Everyone has a cross to carry. Why? Since the leader of our faith endured the cross, we will also endure it. On one hand, the cross is sweet and light, but, on the other, it can also be bitter and heavy.
It depends on our will. If you bear Christ’s cross with love then it will be very light; like a sponge or a cork. But if you have a negative attitude, it becomes heavy; too heavy to lift.
When you find Christ [in the heart], you are satisfied, you desire nothing else, you find peace. You become a different person.
You live everywhere, wherever Christ is. You live in the stars, in infinity, in heaven with the angels, with the saints, on earth with people, with plants, with animals, with everyone and everything. When there is love for Christ, loneliness disappears.
You are peaceable, joyous, full. Neither melancholy, not illness, nor pressure, nor anxiety, nor depression nor hell. When Christ enters your heart, your life changes. Christ is everything. Whoever experiences Christ within himself, experiences ineffable things– holy and sacred things. He lives in exultation…
It is said that there are two things most Greek cooks do not go anywhere without: a knife and an icon of St. Euphrosynos. For Orthodox Christians, St. Euphrosynos the Cook is the patron saint of cooks and chefs. This being the case, it is traditional for Orthodox Christians to have in their kitchens an icon of St. Euphrosynos. Those unaware of St. Euphrosynos typically follow the western practice of hanging a Leonardo DaVinci inspired "Last Supper" icon. For Orthodox, however, the depiction of the "Last Supper" is more appropriately called the "Mystical Supper", since it was primarily a liturgical event which is often reserved for depiction in the Holy Altar area of a church.
The life of St. Euphrosynos, who is commemorated every year on September 11th, can be read here, and at the bottom of this link is a prayer to St. Euphrosynos traditionally said before cooking. Chef's Hats and Orthodox Monastics
It is worth noting, since St. Euphrosynos was an Orthodox monastic on Mount Athos, that tall white chef hats (toque blanche), according to many, have their origins in the black tall hats (kalimavkion) of Greek Orthodox monastics. It is said that in the middle ages, Greek monks who prepared food in the monasteries wore tall white hats so that they could be distinguished from the normal monks who wore tall black hats.
“I believe in one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.” Do you believe that all Orthodox Christians are members of one and the same body, and that therefore we must all “keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,” must care for one another, help one another?
Do you believe that the saints are likewise members of the one body of Christ - that is, of the Church, and are our brethren, interceding for us before God in heaven? Do you respect every Christian, as a member of Christ, as His brother according to human nature? Do you love everybody as yourself, as your own flesh and blood? Do you generously forgive offences?
Do you help others in need, if you yourself have means? Do you teach the ignorant? Do you turn the sinner from the error of his ways? Do you comfort those who are in affliction? Faith in the Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church inspires, obliges you to do all this; and for all this you are promised a great reward from the Head of the Church - our Lord Jesus Christ.
Holy relics are a clear anticipation of the transfigured body after universal ressurection.The very fact that the bodies of the saints are kept in a state of incorruptibility is a foretaste, an anticipation of their future incorruptibility after resurrection and after their full theosis, deification. "But we all," writes St. Paul to the Corinthians, "with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord" (II Cor.3:18).
