The Catalog of Good Deeds

By Fr. George Glinski

St. Gregory of Nyssa once said that the goal of Christianity is to be like God, become like God in the manifestations of our soul, how we look at our own selves, in regards to God and to the world that surrounds us. In his epistle to the Romans Paul the Apostle said that righteousness that is not rooted in God can not be righteousness. Only God can save mankind. And faith is the the response of a person to God’s calling. In other words it means that we need to have absolute trust in God and fully give ourselves into the hands of God’s providence.

The Lord is the Lord of the Universe, everything is under His control, everything that happens in this world including every process that takes place in this world. Certains moments may seem overwhelming and impossible to overcome - we see that when we simply rely on our human strength we can not often stop the war nor is it possible to defeat certain illnesses without God’s help.

We need to wholeheartedly turn to the needs of the people who surround us (and we know the words of St. Irenaeus of Lyons, who said that only the son of God will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, keeping in mind each one of us, as well as the church of God as a whole).We have to manage to live for others instead of our own personal needs and not only care for those who love us back, because, as the Lord says, it is natural for any person to reciprocate in love and kindness. Even if this doesn't happen right away (because a true miracle oftentimes requires time, and even more time when it comes to the transformation of the human personality) when we become aware of this, come to such an understanding and to such a life that will help us treat other people the way we would like them to treat us, then we will see peace within the true light. If a person transforms into someone who the Lord intended him to be, then the relationship between people will become as it should be. According to Apostle Paul, if we do as our Divine Savior has done, we will strive for peace and brotherly love between us. Then we will become closer both to each other and ultimately to the Kingdom of Heaven, where the Lord will allow us all to be with Him and rejoice in Him.

St. Elisabeth Convent

July 24, 2018

1. Do not let the sun go down on the anger of your brother (Eph. 4:26); that is, let no one be angry and enraged against his brother until the setting of the sun. (Elder Ephraim of Philotheou Mount Athos, "Counsels from the Holy Mountain")

2. A brother asked Abba Isidore the priest, "Why are the demons so frightened of you?" The old man said to him, "Because, ever since the day I began practicing ascesis, I have striven to prevent anger from reaching my lips. (The Desert Fathers)

3. A characteristic of those who are still progressing in blessed mourning is temperance and silence of the lips; and of those who have made progress – freedom from anger and patient endurance of injuries; and of the perfect – humility, thirst for dishonors, voluntary craving for involuntary afflictions, non- condemnation of sinners, compassion even beyond one’s strength. The first are acceptable, the second laudable; but blessed are those who hunger for hardship and thirst for dishonor, for they shall be filled with the food whereof there can be no satiety. (St. John Climacus, “The Ladder of Divine Ascent”)

4. A wandering mind is made stable by reading, vigil and prayer. Flaming lust is extinguished by hunger, labor and solitude. Stirrings of anger are calmed by psalmody, magnanimity and mercifulness. All this has its effect when used at its proper time and in due measure. Everything untimely or without proper measure is short-lived; and short-lived things and more harmful than useful. (Abba Evagrius the Monk)

5. Abba Ammonas said, "I have spent fourteen years in Scetis asking God night and day to grant me the victory over anger." Sr. Benedicta Ward, "The Sayings of the Desert Fathers," (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Cistercian Publications, 1975), pp. 25-28

6. Abba Nilus said, "Prayer is the seed of gentleness and the absence of anger." (Abba Nilus, in "The Sayings of the Desert Fathers")

7. Anger is by nature designed for waging war with the demons and for struggling with every kind of sinful pleasure. Therefore angels, arousing spiritual pleasure in us and giving us to taste its blessedness, incline us to direct our anger against the demons. But the demons, enticing us towards worldly lusts, make us use anger to fight with men, which is against nature, so that the mind, thus stupefied and darkened, should become a traitor to virtues. (Abba Evagrius the Monk)

8. Anger is tamed and becomes transformed into benevolence only through courage and mercy... (St. Gregory of Sinai (Texts on Commandments and Dogmas no. 13))

9. As with the appearance of light, darkness retreats; so, at the fragrance of humility, all anger and bitterness vanishes. (St. John Climacus, “The Ladder of Divine Ascent”)

10. Brother: What is purity of soul?

Old man: Remoteness from anger and from the error of the remembrance of evil things, and being weaned from the bitter nature, and reconciliation with our enemies, and peace which is beyond troubling, and simplicity of love which is above this world; with these things is the inner man cleansed, and he puts on Christ and is redeemed. (E. A. Wallis Budge, "The Paradise of the Holy Fathers")

11. Considering all these things then, and counting the recompense which is given in this case and remembering that to wipe away sins does not entail much labor and zeal, let us pardon those who have wronged us. For that which others scarcely accomplish, I mean the blotting out of their own sins by means of fasting and lamentations, and prayers, and sackcloth, and ashes, this it is possible for us easily to effect without sackcloth and ashes and fasting if only we blot out anger from our heart, and with sincerity forgive those who have wronged us. (St. John Chrysostom, Homily to those who have not attended the Assembly)

12. Do not befoul your intellect by clinging to thoughts filled with anger and sensual desire. Otherwise you will lose your capacity for pure prayer and fall victim to the demon of listlessness. (St. Maximos the Confessor (First Century on Love no. 49))

13. For nothing is more grievous than wrath and fierce anger. This renders men both puffed up and servile, by the former making them ridiculous, by the other hateful; and bringing in opposite vices, pride and flattery, at the same time. But if we will cut off the greediness of this passion, we shall be both lowly with exactness, and exalted with safety. For in our bodies too all distempers arise from excess; and when the elements thereof leave their proper limits, and go on beyond moderation, then all these countless diseases are generated, and grievous kinds of death. Somewhat of the same kind one may see take place with respect to the soul likewise. (St. John Chrysostom (Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew))

14. He who has put a stop to anger has also destroyed remembrance of wrongs; because childbirth continues only while the father is alive. (St. John Climacus, “The Ladder of Divine Ascent”)

15. He who is not indifferent to fame and pleasure, as well as to love of riches that exists because of them and increases them, cannot cut off occasions for anger. And he who does not cut these off cannot attain perfect love. (St. Maximos the Confessor (First Century on Love no. 75))

16. If you want to pray properly, do not let yourself be upset or you will run in vain. (Abba Nilus)

17. My children, desire to purify your hearts from envy and from anger with each other, lest death should overcome you, and you will be counted among the murderers. For whosoever hates his brother, kills a soul. (Abba Anthony the Great)

18. One must by every means strive to preserve peace of soul and not be disturbed by offenses from others; for this one must in every way strive to restrain anger and by means of attentiveness to keep the mind and heart from improper feelings. And therefore we must bear offenses from others with equanimity and accustom ourselves to such a disposition of spirit that these offenses seem to concern not us, but others. Such a practice can give quietness to the human heart and make it as dwelling for God Himself. (St. Seraphim of Sarov, Spiritual Instructions, Little Russian Philokalia, V. I)

19. Prayer is the flower of gentleness and freedom from anger. (Evagrios the Solitary)

20. Prayer is the seed of gentleness and the absence of anger. (Abba Nilus)

21. Silence of lips is better and more wonderful than any edifying conversation.Strive to acquire humility and submissiveness. Never insist that anything should be according to your will, for this gives birth to anger. Do not judge or humiliate anyone, for this gives birth to anger. Do not judge or humiliate anyone, for this exhausts the heart and blinds the mind, and thereon leads to negligence and makes the heart unfeeling. (St. Barsanuphius and St. John)

22. The first step toward freedom from anger is to keep the lips silent when the heart is stirred; the next, to keep thoughts silent when the soul is upset; the last, to be totally calm when unclean winds are blowing. (St. John Climacus, “The Ladder of Divine Ascent”)

23. When anyone is disturbed or saddened under the pretext of a good and soul-profiting matter, and is angered against his neighbor, it is evident that this is not according to God: for everything that is of God is peaceful and useful and leads a man to humility and to judging himself. (St. Feofil the Fool for Christ)

24. When you pray as you ought, there may come into your mind things about which it seems right to be angry with your brother. There is absolutely no anger against your brother which could be justified. If you look, you will find that the question can be settled quite well without anger. Therefore do your best not to be moved to anger. ("153 Texts on Prayer", St Nilus of Mt Sinai, "Early Fathers From the Philokalia")

25. Wrath is a reminder of hidden hatred, that is to say, remembrance of wrongs. Wrath is a desire for the injury of the one who has provoked you. Irascibility is the untimely blazing up of the heart. Bitterness is a movement of displeasure seated in the soul. Anger is an easily changeable movement of one’s disposition and disfiguration of soul. (St. John Climacus, “The Ladder of Divine Ascent”)

26. It is necessary most of all for one who is fasting to curb anger, to accustom himself to meekness and condescension, to have a contrite heart, to repulse impure thoughts and desires, to examine his conscience, to put his mind to the test and to verify what good has been done by us in this or any other week, and which deficiency we have corrected in ourselves in the present week. This is true fasting. (St. John Chrysostom)

Source: http://www.orthodox.net/gleanings/anger.html

Excerpt from the unpublished book With Elder Porphyrios: A spiritual child remembers by the late Constantine Yiannitsiotis, translated by Marina M. Robb.

One should feel sorry for the person wounded by a criminal

The author had asked the Elder about some apparent injustice he had suffered. Here he gives us the Elder’s answer:

“One day, ” he started to tell me, “you are walking quietly on your way and see your brother walking in front of you, also quietly, when at one point a crook jumps out in front of your brother from a side road and attacks him. He beats him, pulls his hair, wounds him and throws him down bleeding. Faced with a scene like that would you be angry with your brother or would you feel sorry for him?”

I was puzzled by the Elder’s questions and I asked him in turn: “How could I possibly be angry with my wounded brother, who fell victim to the criminal? The thought didn’t even cross my mind. Of course I would feel sorry for him and I would try to help him as much as I could.” “Well, then,” continued the Elder, “everyone who insults you, who hurts you, who slanders you, who does you an injustice in anyway whatsoever is a brother of yours who has fallen into the hands of some criminal demon. When you notice that your brother does you an injustice what should you do? You must feel very sorry for him, commiserate with him and entreat God warmly and silently both, to support you in that difficult time of trial, and to have mercy on your brother, who has fallen victim to the evildoer, the demon. Because if you don’t do that, but get angry with him instead, reacting to his attack with a counter attack, then the devil who is already on the nape of your brother’s neck will jump on to yours and dance with the both of you.”

I was amazed by the liveliness and the directness of the example. Once again the Elder had caught me without my “homework”, whereas others considered me to be well-read in matters of religion… The advice was obvious: the people who did me an injustice had fallen victim to the criminal devil, but I only saw the physical not the spiritual image. The result was that I got annoyed with them and the devil that was on the back of their necks also jumped on to mine, so all of us, victims and supposed victimisers would dance the demonic dance, in a group and without knowing it.

But the Elder’s example could apply to all interpersonal relations. It could function like a general spiritual rule. Not a day passed by without me remembering it, since that demonic dance as either a threat or a reality, would appear before every so often. Living in an age of tension and the spread of aggression of every kind, from the height of refinement to the depths of coarseness, I felt that the Elder’s message was a direct and timely wake-up call. Discernment and a prayer alarm were needed to confront evil. All my spiritually troubled friends, who heard this advice were impressed.

Correction not condemnation of the bad person

The Elder proved himself to be an anatomist and healer of both the human soul and human spiritual relations. He said to me with regard to this “Our aim is not to condemn evil, but to correct it. A man can be lost through condemnation, but through understanding and help he will be saved. We must treat the sinner with love and respect his freedom. When a member of the family knocks a vase off the table and breaks it we usually get angry. If at that crucial moment, in a movement of spiritual elevation, we show understanding and we excuse the damage, we win both our soul and that of our brother’s. That is all our spiritual life: an elevating movement, from the annoyance that comes from egotism, to the understanding that comes from love.”

Bad thoughts are dangerous

According to the Elder, this elevation began after earnest work. One day, when surrounded by thoughts of bitterness about some people who had criticized me unjustly, the Elder rang the alarm bells regarding my aggressive, as he put it, stance. I objected, saying that I had neither said nor done anything at all against my critics; I just had negative thought, which I hadn’t externalized and therefore I hadn’t hurt anybody. Then the Elder revealed one more secret of the spiritual battle to me, saying: “You shouldn’t get annoyed even internally about any unjust criticism of you whatsoever. It is bad. Evil starts from bad thoughts. When you get bitter and annoyed, even if only in thought, you ruin the spiritual atmosphere. You stop the Holy Spirit from working and you allow the devil to increase evil. You should always pray, love and forgive, rejecting each and every bad thought within you.”

That is to say the Elder taught that our bad thoughts about one of our fellows on the one hand defiles our soul, and on the other, it can do harm to the other person. A bad thought sends out an evil power, which influences the other, as prayer helps him. Of course all this has to be understood correctly within the teaching of the Church about the existence of good and evil spirits and their work. The work of the evil ones is denigration, lying, commotion, dissension and so on, whereas for the good ones it is the service of those who are destined to inherit the Kingdom of God. A bad thought cannot be hidden. It affects the person we are thinking ugly thoughts about unfavourably towards us, even from a distance, even if the other person doesn’t consciously realize why he is opposed to us. We are obliged to be “pure in heart”, pure not only from evil works, but from bad and evil thoughts, especially from resentment and bitterness

Forgive people

The Elder considered the last thing mentioned, forgiving whoever has harmed us, to be fundamental. He often repeated the verse of the prayer, “First be reconciled to those who grieve you.” And in confession he paid special attention to this spiritual sin of remembering the bad things that another has done to us and to hold malice, or bitterness, or animosity against him. He wanted our souls to be free from resentment, full of forgiveness and kindness.

Source: http://silouanthompson.net/2013/11/when-wronged/

I am 51 years old and my wife is 48. We have been married 29 years and have two grown daughters and two grandsons. On Christmas Eve 2017, my wife and I were Chrismated into the Orthodox Church.

My journey began as a “cradle” Southern Baptist. I grew up in the local First Baptist Church, attending Sunday school, vacation bible school, and Royal Ambassadors. I walked the aisle at age 7. Then in my junior high years, something happened. The church got rid of the pastor my parents liked. From that moment on, they never went back. My siblings were older than me and had the busy lives of teenagers and for a while I was the only person in our family attending church. My mom would drop me off and pick me up. By the time I reached high school, I had stopped attending altogether.

My sister got married and started attending a Methodist church and talked me into going with her and I attended her church sporadically from my senior year in high school to my marriage at age 21.

My wife was baptized in the First Christian Church, Disciples of Christ but attended sporadically also. After our marriage we would talk about church, but never took the steps to find one we both would be comfortable in. Time flies and before we knew it, we had been married for about 15 years and never made the effort to find a church. Then a friend invited us to a new church, which was break off of the First Baptist Church. It was still SBC, but had modern music, casual dress, and “relevant” sermons. We started attending and soon it became “our” church.

Our marriage had some rocky times, but somehow we managed to get through them. After several years we became more involved and even led a small group. Leading the small group was a pivotal time. It forced me to study more, seek more, and pray more. The more bible I studied, the more books I read, the more sermon videos I watched, the more I felt like something was wrong. Then music started to creep into our church from groups with questionable charismatic backgrounds that I did not agree with. I spoke to the pastor a couple of times and he wasn’t concerned about it. This pushed me to explore more “traditional” worship and I ended up studying the neo-Calvinist movement. I was leaning towards pastors like John MacArthur, Paul Washer, David Platt, etc. I was attracted to their zeal and straight forward ways of preaching. So I was watching these guys all week, and worshiping in a church playing trance like music with feel good messages on Sunday. The conflict was causing problems and my wife and I talked about finding another church. Two couples in our small group left the church over the music controversy.

Then some good food started something. My grandmother on my mom’s side was Syrian. My mom used to cook Syrian food when we were growing up, but as we got older, she got out of the habit. My older sister was a home economics teacher and was really into food. One day she told me about a Mediterranean festival nearby and how the food was great and similar to the things we grew up eating. My wife and I attended the festival in 2015, which was held at an Antiochian Orthodox Church. I knew nothing about the Orthodox church and just thought it was some kind of Catholic branch. I had been raised to fear all things Catholic by the Baptist Church. We enjoyed the food and that was all.

The following year, 2016, I went to the festival again, this time with my sister, and the church presented a tour with a short history lesson. This was the first time I had heard anything about Orthodoxy and it sparked my interest. That night I researched everything I could find on Orthodoxy. I watched dozens of videos and read many websites. I could “feel” something drawing me towards Orthodoxy, but my Catholic phobias would never allow me to participate in a church that prayed to saints and kissed pictures. Then one day something happened. Instead of being afraid of the practices I was taught to fear, I actually started researching why the Orthodox did what they did. I have always been a history buff, so the more I read, the more I wanted to learn. Then the week before the festival in 2017, which just happened to be the week after Pascha, I decided to attend my first Divine Liturgy. My wife was working so I went on a “recon” mission alone. I was greeted in the parking lot by a very friendly man who led me inside and introduced me to several people. One of them was a convert from Protestantism and he sat with me the entire time, explaining many of the details of the Liturgy. When I first heard the chanting and choir, I thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard. When I saw the reverence, respect, honor, and holiness of the service, I knew I had found the right place.

I have been a martial artist most of my life, and we have a saying about the further a martial art is from the original source of the warriors that practiced it, the more watered down and ineffective it is. For the “correct” teaching, you have to get as close to the source as you can. Get close to the ones who lived the lifestyle as part of an everyday life and death struggle. When I was sitting in my first Liturgy, I knew I was at the “source.” No watered down, feel good, theology, but the actual faith of the apostles.

I went home and couldn’t wait to tell my wife about it. She came the next Sunday and it had the exact same effect on her. This was in May 2017 and we attended every week, and anxiously anticipated the inquirer’s classes. We eventually attended the classes and were Chrismated on Christmas Eve. I truly believe we have “come home” to the true original church, the faith of the apostles, unchanged for almost 2000 years.

By Cliff and Sara Hargrave

Source: http://journeytoorthodoxy.com/2017/12/back-to-the-source/

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