24 March 2016. HH on the Holy Eucharist

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I need add nothing to such simple and direct teaching… many would do well to emulate HH… ’nuff said…

BMD

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26 September 2015. Want God? Go to Liturgy… DON’T Go Online…

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God is where He’s always been… in the Holy Liturgy, not online, not in self-absorbed chat groups, narcissistic fora, or clueless Facebook pages. You have to go to the church, cross yourself, light a candle, and let the immortal words of the services wash over you. We’re not Proddies… we don’t go to church to listen to sermons… we’re not papists, who attend because of some compulsory diktat. We’re Orthodox Christians… we go to the Liturgy because that’s where Earth meets Heaven, it’s where the temporal meets the eternal, where God Comes Amongst Us in the Eucharist. We bow down, we kiss the icons and the cross, we smell the incense, we confess and receive absolution, and we receive the Holy Body and Blood… none of which can you do online!

Go to Liturgy… that’s where Christ is…

BMD

The Televised Nativity Address of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill Gundyaev of Moscow and all the Russias

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Today, the Orthodox Church celebrates the Nativity of Christ. The majesty and grandeur of this celebration stems from the fact of the Incarnation. God becomes Man; in this amalgam, the divine and the human are inextricably one. In the modern secular mind, the image of Christ is much mythologised and distorted. It turns His teaching into an obsolete means, an altruist morality… at best, He’s only a spiritual exemplar for Christians. However, we should never accept this displacement of the genuine evangelical conception of Christ as the God-man by our modern culture. Christ is the norm of humanity. If we lose this example, we’ll have nothing to resist the strong contemporary challenges to the traditional and true conception of personhood.

Today, it’s extremely important for all of us to attend to the image of Christ at all times, to inspect our thoughts and actions against His standard. The example of His infinite love for people, His zeal in prayer and service to our Heavenly Father, His humility and gentleness, His intolerance of sin and His patience towards sinners, His courage in enduring the hardships and sorrows of earthly life, His sincerity and simplicity in dealing with others, and His infinite sacrifice should always inspire us. God didn’t come into this world as a mighty and glorious king whom all would have to serve and obey; He was born in a humble cave used as a byre, to serve others, to give His life for the sake of their salvation.

For the first time in history, God Himself revealed to the world how to be a real true man. He not only revealed it, but He gave us everything necessary to make sure that whomsoever believed in Him could do likewise. Baptism brings us into the Church, into a community of faith; the Holy Eucharist attaches our human nature, through the Body and Blood of the Saviour, to communion with the divine nature. The liturgy of the Church reminds us that Christ paid for our salvation; it inspires us with the word of God and the examples of the saints. All this can make changes deep within each of us.

Thanks to the life in Christ, through imitating Christ, people receive a foretaste of future eternal blessings here on earth, if we live according to the spirit of the love of God, which will dominate the future life. The Saviour told us, By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if you have love for one another (The Gospel according to St John 13.35). Today, in particular, we should manifest the joy of the birth of Christ to the world in our willingness to do actual good deeds. Those who need our help and support are always at hand… our family and friends, maybe, those living next door; near our apartments are lonely people lying in hospices and hospitals, discouraged, burdened with sorrow and life’s adversities. Bring them the good news of the birth of Christ. Let your bright smile, your joy for the newborn God-Child, melt their sorrow and warm their cold souls.

Remember in your prayers those who suffered in the terrorist acts in Volgograd and Pyatigorsk {On 27 December, a parked car packed with 50 kilos (110 pounds) of TNT exploded on a street, killing three people: editor}. Ask the Lord to heal the wounded, support those who suffer, and ask repose for the souls of the dead. Let the walls of alienation between people be destroyed on this great day of Christ’s Nativity… destroy them through your love for Christ and through the power of your active love of neighbour.

Greetings, my dear ones!

7 January 2014

Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ in the Flesh

Kirill Gundyaev

Patriarch of Moscow and all the Russias                                                   

Patriarchia.ru

MP official website

http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/3498766.html

24 November 2012. Black Friday: The Black Mass of Crapitalism

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Black Friday is THE “holiday” of crapitalism, bar none. Its votaries wait for hours for the store’s doors to open; when they do open, the crowds are so frenzied that people are trampled, and the crazed “consumers” don’t give a ruby-red god-damn. There are things that they have to have… and they’re going to get them. I guess that you can tell that I’m a “conscientious objector” from Black Friday.

Why is Black Friday so important? Firstly, it’s the Easter of Neoliberalism in the USA. If you take part in it, you affirm your adherence to the religion of the Almighty Dollar and the Free Market. You affirm your allegiance to Materialism and to Consumerism. That is, you’re “respectable” and you’re “well-adjusted”. The Decalogue states, “You shall no other Gods before Me”. Materialism is Satan‘s substitute for real religion; its his ersatz religion. If you take part in Black Friday, you throw a pinch of incense on Lucifer‘s altar. That makes you a thurificatus in religious terms. Maybe, it doesn’t invalidate your religious professions; yet, it does damage them. It’s much the same as lusting to live in the “right” suburb and choosing a life career solely on the basis of how much money it’d bring you. It tells the world that Materialism is one of your Gods… which makes you a transgressor of the Decalogue, doesn’t it?

Black Friday is a sacrament of Consumerism. To take part in it is the same as taking part in the Eucharist. If we take the Eucharist, we affirm publicly our faith in Christianity. If we take part in Black Friday, we affirm publicly our faith in the Almighty Dollar. Note well that some who make loud pretensions of being against Materialism aren’t essentially in favour of the True God… they simply worship spiritual “other gods”, which makes them WORSE than the votaries of Consumerism. As pitiful as the Black Friday hordes are, they’re not as spiritually-barren as sectarians are (and the Orthodox who wish to build bridges to such are even worse). Remember, “the rankest flowers of evil grow in the shadow of the altar”. Old Clive Staples was right in that… do bite the coin before accepting it… there’s crank coinage circulating in the agora. Have a care…

I’d recommend that you watch a ten-part Polish series called The Decalogue (Dekalog)… it’s available on Amazon.

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Saturday 24 November 2012

Albany NY