Faith and Prayer

  • Here in the church there is the one thing needful: Here is a refuge from the vanity and the storms of life. Here is the calm harbor for souls seeking after salvation. Here is incorruptible food and...
  • Blessed are the pure in heart. From the Lord’s sermon on the mount. Create in me a clean heart, O God. Psalm 50. Keep watch over your heart throughout your life. Keep an eye on, and pay attention to...
  • Faith is a gift that has a beneficial effect upon our disposition. It engenders within us the fear of God, and it is fear of God that teaches us to obey the Commandments and to live virtuously. A...
  • ...There is also human righteousness, a righteousness according to external laws, but a righteousness of little significance, not having perfection and plenitude and based on human considerations....
  • Set aside all considerations of: is killing millions of people, women, children, and the elderly, permissible or impermissible. Instead, try to display your proper moral sense in trivialities: do not...

Love for God and One Another

  • A certain poslushnik [one under obedience, a monastic novice] asked the elder, "Who, father, can obey all of the Commandments, when there are so many of them?" The Elder answered, "One who emulates...
  • One who obeys God’s will honors and glorifies God, while one who transgresses God’s law dishonors Him. St. Basil the Great. Let us not consider praise an unimportant matter; rather let our life raise...
  • A brother asked Abba Moses, what helps a man in all of his difficulty? The elder replied: God helps, for it is written: “Our God is refuge and strength, a helper in afflictions which mightily befall...
  • If you have shown compassion for people here [on earth], that will be of wonderful help to you at the day of Judgment. Venerable St. Ephraim the Syrian. Even if you school yourself in the highest...
  • DUTY without love makes one irritable
    JUSTICE without love makes one cruel
    TRUTH without love makes one a fault-finder
    UPBRINGING without love makes one two-faced

Passions

  • The vainglorious man is an idolator, although he is called a believer. He thinks that he is honoring God, but in actual fact he is pleasing not God, but men. Venerable John of the Ladder. Sometimes...
  • The passion of anger, in which one may include all forms of aggression toward other people, is also bears evidence of the absence of love for one’s neighbor. Meekness, gentleness, (a virtue that is...
  • The Lord will protect your soul so long as you hold your tongue. Do not say more than necessary; much talking drives away the Holy Spirit. Learning to be silent is a great undertaking. In remaining...

Holy Mysteries

  • When you will go down into the water, do not represent to yourself water alone, but await salvation from the operation of the Holy Spirit; because without the one and the other it is impossible for...
  • There is both a physical and a spiritual fast. In the physical fast the body abstains from food and drink. In the spiritual fast, the faster abstains from evil intentions, words and deeds. One who...
  • Fasting consists not just of eating rarely, but also of eating little. And not just in eating only one meal, but in not eating much. Foolish is the faster, who waits for a specific time [to eat a...
  • We should not put off repentance, for we know not the hour of our death. Do not rely on the evil one, who instills in you deceptive ideas, saying “You are still young, and will still live a long time...
  • In Confession, the Church wants one to reveal his hidden shadow [the hidden thing that overshadows him]. In Confession, the Church wants one to show the wounds to his soul that he is hiding behind...
  • Holy Hierarch St. John Chrysostom teaches that one must commune of the Holy Gifts of Christ “with a clear conscience, with a pure heart, with an irreproachable life, in the greatest oneness of mind...

Disease and Death

  • “Ignaty Brianchaninov says that diseases are the Lord’s reminders to us that our death is not far, and that we should cleanse everything that has been, with true compunction, repentance, and receipt...

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  • 4001 17th St. N.W.,
  • Washington, D.C., 20011

Phone  (202) 726-3000

Email        webmaster@stjohndc.org

 

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