Is There Any Readings in the Gospel Relating to the Passing of a Mother
i. WHY PREACH THE GOSPEL
The theme of today'due south conference, "Preaching the Gospel of Christ in the Modern World," is relevant to anybody here, not but to those who are called to preach sermons from the ambo. Each of us is called to preach the Gospel, first of all by bearing witness to it through our lives, and secondly by making it bachelor to others. This morning I volition talk about why we should preach the Gospel, about the prerequisites for preaching the Gospel, and finally about how to bear witness to it in our lives.
The Gospel, of grade, is the sum of the message of the Christian Faith, and especially the adept news that Christ has saved mankind from the eternal consequences of sin, that He has overcome the cardinal problem of the earth — expiry, both bodily and spiritual — by ways of His Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection.
In approaching the field of study of preaching the Gospel, the offset question that arises is: Why should nosotros be preaching the Gospel of Christ in our modern earth?
Why, indeed, when the Protestants seem to be doing it much improve? They have evangelistic programs, crusades that fill stadiums, mega-churches, television channels, Christian bookstores, a Christian music industry, and all the money they could want. We Orthodox in America are small past comparison. Why tin't nosotros just concentrate on our beautiful services and our social functions, and let the evangelicals preach to the unchurched?
The answer to this question is that the Protestants, and the Roman Catholics as well, do not preach the whole, complete, and unadulterated Gospel of Christ. Only the Orthodox Church tin practice that, because the Orthodox Church is the truthful Church building that Christ founded, and that has continued up to today in a continuous, unbroken line of Holy Apostolic Tradition. This is the Church confronting which, every bit Christ promised, the gates of hell shall non prevail (cf. Matt. 16:eighteen). Right before His Crucifixion, Christ told His disciples that the Holy Spirit would come and pb them into all Truth. That hope was indeed fulfilled later on Christ's Resurrection. But it did not cease to be fulfilled after His Apostles reposed. Christ has continued to fulfill that hope through two millennia of upheaval and tribulation; He continues doing so even at present, and He volition proceed until His Second Coming. During our Church'south history, heretical emperors, priests, bishops, and even patriarchs threatened to destroy the purity of the Orthodox Faith, simply through the guidance of the Holy Spirit the Church was preserved in Truth, and the heresies were overcome.
The non-Orthodox Christian churches have preserved some of the Truth of the original Christian Faith. But whatever they have that is true — whether it exist the Holy Scriptures, the dogma of the Holy Trinity, or the dogma of Christ's Incarnation — they have received from the original, Churchly Church, the Orthodox Church, whether they acknowledge this or non. But, once more, they possess simply some of the Truth, and the rest they take distorted considering they are separated from the true Church that Christ founded. Only the Orthodox Church is the repository of the pristine Gospel and the undistorted image of Christ.
This, and so, is why we Orthodox Christians are called to preach the Gospel of Christ. Nosotros have something to requite that no one outside the Church tin give. Since the Christian Faith is the true Faith, and the Orthodox Faith is the truthful form of that true Faith, we alone tin give the fullness of Truth to the searching humanity of our days. Information technology would exist selfish of united states of america to proceed information technology to ourselves. Yeah, we should care near our cute church services, which are the centre of our life every bit the worshipping Trunk of Christ; and, aye, we should take our social functions, since we need to have fellowship with other members of Christ's Body. But, together with this, nosotros are called to share our Faith, to offer it to those who have not however been given the smashing souvenir of existence part of Christ's true Church. This is a tremendous responsibility, and it's fourth dimension the Orthodox Christians in this country stepped up to it. Of course, much has been done and is being washed. Just in the final twenty-five years since I commencement discovered Orthodoxy, I've seen a tremendous growth in the Orthodox mission in this country. But we can do a lot more, and that's what we'll be looking at and discussing today.
Back in the early 1960s, when the co-founder of our St. Herman Brotherhood, Fr. Seraphim (then Eugene) Rose, was working in the brotherhood'due south Orthodox bookstore in San Francisco, his ruling bishop, St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco, walked in, as he ofttimes did. Fr. Seraphim asked St. John a question he had been pondering: "Nearly all the peoples of the globe have had the Gospel preached to them. Does this mean that it's the cease of the world, as the Scriptures say?"[1]
"No," replied St. John. "The Gospel of Christ must be preached in all tongues throughout the world in an Orthodox context. Only and then volition the end come up."[2]
This is an awesome matter to contemplate. St. John, who in other instances demonstrated that he had the souvenir of prophecy, is telling us that we cannot go out it up to Protestants and Roman Catholics to enlighten the world with the Gospel. That chore ultimately belongs to us Orthodox Christians. It's not enough, for example, that three k Chinese are becoming Christian every day, according to the latest statistics. Yes, they are becoming Protestants and Roman Catholics, and that's expert as far every bit it goes, only they are non condign Orthodox Christians. Ultimately, it will be upwardly to us to preach the Gospel to them in the Orthodox context.
Fr. Seraphim once noted that, "When Archbishop John[3] offset came to Paris from Shanghai [in the early on 1950s], instead of giving a just polite and formal greeting to his new flock in church the get-go time he saw them, he gave them existent spiritual meat: The meaning of the Russian exile [he said] is to preach the Gospel over the whole globe, which must happen before the end of the world; and that means non just any Gospel, any kind of 'Christianity,' but Orthodoxy."[4]
What St. John said nearly the Russian exiles can be applied equally well to the diaspora of all the other Orthodox nationalities: Bulgarian, Georgian, Greek, Lebanese, Palestinian, Romanaian, Serbian, Syrian, Ukrainian, etc.
Speaking of prophecy, here is one from a Greek saint of our times (non however canonized): Elder Paisios of Mountain Athos. Earlier his tranquility in 1994, he was asked by one of his spiritual sons: "Elderberry, today in that location are so many people— billions who don't know Christ and so few of them who do know Him. What will happen?"
Elder Paisios answered: "Things will happen which will milk shake the nations. It volition not be the Second Coming, simply it will be a Divine intervention. People will be searching for someone to speak to well-nigh
Christ. They volition pull yous by the hand: 'Come up hither, sit down and tell me nigh Christ.'[5]
We don't have to look into the future for this. Already, even now, people are starving spiritually. How can we give them what they need?
2. PREREQUISITES FOR PREACHING THE GOSPEL
I would now like to outline iii things which we should have in identify in guild to preach the Gospel of Christ in the mod earth: First, we must know the Orthodox Gospel of Christ; 2d, we must live the Gospel; and, tertiary, we must know the modernistic globe, in club to know what nosotros're dealing with.
1. Then, to begin with, we must know the Gospel in the Orthodox context. This ways that, non only should we know the Divinely inspired Holy Scriptures, merely we should know how the Church, which gave us the Scriptures, has interpreted the Scriptures through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We can know this through the writings of the Holy Fathers of the Church who have written extensive commentaries on the Scriptures, peculiarly the book of Genesis and the entire New Testament. Almost all of these commentaries are now easily available in English. They are not hard to understand, even though some of them, like the commentaries of St. John Chrysostom, were written sixteen hundred years ago.
At that place is no question in our confused times that cannot exist answered by a careful, pious, and reverent reading of the Holy Fathers, who give u.s.a. to sympathise the true pregnant of Holy Scripture and to know the substance of our Orthodox Faith. Nosotros must go to the Fathers in order to go their disciples, laying aside our own "wisdom" which nosotros take acquired from the modernistic secular world." When we find the consensus of the Fathers on whatever given upshot, nosotros find the teaching which has prevailed and has been upheld in the Church building. Thus, we find the mind of the Church, which is the heed of Christ, since Christ is the Caput of His Church.
Of form, we should read Orthodox books by some gimmicky authors also, because they distill the pedagogy of the Fathers and bring it to touch on modern concerns. But to go a well-rounded view of the Patristic teaching, and to know which modern authors reflect more of the Patristic mind, we should non neglect to go to the writings of the Fathers directly.
The Lives of Saints and righteous ones of earlier times and of our ain times are also essential reading, as are the spiritual counsels of these same saints and righteous ones. These writings give us a blueprint for our own Christian life, both instructing and inspiring us to alive our lives in Christ, in communion with Him, and on the path to unending union with Him.
St. John Chrysostom once said: "The Christian who is not reading spiritual books cannot salvage his soul." Commenting on this argument, Fr. Seraphim Rose said: "We must be constantly filling ourselves with the give-and-take of God, the Holy Scriptures, and other Orthodox literature, and so that, as St. Seraphim [of Sarov] says, nosotros volition exist literally 'pond in the police of the Lord.' The science of how to delight God and salve our souls volition become a deep office of ourselves that can't exist taken abroad from the states.
"The procedure of Orthodox educational activity begins with infancy, with the simplest Bible stories and Lives of Saints related by one'due south parents, and it should not end this side of the grave. If anyone learning an earthly profession devotes all his energy to studying and gaining do in information technology, how much more than should Christians exist studying and preparing for eternal life, the Kingdom of Heaven which is ours for a short struggle in this life."[vi]
ii. This brings us to the second prerequisite for preaching the Gospel in the modern earth, and that is, we must alive the Gospel.
Again, to quote from Fr. Seraphim: "There exists a simulated stance, which unfortunately is all likewise widespread today, that it is enough to have an Orthodoxy that is limited to the church building building and formal 'Orthodox' activities, such as praying at certain times and making the sign of the Cantankerous; in everything else, so this opinion goes, ane can be like anyone else; participating in the life and culture of our times without whatsoever trouble, as long as we don't commit sin.
"Anyone who has come to realize how deep Orthodoxy is, and how full is the commitment which is required of the serious Orthodox Christian, and likewise what totalitarian demands the gimmicky globe makes on us, volition easily see how incorrect this stance is. One is Orthodox all the fourth dimension, everyday, in every situation of life, or i is not really Orthodox at all. Our Orthodoxy is revealed non simply in our strictly religious views, but in everything we do and say. Most of us are very unaware of the Christian, religious responsibility we have for the seemingly secular function of our lives. The person with a truly Orthodox worldview lives every function of his life as Orthodox."[7]
As nosotros go deeper into the Orthodox Christian life, with daily prayer, daily reading of spiritual books, regular attendance of Church services, and regular confession and reception of Holy Communion, nosotros volition meet our entire lives transformed in this way. When we come before Christ every day and speak to Him with dearest and longing, we will find our relationship with Him deepen, so that He will live in u.s.a. more fully. When we daily reestablish our connectedness with Jesus Christ in this style, it volition get natural for us to follow His commandments throughout the day, in every aspect of our lives. And then His commandments — even the hardest ones, like loving those who spitefully utilize us (cf. Matt. 5:44) — will not seem burdensome to u.s.a..
Through our life of Grace in the Church, we are to be continually transformed into the likeness of God, which is the likeness of Christ. We are to exist united with God e'er more fully by acquiring and assimilating His Grace, His Uncreated Energy.
For the Orthodox Church, conservancy includes the forgiveness of sins and justification earlier God (cf. Eph. 1:vii; Rom. 5:16, 18), only information technology is also more these. It means to abide in Christ the God-man and have Him constant in us (cf. John 15:4), to participate in the life of God Himself, to go partakers of the Divine Nature (II Peter 1:four) both in the present life and in eternity. In the language of Orthodox Patristic theology, to be saved ultimately means to exist deified. Equally the Romanian Orthodox author Fr. Dumitru Staniloae explains: "Deification is the passing of man from created things to the Uncreated, to the level of the Divine Energies — Man assimilates more and more of the Divine Energies, without this absorption ever ending, since he will never assimilate their Source itself, that is, the Divine Essence, and become God by Essence, or another Christ. In the measure in which human being increases his capacity to become a subject area of e'er richer Divine Energies, these Energies from the Divine Essence are revealed to him in a greater proportion."[eight]
In a like vein, we can say that being Orthodox includes having the right beliefs, the right doctrines, the right worship, and the correct interpretation of Scripture, only information technology is more than these. Existence Orthodox ways being in the Church. Nosotros should non only know this intellectually; we should feel information technology in the depths of our existence. By the Grace of God, although we are sinful and unworthy, we are part of Christ'southward Torso; nosotros are members of His one and only true Church. As such, nosotros believe in the Church.
In guild to communicate this conventionalities in the Church to those outside the Church, we must experience what it means to be in the Church building. In other words, nosotros must experience, gradually and a footstep at a time, what it ways to exist transformed into the likeness of Christ, to live in Christ and accept Him live in us, to participate in His life, to be deified.
It is significant that, of all the Christian confessions, only the Orthodox Faith understands Grace to be the Uncreated Energy of God, in which God Himself is fully present. In the Orthodox Church, Grace is known to be God Himself. In the non-Orthodox confessions, on the other hand, the grace that is communicated is considered to be a created miracle. In Roman Catholic theology, it is said that grace cannot exist apart from the soul, and that it is merely a "quality" of the soul.[9]
When in the Orthodox Church we say that we are to exist filled with Grace, that we are to learn the Grace of the Holy Spirit, this means to be literally filled with God Himself. Only in the Orthodox Church do nosotros know and confess that it is possible for a Christian to be deified in the sense of becoming god through His Grace— that is, not God by Nature and preeternal begetting, every bit only Christ was and is, but a god past Grace and adoption. This is what the Apostle John meant when he wrote in his Gospel: As many as received Him [Christ], to them He gave the power to become sons of God, even to those who believe on His name(John i:12).
Yes, it is significant that merely the Orthodox Church has this understanding of Grace and deification. But it is significant not just in the sense that only the Orthodox Church has the correct views on these subjects. Most of all, it is important to consider why the Orthodox Church building lonely has the right agreement. Of grade, i could say that it is because, as I've already mentioned, only the Orthodox Church is the true Church building which Christ has preserved from error and heresy for 2 m years. But I would say that it is more than this. Does not the Orthodox Church building alone have the correct agreement of Grace and deification because she solitary makes possible this total participation in the life of God, this union with God, this deification? To exist sure, those exterior the Church can feel God's Grace. In fact, some Holy Fathers, such as St. Maximus the Confessor,[ten] teach that nothing could exist for an instant without God's Grace. Only full participation in God's Energies, equally much every bit is possible for man nature, is only bachelor in the Orthodox Church.
Every bit I mentioned at the outset of this talk, the Gospel of Christ is, most essentially, the skillful news that the central problem of the world — death, both bodily and spiritual — has been overcome by Jesus Christ. Through His Incarnation, His Death on the Cantankerous, and His Resurrection, Christ has brought Life to the world; He has made it possible for man to live eternally with Him in His Kingdom — not only in soul, but besides in body after the General Resurrection. Whatever Christian confession that has retained the basic teachings of Christianity will affirm this. But only in the Orthodox Church building practise we find the complete understanding and experience of this conservancy that Christ has brought to the world, this Life that He has brought to the earth (cf. John 11:25), this Living Water that He has promised to His followers (cf. John seven:38). This Life that Christ gives is the Life of God Himself — it is God Himself— and that is why the Saints and righteous ones of the Orthodox Church building are known to be literally filled with God, to be deified by Him. And, in the Full general Resurrection, it will not only exist the soul of man that will be deified; the torso will be deified as well. Therefore, the Orthodox Holy Fathers have summed up the Gospel of Christ with a phrase that might seem surprising to Christians outside the Orthodox Church. "God became man," they say, "so that human tin go god."
These considerations can assist united states to capeesh more fully why we, every bit Orthodox Christians, have a responsibility to preach the Gospel of Christ to those around u.s.. Nosotros have the right teaching; nosotros know — or should know — what it means to be in the Church and believe in the Church; and we have all the means that Christ has made available to mankind to be saved— saved, that is, in the maximalist sense of being transformed, even deified, in guild to be fabricated fit for the everlasting Kingdom of Sky.
Of course, we do not take to be fully deified — that is, fully and perfectly penetrated past God's Energies — in order to preach the Gospel. All of us who have been baptized and chrismated Orthodox have already been deified to some extent, since we receive the Uncreated Energy of God united to our souls at Baptism; and all of us who receive Holy Communion experience a kind of deification. St. Symeon the New Theologian, who was deified in the full and strict sense of the word, affirmed that all those who partake of the Holy Mysteries "with sincerity of heart are quickened and deified" [11] — that is, deified in the broader sense. We are to grow toward a more total deification, a more total participation in God throughout our whole lives. As we grow in this manner, we volition have more and more Grace to give to others when we preach the Gospel of Christ.
three. Now we come to the 3rd prerequisite for preaching the Gospel in the modernistic world, and that is to know the modern world, or, more specifically, the mod Western social club in which we find ourselves. Compared to the countries of Western Europe, our American gild has retained a considerable Christian sector, just that sector is becoming smaller and smaller. Recent polls have establish that every year, there are 2 meg fewer Christians in America. At the same fourth dimension, there are two million workpeople who say, "I'm not religious; I'grand spiritual." In other words, they are abandoning churches and are opting for a spirituality of their own devising: personalized spirituality.
Fr. Seraphim Rose identified the sickness of the modernistic world as "nihilism": the abandonment of belief in accented Truth, which is grounded in faith in God. Equally Fr. Seraphim taught, the philosophy of the modernistic age can be summed up in the post-obit phrase: "God is dead, therefore man becomes God and everything is possible."[12]
We take to be aware of the effects of this underlying nihilistic philosophy on the life around u.s.a., and on ourselves. Although many people give lip service to God, they live equally though He doesn't be. And nosotros ourselves, sadly, if we will only acknowledge it, also conduct sometimes as if God doesn't exist, being also nether the influence of the spirit of the times.
If there is no God to Whom we are accountable and Who gives meaning and purpose to our lives, then our lives are all about "me": what I desire, my personal gratification, my personal fulfillment, my "quality of life." According to this view, in that location is no accented or objective meaning to life; there is only a relative or subjective meaning: what it means to me, how information technology suits me. This idea is very strong in our society; we breathe it in with the contemporary air, then to speak.
In preparing this talk, I was reading over the talks that Fr. Seraphim gave at our monastery nearly twenty-v years ago, which I take already been quoting from. Dorsum then, he was saying that the electric current generation has been described every bit the "me" generation. Many of us here are from that generation. But what of the generations that have come up after the "me" generation? They accept been called "generation 10" and "generation Y." These generations have also grown up in a social club characterized by a gradual loss of belief in absolute Truth and by a concurrent absorption in self-gratification. At the same time, noticeably more than than the "me" generation, they have felt the malaise of this empty philosophy of life. As society moves further away from God, we are supplied with more sophisticated ways of distracting us from the pain that comes from being separated from God, and more medications to numb that pain. Generation Y has more admission to entertainments than whatsoever other generation in history, but at the same fourth dimension, with its use of antidepressants, it has been called the most medicated generation in human history.
In the meantime, to fill in the vacuum caused by the abandonment of Christian Organized religion, numerous forms of false spirituality have been on the rise for decades. Today, the fastest growing religion in the United States, in terms of percent, is witchcraft. This is non unrelated to the fact that numerous movies, idiot box shows, books, and games present young people with the idea that witchcraft is "cool" and "fun." Members of Pagan and Wiccan groups say that, whenever a popular book, motion-picture show or TV show comes out with this theme, they get a surge of telephone calls from young people.
This is only the latest sign of the times. There are many other such signs, from the growth of Eastern religions to the UFO subculture, to the pseudo-Christian experiences seen at such gatherings as the "Toronto Blessing."
And, while all of this pseudo-spirituality is existence put into the air, there is a concerted effort to obliterate what is left of traditional Christian society in gimmicky America. Not a yr goes by without several cover stories in such major national magazines every bit Time, Newsweek, and Usa News and World Report, which attempt to undermine Christian faith under the guise of "objective" reporting. Not only is the reality of the Biblical account of creation and the global Inundation rejected, just the historicity of the Prophet Moses is dismissed, the historicity of the Gospels are called into question, and the lives of Christ and His Apostles are reinterpreted according to heretical Gnostic notions which were condemned by the Church many centuries ago. The aim of these articles — and of much else of what we see and hear in the media nowadays — is to denature Christianity. In order to fit in with the nihilistic, secularistic, cocky-worshipping spirit of the times, Christianity must exist reinterpreted so as to abandon whatever claims to accented Truth, and to carelessness faith in Christ as the But Begotten Son of God. Instead, Christ is made out to be some kind of New Historic period guru who leads each of us to the realization that each 1 of us is God: non god by Grace as in the Orthodox understanding, but God by Nature in the New Age, Gnostic understanding. To a self-worshipping guild for which absolute Truth has been replaced by "me," zero less than this false grade of cocky-deification is satisfactory. It is precisely with this thought that Lucifer tempted Adam and Eve: Your eyes shall exist opened, and ye shall be equally Gods (Gen. 3:5).
As nosotros Orthodox Christians accomplish out to the modern world, nosotros need to take into business relationship this barrage of propaganda that is thrust on people in our society, that makes them forget God, surrender on Christ as traditional Christianity understands Him, and alive for themselves, live for this globe only, live for today. It so happens that we Orthodox Christians have answers to all the misguided attempts to deny the historicity of the Old and New Testaments, and to turn Christianity into something that it is not. Books and manufactures have been written by Orthodox theological writers, historians, and scientists to defend the historical interpretation of Holy Scripture that is constitute in the writings of the Holy Fathers. Some of these only be in Russian, Greek, or Serbian, but some are in English, and others will be translated. It can be helpful for us to avail ourselves of these materials in order to defend our Organized religion, but we must likewise realize that, ultimately, it is not arguments that persuade people to come to the Orthodox Church, just something that moves their hearts. And, to move hearts, nosotros must commencement of all have our ain hearts turned to God.
With all the so-called spirituality available to people today, which they can discover literally at their fingertips on the internet, people'due south souls are empty. They are desperately in need of the fullness of Christ'southward Uncreated Grace, which but the Orthodox Church can give.
3. BEARING WITNESS ТО THE GOSPEL
Now that nosotros take looked at three prerequisites to preaching the Gospel in the modernistic world — knowing the Gospel, living the Gospel, and knowing the modern earth — we can at present go on to hash out how to preach the Gospel.
In preaching the Gospel, we should not take the in-your-face approach that is occasionally plant amid Protestants. Sometimes Protestants will place pressure on people to catechumen. Maybe this stems, at least in function, from the Calvinist doctrine that denies gratuitous will — fifty-fifty though most Protestant churches have rejected the strict interpretation of that doctrine. In any case, the Orthodox approach in preaching the Gospel is, opposite to Calvinism, to honor a person's free volition just as God honors it. Our task is simply to bear witness to the Truth, and to brand information technology bachelor to others. Each person must make his own pick, without whatsoever coercion, as to whether or not to go a member of the Orthodox Church.
What does it mean to bear witness to our Religion? In ane of the talks he gave toward the end of his life, Fr. Seraphim Rose said: "Once we are learning of the Orthodox Faith, we must exist ready, equally the Apostle Peter teaches, to give an account of it to those who may ask (cf. I Peter 3:xv). Nowadays at that place is no ane who is not asked at some time about his Faith. Nosotros must brand our Organized religion something deep, conscious, and serious, so that we ourselves know why we are Orthodox — and this will already exist an answer to those exterior the Organized religion.
"And further, in our times of searching, we should exist on the watch for those who are searching. We should exist prepared to find them in the near unexpected places. We should be evangelical? — and this does not hateful just sticking Bible verses into ane'southward conversation or asking anybody, 'Are you saved?' It means living by the Gospel, even with all our weaknesses and falls — living the Orthodox Religion. Many outsiders, just seeing that we endeavor to lead a life different from the pagan and semi-pagan society around us, tin can become interested in the Faith just by this."[13]
To illustrate this last betoken, I volition relate a few stories. In the early history of our brotherhood, some Orthodox pilgrims were on their way habitation from our monastery, when they stopped at a eating place in Williams, California. Before the meal, they crossed themselves and prayed aloud. Some people at an adjacent table asked them what Faith they belonged to. They struck up a friendship with the Orthodox pilgrims, and went on to become Orthodox Christians themselves.
Only by doing such a simple things as making the sign of the Cross and praying, ane can modify the lives of those who are looking for something authentic in Christianity.
Hither is another story which provides an even meliorate instance of what Fr. Seraphim said nigh "outsiders" becoming interested in the Orthodox Religion merely past seeing us alive that Religion. Well-nigh five years ago, a young mother in Santa Rosa, California was in a toy store with her two-year-old son. Every bit she was walking around looking at things, she saw a woman older than herself, modestly dressed, who had come to the store with her teenaged son. The young mother noticed that there was something different well-nigh this woman and her son. They were calm, peaceful, not distracted; but it was their relationship that impressed her most of all. The older female parent and her teenaged son obviously had a close relationship; the boy showed respect and consideration for his mother, and she was kind and loving to him. The younger woman thought to herself: That'due south the kind of relationship I want with my son when he gets older. And so she went upwards to the other adult female and asked her, "Do yous go to a church?" It so happened that the older woman was the wife of a priest, and her church was in Santa Rosa. She talked with the younger woman, told her about her church, and told her that at that place was an Orthodox bookstore just a few blocks away. The young woman went straight to the bookstore, which serves every bit an outreach middle for the Orthodox Faith, and talked with the human being who runs the store. She and so started attention the church with her married man and son, and in fourth dimension they all became Orthodox. They notwithstanding attend the church building regularly, and now have another male child in the family.
In discussing what it ways to evidence to our Organized religion, we should emphasize that, in all situations, we must human activity and speak with beloved. Christ told His disciples: By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have honey one to another (John xiii:35). Nosotros take the fullness of Truth, yes, but this Truth must exist spoken and given in love, lest it be corrupted in the very style in which information technology is presented. People will look for God in us, and if they run into no love there, they will not recognize the presence of God, even if we know all the Orthodox dogmas and can recite Scripture verses and the Nicene Creed past middle.
Fr. Seraphim stressed this in ane of his talks. He said: "Being filled with the Gospel educational activity and trying to live by it, we should take love and compassion for the miserable humanity of our days. Probably never have people been more unhappy than the people of our days, even with all the outward conveniences and gadgets our lodge provides u.s.a. with. People are suffering and dying for the lack of God — and we can help requite God to them. The love of many has truly grown cold in our days — simply let us not be cold. As long every bit Christ sends us His Grace and warms our hearts, nosotros exercise not need to be cold. If we are cold and indifferent; if our response to the need for a Christian answer to those who are miserable is only: 'Who cares? Permit someone else do it; I don't feel similar it' (and I have heard Orthodox people say those very things!) — and then we are the table salt that has lost its savor and is proficient for nil simply to exist thrown out (cf. Matt. five:13)."'
May these words warm our hearts, so that we volition become forth and acquit witness to the Orthodox Gospel with love — a love that flows from our human relationship with Jesus Christ, and from the Grace He bestows on us in His Church.
[1] Cf. Matthew 24:14.
[two] Hieromonk Damascene, Father Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works (Platina, Calif.: St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 2003), p. 314.
[3] I.eastward., St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco. He was glorified as a saint in 1994 past the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.
[four] Letter of Fr. Seraphim to Fr. Neketas Palassis, St. Thomas Sunday, April 23/May 6, 1973. Quoted in Father Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works, p. 314.
[5] Athanasios Rakovalis, Talks with Father Paisios (Thessaloniki, 2000), p. 137. 2Cf. Fr. Seraphim Rose, "The Holy Fathers of Orthodox Spirituality I," The Orthodox Word, no. 58 (1974), p. 195.
[6] Fr. Seraphim Rose, "The Search for Orthodoxy" (a talk given at the 1981 St. Herman Summertime Pilgrimage), The Orthodox Word, no. 226 (2002), pp. 252-53.
[7] Fr. Seraphim Rose, "Living the Orthodox Worldview" (a talk given at the 1982 St. Herman Summertime Pilgrimage), The Orthodox Word, no. 105 (1982), pp. 169-seventy.
[8] Fr. Dumitru Staniloae, Orthodox Spirituality (South Canaan, Penna.: St. Tikhon'southward Seminary Printing, 2002), p. 373.
[9] The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1911 edition, vol. 6, p. 705.
[ten] Run into St. Maximus the Confessor, "Four Hundred Texts on Love" 3:27, in The Philokalia, vol. two (London: Faber and Faber, 1981), p. 87.
[eleven] Preparatory Prayers for Holy Communion.
[12] Male parent Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works, p. 396. Fr. Seraphim took this phrase from Friedrich Nietzsche and from the graphic symbol Kirillov in Fyodor Dostovevsky'southward The Possessed.
[xiii] Fr. Seraphim Rose, "The Search for Orthodoxy," p. 253.
6 сентября 2007 г.
Is There Any Readings in the Gospel Relating to the Passing of a Mother
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