off the disastrous effects of the technological society. "For the weapons of our warfare... have divine power to destroy strongholds" (2 Cor. 10:4), according to the Apostle Paul. Spiritual vigilance is a protection for everyone "containing everything good in this age and the next" (cf. Hesychius the Elder, PG 93, 1481A) and "the road leading to the kingdom, that us and that of the future" (Philotheos the Sinaite, Philokalia, vol. II, p. 275). Spiritual vigilance is not the prerogative only of those engaged actively in contemplation. It is for all those who are conscientiously "dealing with this world as though they had no dealings with it" (1 Cor. 7:31).

In the industrial era, people became consumers and slaves to things produced. In post-industrial society, they are also becoming consumers and slaves to images and information, which fill their lives.

Restraint and spiritual vigilance are, for all those who come into the world, a weapon made ready from the experience of the monastic life and Orthodox Tradition in general, one which abolishes the servitude of humanity and preserves our health and sovereignty as children of God.

By Archimandrite Aimilianos

Source: http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles5/AimilianosTechnology.php

By St. Luke of Crimea

The root of ingratitude is human’s greediness: no matter how much a person gets, it is not enough for him, he does not thank for it but slanders because he did not get more.

Do we really get little from God? If ostriches and jackals thank God even for water He gave them in a desert, do we really get less than they do?

We get much more! God honored us with mind, which animals do not have; God gave us His law, which shows us the way in our life. Of course, God cares for us more than for ostriches and jackals. Earthly fruits grow for us, the earth gives us all the necessary cereals. He helps us in everything we do. The sun is shining on us, the rain is pouring on us, both on good and bad ones.

What is even more important is that God did not spare even His Only-begotten Son and sent Him to earth to be crucified, diminished and beaten by people.

And all of these is not enough for us! We are still ungrateful. How foolish we are!

Ancient wise man Jesus the Son of Sirach said: “Take all that shall be brought upon thee: and in thy sorrow endure, and in thy humiliation keep patience” (Sirach 2:4).

Accept with pleasure, accept gratefully everything what God sends you for it is for our good: all our sorrows are sent by God for our salvation. Through these sorrows God leads us to good, and He wants us to accept what He sands not only without murmur and slander, but with gratitude.

Even when God takes our close people – our father and mother, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters – we have to bow humbly before His will, which is always good and saving, and thank Him for everything, even for the things that seem the worst to us.

Know and remember that gratitude to God, proclaimed in our prayers, together with our repentance can change our heart entirely. If we are always grateful, if we confess our sins then little by little our spiritual sight becomes clearer and we receive the ability to see what is in our heart. We learn to look after ourselves and notice the things that cannot be seen by morally depraved people We receive the ability of deeper concentration. The complete purification of the heart and gratitude to God give us the greatest grace of God.

This is why it is so important and necessary to thank God always.

Translated by The Catalog of Good Deeds

Source: http://pravlife.org/ru/content/svt-luka-krymskiy-rasskazal-chto-v-samom-korne-mozhet-izmenit-nashe-serdce

In recent months I have come to the conclusion that the best place to understand the significance of Pascha is in a cancer ward, or a hospice for the dying, or by a deathbed. When one stands in any of these terrible places, one enjoys an immunity from the lies of the world. For the world tells each one of us that we are a race of immortals, destined never to die. Surveying our surroundings in these places reveals that this is not so.

Both the cosmetic industry and the funeral industry conspire in their own ways to persuade us that we will remain young and wrinkle-free forever, and our media cheerfully picks up and conveys this message. We know, of course, that it is nonsense, but we buy into it anyway. Youth is celebrated and culturally portrayed as if it is eternal, and the dead are rarely allowed to be seen. People expire privately in hospital rooms, and then are rushed down to the morgue. Funeral directors (there are happy exceptions) do their best to anesthetise the survivors to the horror that is death, and often the corpse is cremated before the funeral (now renamed the “celebration of life”). Often in of these services, the corpse is not present, and if it is, the casket is usually closed. Our forefathers chanted, “In the midst of life we are in death” (the line is from the grave-side service in the Anglican prayerbook), but no longer. In the midst of life we now rarely encounter death. In the old days, people died at home, and were prepared for burial by their loving and grieving family. Now we have people for that.

All of this culture of denial falls away from us when we survey our surroundings in cancer ward, hospice, or by the deathbed. Whether or not we die of cancer, all of us will die. It reminds me of the old children’s riddling rhyme: “Doctor, doctor, will I die? Yes, my child, and so will I.” Our cultural denial notwithstanding, we are not a race of immortals, and all of us will one day lie upon our deathbeds. As a priest, I have stood by a few of them. And then one realizes afresh what Pascha really means.

Pascha is not simply a liturgical feast, something celebrating the end of a rigorous Great Lent. And it is not simply the happy historical ending to our Lord’s life, an appendix added after the crucifixion saying, “And they all lived happily ever after”. Pascha is God’s promise that the moment of pain we endure by the deathbed is not the final word. For now we must be submerged in the horror and obscenity of death, but God’s plan is indeed for us to be a race of immortals, and one day this plan will be fulfilled. Hurtling down the years to our deathbed is not a journey to oblivion but to joy. When death’s cold hand finally closes our eyes, we will open them in paradise, and after our body returns to the dust from which it was taken, it will one day arise and be raised and transformed. Pascha is not simply about Christ’s happy ending, but about ours.

If one disbelieves in Christ and Pascha, then our cultural of denial of death makes good sense. We can’t do anything about the fearful fate which awaits us, so why think about it? Eat, drink, be merry, and watch television. But if what the Church says about Christ and Pascha is true, we don’t need the lies or the denial. We can look death in its fearful face and smile and say with St. Paul, “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” Death may prowl the cancer ward or the hospice and may roar at us as we lie on our deathbed, but it will be gone soon enough. Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life.

By Fr. Lawrence Farley

Source: http://frlawrencefarley.blogspot.com.by/2017/04/understanding-pascha.html

Nothing is so spiritually uplifting, and so rewarding then prayer before God in the Church. The Orthodox Church has a cycle of services, and all of us should make every means to attend these services. It’s not really how long are these services, but what we put into them that is spiritually rewarding.

When the Church calls us to prayer, we should rush with great Christian love to go to these services, and give our Lord God due honor and worship, at the same time we should think about our spiritual relationship with our God, and our path to our salvation. During these cycle of services we begin to realize how much our Lord God loves us, and wants us to be a part of His Kingdom. We can participate in His Kingdom in prayer, and we can behold His great spiritual beauty as we gaze around the Church and behold Him, as well as the opening arms of the Mother of God, the saints, the prophets, the apostles, and the martyrs all surrounding us with their prayers and intercession on our behalf, what a blessing!

Then again preparations before the Divine Liturgy are spiritually necessary, and that is if when we will go to Holy Communion, we should consider speaking to our priest about going to Holy Confession. We also should fast from certain foods anticipation of receiving the Body and Blood of Christ, i.e. at the least, fast from meats on Wednesday and Friday, and all foods and liquids the morning of the liturgy unless these are deemed necessary for medical reasons.

We also have prayers to be read before taking Holy Communion, they are called Prayers in Preparation for Holy Communion, or prayers before Holy Communion, should speak to our parish priest about these prayers. Some of the faithful begin reading these prayers on Thursday, so that we do not have to wait to the last minute. Then again we have prayers of Thanksgiving after Holy Communion, eventually throughout the day we should read these prayers of thanksgiving, some parishes read these prayers of Thanksgiving at the end of the Divine Liturgy, as well as the faithful who took Holy Communion remain in the church until these prayers are finished.

Attend these services with your children, and rush with great love to the Church and pray. Let us make every effort to go to the Church in prayer, and let us realize when we come to late, we miss many blessings, after we leave we shall be spiritually rewarded.

Love to pray in the Temple of our Lord God His Church, and when we pray, let us pray with all our heart, mind, and soul! Well aware of the work at hand, we should attend services prepared to labor as unique members of the body of Christ. Ultimately, each of us, that is every man, woman, and child, should be ready to “put aside all the cares of life, and receive the King of all…”

I am humbly presenting to you the Cycle of Services that are celebrated in the Orthodox Church, which by understanding these services we begin to realize how important these services are in our Church, and how rewarding spiritually they can be for us all!

May our Lord God bless you!

By Archimandrite Nektarios (Serfes)

Source: http://www.serfes.org/orthodox/cycleofservices.htm

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