Our salvation is a very serious and important matter, more important than anything else. What good is it to possess all the riches and treasures of the earth, said the Lord, if we end up losing our soul? (Mt. 16:26).
This is why we must preserve the fear of God in our souls, and proceed through this life prudently and cautiously.
We must be cautious of everything , especially carnal sins, which proceed to ravage our soul. God destroyed the city of Sodom because its inhabitants were only “flesh” and nothing spiritual existed within its boundaries. They were full of spiritual impurity, and on account of this God
turned away from them(Gn. 18:24).
On account of the fornication of only one person, twenty five thousand Jews were put to death in one hour(Nm. 25:9). What was the cause of Sampson’s fall, this giant figure who had been
dedicated to God while he was still in his mother’s womb?
He defiled his body with fornication and surrendered his body parts to sin. Even though he had accomplished great and awesome things, he subsequently fell because he was seduced by
carnal sin.
Thereafter, God abandoned him, he was taken
captive, chained, and handed over to his enemies
(Jdg.16:21). The prophet and king David, from whom Christ came forth, suffered identically.
Because he was careless for only a split second, he was allured by the beauty of a woman, and he fell into the dreadful sin of adultery(2 Kg. 11:2-4). This is why God punished him. David, however, repented with many tears for this serious sin, and God forgave him(2 Kg.12:13).
With all these examples, we must realize that God does not make exceptions. He punishes everyone regardless of whether they happen to be prophets, priests, judges, rulers, or other sanctified people chosen to reveal His name to the people. God does not take revenge; rather, He uses various disciplinary means so that man may realize his mistake, come to his senses, wake up from sin, and seek His mercy and forgiveness. From
all the above, we can see that God punishes
even His saints when they transgress His commandments.
The prophet Ezekiel writes that God does not take into consideration the elderly or the young
(i.e. man’s age), illustrating in this manner that
the Lord’s genuine and beloved people are they who have within them godly fear and who live devoutly according to His will. For God, the saints are they who keep His commandments and who have a clean conscience. Conversely, they who disregard God’s commandments are disregarded by God Himself: He turns His face away from
such people and detracts His grace from them.
Why did God punish Belshazzar? It was because he disregarded the sacred vessels that had been offered to God, which his father had pillaged
from Jerusalem, and he dared using them to drink
along with his concubines(Dan. 5:2-4). In this same manner, they who have devoted their bodies to God and subsequently dare to use their body parts for sinful deeds are punished harshly by
the Lord.
Therefore, let us not disregard the divine words and the warnings contained in the Holy Scriptures. Let us not enrage God with our immoral deeds and improprieties. Let us not shamelessly defile our bodies, which are the temple of God, as the Apostle Paul states (1 Cor. 6:19).
http://www.stnektariosmonastery.org/index.php
It is unfortunate that there is widespread confusion, not to mention delusion, in the inexperienced, whereby the Jesus Prayer is thought to be equivalent to yoga in Buddhism, or 'transcendental meditation', and other such Eastern exotica. Any similarity, however, is mostly external, and any inner convergence does not rise beyond the natural 'anatomy' of the human soul. The fundamental difference between Christianity and other beliefs and practices lies in the fact that the Jesus Prayer is based on the revelation of the One true living and personal God as Holy Trinity No other path admits any possibility of a living relationship between God and the person who prays.
Eastern asceticism aims at divesting the mind of all that is relative and transitory, so that man may identify with the impersonal Absolute. This Absolute is believed to be man's original 'nature', which suffered degradation and degeneration by entering a multiform and ever-changing earth-bound life. Ascetic practice like this is, above all, centered upon the self, and is totally dependent on man's will. Its intellectual character betrays the fullness of human nature, in that it takes no account of the heart. Man's main struggle is to return to the anonymous Supra-personal Absolute and to be dissolved in it. He must therefore aspire to efface the soul (Atman) in order to be one with this anonymous ocean of the Suprapersonal Absolute, and in this lies its basically negative purpose.
In his struggle to divest himself of all suffering and instability connected with transient life, the eastern ascetic immerses himself in the abstract and intellectual sphere of so-called pure Existence, a negative and impersonal sphere in which no vision of God is possible, only man's vision of himself. There is no place for the heart in this practice. Progress in this form of asceticism depends only on one's individual will to succeed. The Upanishads do not say anywhere that pride is an obstacle to spiritual progress, or that humility is a virtue. The positive dimension of Christian asceticism, in which self-denial leads to one's clothing with the heavenly man, to the assumption of a supernatural form of life, the Source of which is the One True, Self-revealing God, is obviously and totally absent. Even in its more noble expressions, the self-denial in Buddhism is only the insignificant half of the picture. In the mind's desire to return to its merely 'natural' self, it beholds its own nakedness in a 'cloud of divestiture'. But at this point there is a grave risk of obsession with itself, of its marvelling at its own luminous but created beauty, and worshipping the creature more than the Creator (Rom. 1:25). The mind has by now begun to deify or idolize its self and then, according to the words of the Lord, 'the last state of that man is worse than the first' (Matt. 12:45).
Such are the limits of Eastern styles of contemplation, which do not claim to be the contemplation of God, and are in fact man's contemplation of himself. This does not go beyond the boundaries of created being, nor does it draw anywhere near to the Truth of primordial Being, to the uncreated living God Who has revealed Himself to man. This kind of practice may well afford some relaxation or sharpen man's psychological and intellectual functions, yet 'that which is born of the flesh is flesh' (John 3:6) and 'they that are in the flesh cannot please God' (Rom. 8:8).
In order to be authentic, any divestiture of the mind from its passionate attachments to the visible and transitory elements of this life must be linked to the truth about man. When man sees himself as he is in the sight of God, his only response is one of repentance. Such repentance is itself a gift of God, and it generates a certain pain of the heart which not only detaches the mind from corruptible things, but also unites it to the unseen and eternal things of God. In other words, divestiture as an end in itself is only half the matter, and it consists of human effort operating on the level of Created being. Christianity on the other hand, enjoins the ascetic to strive in the hope and expectation that his soul will be clothed, invested, with the grace of God, which leads him into the fullness of the immortal life for which he knows he has been created.
Many admire Buddha and compare him to Christ. Buddha is particularly attractive because of his compassionate understanding of man's condition and his eloquent teaching on freedom from suffering. But the Christian knows that Christ, the Only begotten Son of God, by His Passion, Cross, Death and Resurrection, willingly and sinlessly entered into the totality of human pain, transforming it into an expression of His perfect love. He thereby healed His creature from the mortal wound inflicted by the ancestral sin, and made it 'a new creation' unto eternal life. Pain of heart is therefore of great value in the practice of prayer, for its presence is a sign that the ascetic is not far from the true and holy path of love for God. If God, through suffering, showed His perfect love for us, similarly, man has the possibility, through suffering, to return his love to God.
Consequently, prayer is a matter of love. Man expresses love through prayer, and if we pray, it is an indication that we love God. If we do not pray, this indicates that we do not love God, for the measure of our prayer is the measure of our love for God. St. Silouan identifies love for God with prayer, and the Holy Fathers say that forgetfulness of God is the greatest of all passions, for it is the only passion that will not be fought by prayer through the Name of God. If we humble ourselves and invoke God's help, trusting in His love, we are given the strength to conquer any passion; but when we are unmindful of God, the enemy is free to slay us.
The title was added for publication on this site. The untitled excerpt is from Chapter 5, "The Building Up of the Heart by Vigilance and Prayer".
From The Hidden Man of the Heart: The Cultivation of the Heart in Orthodox Christian Anthropology, by Archimandrite Zacharias (Waymart, PA: Mount Thabor Publishing, 2008), pp. 66-68. Copyright 2008, The Stavropegic Monastery of St John the Baptist, Essex, UK. Posted on 8/9/2008 with the permission of the publisher.
Archimandrite Zacharias
Source-www.pravoslavie.ru/english
http://tokandylaki.blogspot.ca/2014/10/buddhism-and-eastern-asceticism.html
Do you fast? Then feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, visit the sick, do not forget the imprisoned, have pity on the tortured, comfort those who grieve and who weep, be merciful, humble, kind, calm, patient, sympathetic, forgiving, reverent, truthful and pious, so that God might accept your fasting and might plentifully grant you the fruits of repentance.
Fasting of the body is food for the soul.
St. John Chrysostom
From an interview with Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos:
Question: Statistics say that in some countries of the EU more than half of all marriages end up in divorce. Do you think that besides social there are also spiritual reasons for the alarming dissolution of the family in modern societies, and consequently, what precise attitudes and measures could be taken by the Orthodox community to resist this trend?
Answer: The cause of divorces is the various passions developing in man, such as self-love, indulgence, and selfishness.
When one reads the Service of the Mystery of Marriage carefully, one will find out that the joint life of man and woman, which must be in Christ, is lived within a certain framework. When someone trespasses this framework, he first experiences what is called emotional divorce and then he ends up in a final divorce.
The way the Dance of Isaiah is performed during the Mystery of Marriage is indicative. The priest leads the couple, holding the Gospel and chanting “Holy Martyrs who have fought well and have been crowned”. This means that the steps of the new couple will resemble martyrdom and this is why the Priest should always be ahead of them to guide them on the basis of the Gospel. This means that there is asceticism within the marriage, the asceticism of the Church. When this is not observed, marriage is secularized.
Orthodox Communities should help people from their young age to learn clearly what the purpose of man’s existence is, what the purpose of marriage is and what its conclusion is. Because the purpose of marriage is not simply a social cohabitation but the experiencing of Paradise on earth and a road that leads to Paradise.
Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos
http://agapienxristou.blogspot.ca/2013/06/metropolitan-hierotheos-of-nafpaktos-on.html
Most of us parents are very proud of our children. We are continually reinforcing their accomplishments with praise and telling them how wonderful they are. But is this heathy for them? This is a question that surely will draw much discussion and differing viewpoints.
Here is what St. Paisios has to say,
Many parents, thinking they dearly love their children, end up destroying them without realizing it. For example, a mother, who excessively loves her daughter, tells her while holding her in her arms: "I have the best chid in the world." Therefore, from a very young age (when a child is unable to realize it and react against it) the child acquires a haughty mind-set and believes she is a nice person. As a result, she is unable to sense the lack of God's presence and his benevolent power in her life and of course, cannot learn to ask for Him. Consequently, she develops a self-confidence as stiff as marble, which often never goes away, since, as the time goes by, it becomes very difficult to get rid of it.The challenge of a parent is to help their child develop a healthy self-esteem which includes humility, while teaching them that all comes from God. Truly, we are all God's children and everything we have and can do comes from Him. It is important to remember to thank Him for the gifts He gives us and out ability to develop and apply them. Pride develops when we think our accomplishments are all our doing or that we are inherently better than others.
How about the extreme emphasis on sports and it competitiveness? A recent survey showed that those who participate in the major sports of baseball, basketball or football are more likely to cheat in school. These activities which emphasize personal accomplishment independent of God can lead our children away from God making it more difficult for them in later life to repent and come closer to God.
We as parents have an awesome responsibly. First we have to develop humility ourselves.
St. Paisios says,
Parents must look after their spiritual life, because apart from themselves, they are also responsible for their children. Of course, they have the excuse of having inherited their negative traits from their own parents; they have no excuse, however, for not trying to get rid of them, once they become aware of their existence.Work continually on your own relationship with God and you will continually become a better parent.
