Book Review - "Sabbath"

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest a book that I personally found a great read with the different stories and the ideas set forth for people who try to observe some form of aspect of the Sabbath.  The reason I said "going out on a limb" is because this book is written by a non-Orthodox and in some places throughout the book quotes different people/religious ideologies of which are not recognized by the Holy Orthodox Church.  But I do feel strongly enough that despite those minor "quotes of inspiration" this book is something that every individual or family can use to create their own way of keeping the Sabbath.


The book, Sabbath , is written by Wayne Muller.  This is an excerpt from the back of the cover:

"In today's world, with its relentless emphasis on success and productivity, we have lost the necessary rhythm of life, the balance between work and rest. Constantly striving, we feel exhausted and deprived in the midst of great abundance. We long for time with friends and family, we long for a moment to ourselves. 

Millennia ago, the tradition of Sabbath created an oasis of sacred time within a life of unceasing labor. Now, in a book that can heal our harried lives, Wayne Muller, author of the spiritual classic How, Then, Shall We Live?, shows us how to create a special time of rest, delight, and renewal--a refuge for our souls. 

We need not even schedule an entire day each week. Sabbath time can be a Sabbath afternoon, a Sabbath hour, a Sabbath walk. With wonderful stories, poems, and suggestions for practice, Muller teaches us how we can use this time of sacred rest to refresh our bodies and minds, restore our creativity, and regain our birthright of inner happiness."

One may click on the image of the book, where it says, "CLICK TO LOOK INISDE."  This will allow anyone to see the "Chapters", of which there are 6; Rest, Rhythm, Time, Happiness, Wisdom, Consecration, and A Sabbath Day.Then with the different Subjects it addresses. Finally then underneath the Subject, in italics, will be a short section on how to celebrate the Sabbath in a certain way, that is just a guide, one of which can be molded to form an individual/families time. 

It would most definitely be a way to get spiritual to take the idea and conform it with Orthodox belief and praxis (accepted custom/tradition).  I'll take an example from a section of the "Practices." One of the practices suggests creating a Sabbath meal, that you prepare specially for this occasion, to make it be distinguishable from other meals that you might cook, or carry-out (guilty here!).  So, find a recipe that is rarely made or a new recipe you've been wanting to make.  Next, invite your friends, or remind your family, that this meal is a special meal and centered around bringing loved ones together. If your a family, remind your kids or perhaps husband/wife to not bring their cell phones to the table.  This is a time where you should separate this from being just another meal to a holy meal.  So unless they are expecting a text or tweet from God, keep the cell phones off.  Begin the meal by offering a traditional Orthodox prayer.  Then when everyone is seated keep the conversation so that it is full of happiness, love, laughable, or perhaps those funny embarrassing moments.  Then be sure to end the meal with prayer.

Then perhaps if you are family, or friends who gathered together in Christ, that is those who are Orthodox, could spend the time after the meal reading a passage from the Gospels or the Epistles or a new book about a/the Saint(s).  

Another example is the idea of kicking off our shoes and to not move.  How many people, I'm one of them, find themselves going home and doing chores.  I get caught up in the mode that after Church I've got to go home and do the laundry for the week, clean the house, and dare I say it, go to the crowded grocery store, which turns out to be more like a test from "American Gladiators", trying to battle obstacles and so many people.  Instead of going home and doing the chores, kick off your shoes as soon as you walk in the door.  Grab a book that you've been wanting to read, or one that has been on the nightstand that every night you promise you're going to finish, but feel like you're too tired to read and put it off for another day.  Or find a special movie that is particularly a way for you to be able to sit back and relax and enjoy it.  Nothing else matters.  It's just you and the book/movie.  The idea is to keep us from having that urge of "got to be on the move."  

Remember that the idea is to bring ourselves and other people together in love and friendship and to remember our purpose in life and in the Holy Orthodox Church.  We should recall that Jesus Christ said, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath" (Mark 2:27).  A line from the book says this powerful, but true, statement, "Sabbath requires surrender."  

I'll add another quotation from the book, "Sabbath implies a willingness to be surprised by unexpected grace, to partake of those potent moments when creation renews itself, when what is finished inevitably recedes, and the sacred forces of healing astonish us with the unending promise of love and life."

To end there is a quote from the Old Testament that should help us to not have a worried mind about what is to come, or what needs to be done, but to keep it simple, "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:9). 

"A Manual of Confession" by St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite

This book, Exomologetarion: A Manual of Confession, written by St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite has got to be the most intensive and in-depth text concerning the whole role, idea, process of the Mystery of Confession, which is sum 400 pages long(!).  After reading this book it transformed my whole perception of what Confession is and how to properly going about it.  Naturally, I have excerpts from the book.  

“Confession is such a potent treatment that it immediately neutralizes every poison of pardonable and mortal sin […] restoring to the soul its initial health and grace.”  St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite

“[I]f you wish to repent properly, must depart from the devil and from diabolical works and return to God and to the life proper to God.”  St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite

“Know secondly that the aspects of repentance are three:  contrition, confession, and satisfaction.”  St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite

“Contrition is sorrow and perfect pain of the heart…”  St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite

“Groan after you have sinned, not because you are to be punished (for this is nothing), but because you have offended your Master, one so gentle, one so kind, one Who loves you so much and longs for your salvation as to have given even His Son for you.  On account of this, groan.”  St. John Chrysostom

“Related to contrition is affliction […] which comes about, not because a person disappointed God by his sins, but because that person was deprived of divine grace…”  St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite

“[Going to your Confessor] when he tells you to confess your sins before the Master Christ, then kneel before His sacred Icon, saying: ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son (Luke 15:18-19).”  St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite

“So then […] you must confess with your own mouth […]but voluntary and by your own free will, saying with David: ‘Out of my desire will I confess to Him’ (Psalm 27:7).  You should not wait for the Spiritual Father to question you, but you should be the first to begin confessing.”  St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite

“You must confess compuntionately, with much humility and a broken heart, in the same manner as the harlot confessed her sins, and the Canaanite woman, and just as the Publican prayed, in order for God to accept your confession and grant you the forgiveness of sins: ‘A heart that is broken and humbled God will not despise’ (Psalm 50:17)  St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite

“[W]hen the Spiritual Father is reproving you for some transgression, remaining silent and not angry, nor interrupting his words, but receiving the reproof with joy, as if God Himself were reproving you.”  St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite

“You must not accuse one and the other when you confess, making excuses that they were the cause for you to sin…No, you must only accuse yourself, and yourself alone, and your evil will.”  St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite

“You must confess truthfully and honestly from your heart, revealing all of your sins just as you committed them…”  St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite

“One or the other, brother: either you will reveal your sins now before your Spiritual Father, or then at the fearful judgment.”  St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite 

"Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives" by Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica

This was an excellent read, Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives , on how much our thoughts/perceptions/impulses/wants effect our lives.  His teachings are simple and clear to understand.  Truly, Elder Thaddeus was blessed by the Holy Virtues from God.  This book turned out to be full of wonderful insights that can guide one to the Truth of Faith and Christian praxsis.  Here are just a few, my book has much more excerpts highlighted and ear-marked that I would love to share but you should read the book for yourself and let it guide you.

"We must learn to ease the burden of thoughts that bears down upon us.  As soon as we feel burdened, we must turn to the Lord and give our worries over to Him, as well as the worries and cares of our loved ones. [snip]  As for me, how can I help others when I cannot even help myself?"


"Our thoughts determine our whole life.  If our thoughts are destructive, we will have no peace.  If they are quiet, meek, and simple, our life will be the same, and we will have peace within us."


"All of [the Saints] say that the perfection of the Christian life is in extreme humility.  This means that patient long-suffering is what we most need in this life.  We must bear everything patiently and forgive all."


"Everything, both good and evil, comes from our thoughts.  Our thoughts become reality."


"Our starting point is always wrong.  Instead of beginning with ourselves, we always want to change others first and ourselves last.  If everyone were to begin first with themselves, then there would be peace all around!"


"When we nurture evil thoughts, we become evil. [snip]  And we know that, as [Orthodox] Christians, we must not even think evil, let alone do it."


"We, however, have Divine power, Divine life, and Divine energy.  On the day of the Final Judgment we shall have to give an answer for the way we have used this Divine power, life, and energy which have been given to us: whether we have contributed to the harmony in the universe, or have sown disharmony."


"The Kingdom of God will not make its abode in the heart of a person who has no obedience, for such a person always wants his will - rather than God's - to be done."


Why does the Lord command us to love our enemies and to pray for them?  Not for their sake, but for ours!  For as long as we bear grudges, as long as we dwell on how someone offended us, we will have no peace."


"We must suffer much in our hearts until we learn humility.  The Lord is ever standing by our side..."


"God is a mystery to all beings.  God is in us, and that is why we are a mystery to our own selves."


"We must be obedient to the will of God in order to learn humility and meekness while we are still in this life, while there is still time.  A heart that is full of love thinks not of itself, but of others.  It prays for all living things and for the whole world."


"We should defend one another, for we are brothers - especially we who are of one Faith."

"Unseen Warfare" edited by St. Nikodemos and revised by St. Theophan the Recluse

Unseen Warfare  has been one of the greatest spiritual works by two of the most inspirational Saints, St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite and St. Theophan the Recluse.  Unseen Warfare was originally written by a Latin but made its way to the Holy Mountain of Athos where St. Nikodemos saw what lacked in this potentially spiritual work and through God's divine wisdom he was able to transform it into an Orthodox spiritual text.  It was later that St. Theophan also was able to read over this work, as it had been edited by St. Nikodemos, and he revised it.  The revision was not to make corrections to the invaluable work that St. Nikodemos added but to more emphasis and depth on certain subjects.


Unseen Warfare can only be described as either a primer to the Philokalia or an overview of the essential teachings that are held within the Philokalia.


There is so much spiritual knowledge contained in this book that I would love to share but it would require me to write out entire pages (it's that good!).  So I will only post a few excerpts from the book.  I highly recommend it.  It would be a great book to read during this Lenten period.


"We all naturally wish, and are commanded to be perfect.  The Lord commands: 'Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in Heaven perfect' (Matthew 5:48).  And St. Paul admonishes: 'In malice be ye children, but in understanding be men' (1 Corinthians 14:20."


"...the greatest and most perfect thing a man may desire to attain is to come near to God and dwell in union with Him."


"...withstand the temptations and seductions of our three main enemies: the flesh, the world, and the devil..."


"Thinking of their external pious works and deeming them good, they imagine that they have already reached perfection and, puffing themselves up begin to judge others."


"But prepare yourself also for labour, sweat, and struggle from your first steps on the path.  You must sacrifice everything to God and do only His will.  Yet you will meet in yourself as many wills as you have powers and wants, which all clamor for satisfaction, irrespective of whether it is in accordance with the will of God or not.  Therefore, to reach your desired aim, it is first of all necessary to stifle your own wills and finally to extinguish and kill them altogether."


"...if you really desire to be victorious in this unseen warfare...you must plant in your heart the following four dispositions and spiritual activities, as it were arming yourself with invisible weapons, the most trustworthy and unconquerable of all, namely: (a) never rely on yourself in anything; (b) bear always in your heart a perfect and all daring trust in God alone; (c) strive without ceasing; and (d) remain constantly in prayer."


"...there is nothing He loves and desires to see in us more than a sincere consciousness of our nothingness and a firm and deep-felt conviction that any good we may have in our nature and our life comes from Him alone, since He is the source of all good."


"In other words we should feel with our whole heart that we have no one to rely on except God, and that  from Him and Him alone can we expect every kind of good, every manner of help, and victory."


"Therefore, if you happen to fall [sin], run quickly in your thought to humble [your] self-knowledge and a low opinion and sense of yourself and implore God by persistent prayer to give you true light, so as to realize your nothingness and confirm your heart in disbelief in yourself..."


"Yet He has His own time and order for everything.  Therefore if a soul be overburdened with sins, if it be guilty of all the crimes in the world, if it be defiled beyond imagination...it must not weaken in its trust of God or fall away from Him."


"Thus God is more pleased to see you give a small coin to a beggar, solely with the purpose of pleasing His divine majesty, than if you strip yourself of all your possessions for some other purpose..."


"Moreover God's desire to save you is greater than that of your enemy to destroy you."


"If you happen sometimes to fall into error in this [sin], do not be dejected but humble yourself before God and, conscious of your weakness, use it as a lesson for the future."


"Repeat [prayers, Scriptures, sayings of the Saints] often in word and thought, not only every day, but many times a day, and you will always have the feeling of gratitude to God."


"In His love for you He took the form of a slave, chose to be despised, scorned, and crucified by the malice of the lawless world, and at the same time remained God, holding in His hand the life and death of the whole world."


"If you still feel the impulses to pass judgment add to this the truth, that you are given no authority for this and that the moment you assume this authority you thereby make yourself worthy of judgment and condemnation, not before powerless men, but before God, the all-powerful Judge of all."


"...so the mind can naturally find peace nowhere but in the chamber of the heart and in the inner man..."

"Spiritual Psalter or Reflections on God" - St. Ephraim the Syrian

I forgot to mention when I posted about our Holy Saint Ephraim the Syrian, there is a compilation of some of his writings.  It is a short book but filled with so much spiritual insight!  


Check out Spiritual Psalter

St. Maximos the Confessor

On January 21st, the Holy Orthodox Church commemorates St. Maximos the Confessor.


The divine Maximus, who was from Constantinople, sprang from an illustrious family. He was a lover of wisdom and an eminent theologian. At first, he was the chief private secretary of the Emperor Heraclius and his grandson Constans. When the Monothelite heresy became predominant in the royal court, out of hatred for this error the Saint departed for the Monastery at Chrysopolis (Scutari), of which he later became the abbot. When Constans tried to constrain him either to accept the Monothelite teaching, or to stop speaking and writing against it - neither of which the Saint accepted to do - his tongue was uprooted and his right hand was cut off, and he was sent into exile where he reposed in 662. At the time only he and his few disciples were Orthodox in the East.


St. Maximos also has many books Questions & Doubts , On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ

Apolytikion:

You are a guide of Orthodoxy, a teacher of piety and modesty, a luminary of the world, the God inspired pride of monastics. O wise Maximos, you have enlightened everyone by your teachings. You are the harp of the Spirit. Intercede to Christ our God for the salvation of our souls.

Kontakion:

Let us the faithful praise with fitting hymns that lover of the Holy Trinity, great Maximus, who clearly taught the divinely-given Faith: that we should give glory unto Christ our God, Who, though but one hypostasis, hath in very truth two natures, wills, and energies. Let us cry to him: Rejoice, divine herald of the Faith.

On Holy Baptism by St. Tikhon of Zadonsk

"He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved" (Mk. 16:16). Our Lord and Saviour gave us this saying for our confirmation and consolation. For what is more comforting to a faithful and baptized soul than this saying that promises it eternal salvation? 


Beloved Christians, glory be to God that we both believe in the Gospel and are enlightened with holy Baptism. But let us look at the power of holy Baptism and we shall see what we were before Baptism and what we became after Baptism, that we may receive lively consolation from this.

Through holy Baptism we were delivered from every calamity and we received all true blessedness by the grace of God. Before Baptism we were far from God, but through Baptism we became close to God. Before Baptism we were enemies of God, but through Baptism we became reconciled to God, and God was reconciled to us. Before Baptism we were children of God's wrath, but through Baptism we were made vessels of God's mercy. Before Baptism we were children of darkness and children of the devil, but through Baptism we were made children of light and children of God. Before Baptism we were defiled in sins, but through Baptism we were washed, sanctified and justified.

Before Baptism we were lost, but through Baptism we were saved. Before Baptism the doors to everlasting life and the Kingdom of Heaven were closed to us, but through Baptism they were opened and those that preserve the grace of holy Baptism enter in unhindered. We receive these and other benefits of God through holy Baptism. We receive them freely without any merit on our part, solely from His love for man, for what can he deserve who is lost? Glory to the goodness of God! Glory to His love for mankind! Glory to His compassion! Glory to His generosity! "Blessed be the name of the Lord from henceforth and for ever more!" (LXX-Ps. 112:2 [KJV-Ps. 113:2]).

The Only-Begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ our Saviour, earned this supreme mercy from God for all of us. He earned it through His most precious Blood and His death. Beloved Christians, let us remember holy Baptism, and let us consider whether we live worthily of holy Baptism, lest that holy Baptism be to our greater condemnation on the day of Christ's Dread Judgement, where every iniquitous word, deed, and thought will be judged.

Holy Baptism is like a door by which those that are baptized enter into the holy Church and become "fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God" (Eph. 2:19). But not just so, but before Baptism there are renunciations and vows:

1. We then renounced Satan and all his evil works. Satan is a wicked and evil spirit. He was created good by God, but he and those of like mind with him apostatized from Him, and so from light they became dark, and from good they became evil and wicked. His works are idolatry, pride, deceit, falsehood, flattery, guile, envy, malice, plunder, adultery, prodigality, all uncleanliness, slander, blasphemy and every sin; for he is the inventor of sin, and he beguiled our ancestors in paradise and led them into sin and apostasy from God. We renounce this wicked spirit and all his evil works before Baptism.

2. We renounce every vanity, pride and pomp of this world, as ones called to and renewed for everlasting life.

3. We promise to serve Christ the Son of God in faith and in truth together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and to follow in His footsteps.

4. Thus we establish a covenant between God and us. We, who have renounced Satan, promise to serve God and be faithful to Him. God accepts us in His supreme mercy and promises us an inheritance in everlasting life and the Kingdom, and washes us who are defiled by sin in the laver of Baptism. He sanctifies and justifies us, as the priest says over everyone who is baptized, "Thou art washed, thou art sanctified, thou art justified" (cf. 1 Cor. 6:11).

Beloved Christians, let us remember these renunciations and vows, and consider whether we keep them; for it is a grave thing to lie to God, and it is very dangerous to be found false before Him. Let us consider, then, whether any of us have not gone back to Satan, whether we have not renounced Christ and abandoned Him? Let us consider on whose side we find ourselves, on Satan's or on Christ's. One serves and belongs to him whose will he performs. He renounces Christ not only he who renounces His holy name and does not confess Him to be the Son of God and his Saviour, but also he who sins against conscience and recklessly breaks His holy commandments. This is the teaching of the Apostles. For the Apostle says, "They profess that they know God; but in works they deny Him, and the rest" (Tit. 1:16).

Do you see that people reject God in works too, and not just with their lips? Is anyone a prodigal, and does he commit adultery? He rejects Christ. Does anyone hate his neighbor and seek him out to harm him? He has apostatized from Christ. Does anyone steal; does he rob and take away his neighbor's goods? He has departed from Christ. Does anyone deceive and flatter his neighbor? He is no longer with Christ, but in all these things he submits to the enemy of salvation, and so he does not stand in the promises which he made to God, and so he has lied to God. Let us examine then, beloved, our conscience and our life. To which side do we belong, to Christ's or to His enemy's? To the good, or to the evil? To the lot of the saved or to that of the lost? He that is not with Christ is the enemy of Christ. For Christ Himself said, "He that is not with Me is against Me" (Mt. 12:30).

Beloved, let us watch ourselves and let us be with Christ here in this world, as we have vowed at Baptism: let us be with Christ here that we may be with Christ in the age to come, according to His promise that cannot lie, "Where I am, there shall also My servant be" (Jn. 12:26). Let us serve Him here as our King and God, that on the Day of Judgement He will acknowledge us as His laborers and number us with His faithful servants and open unto us the doors of everlasting joy. Remember the vows made at Baptism.

So that you may act on the aforementioned points, you must remember the vows you made at holy Baptism. For though not you yourself but your sponsor made those vows before God on your behalf, you promised then, spitting on Satan, and on his pride, and on his service, and on his evil works - you promised, I say - and vowed to serve Jesus Christ your Lord and Redeemer in faith and in truth, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Consider, Christian, what vows you made and to Whom. It is a grievous thing to lie to a man, how incomparably more grievous it is to lie to God. "God is not mocked" (Gal. 6:7). When a Christian does not stand on his promises and does not keep them, what mercy, then, should he expect from God, to Whom he lied? He that keeps his promises shall find himself in God's mercy and in His Kingdom. He remains faithful to God, and God will hold him in mercy and in His protection as His own. And this is what the prophet sings to God, "With the holy man wilt Thou be holy, and with the innocent man wilt Thou be innocent. And with the elect man wilt Thou be elect, and with the perverse wilt Thou be perverse" (LXX-Ps. 17:26-27 [KJV-Ps. 18:25-26]).

Christians! All they that commit iniquity and act against their conscience do not keep their vows. These include fornicators, adulterers, and all defilers, robbers, thieves, brigands, the sly, the crafty, deceivers and the guileful, revilers and men of evil speech, drunkards, fault finders, the hateful, and the malicious, they that live in the pride and pomp of this world, and all that do not fear God. They have all lied to God and have not kept their vows, and are outside of the holy Church, though they may even go to churches and pray and receive the Mysteries and build churches and adorn them and display other signs of a Christian. Since they shall be powerfully put to the test at the Judgement of Christ and tormented more there than Turks and idolaters, avoid these deeds, Christian, and do not imitate the aforementioned doers of iniquity, lest you be condemned with them to eternal fire by the just judgement of God, "where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched" (Mk. 9:44, 46, 48), but by all means endeavor so to live and act as the word of God teaches, as was said above. Keep in mind those vows of yours, and this will guide you toward the Christian life and restrain you from every evil and do you good. If you notice that you yourself do not keep those vows, then repent and begin the Christian life anew, lest you appear before God in a lie, and perish with liars. "The fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death" (Apoc. 21:8).

It is impossible to adequately describe and weep over the unfortunate condition of that Christian who has given himself over to lawless acts after holy Baptism, and commits iniquity. He is deprived of all that blessedness of which he had been found worthy in Baptism by the grace of God, and of his own will he casts himself into that calamity from which he had been delivered. But rather, he falls into a greater calamity, for he had known the truth but he did not wish to live in it. He knew God, but he did not wish to worship Him.

He knew the way that leads to eternal blessedness, but he did not wish to walk in it. He vowed to work for God, but he lied to Him. He was washed, he was sanctified, he was justified, but he was deprived of it all. He became a child of God, but he lost that most glorious nobility. He became an heir of everlasting life and the Kingdom, but he wasted that inheritance. And this is what the Apostle says about such ones, "For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them" (2 Pet. 2:21).

See, O Christian, how great is the calamity of a Christian who has committed iniquity! It is not apparent now, since it is not seen with bodily eyes, but with spiritual: but it will become evident then, when all our secret and manifest deeds are revealed before the whole world, that is at the second coming of Christ.

Then that poor Christian will know and will behold his great calamity and destruction. We must truly bewail the condition of such a Christian with much tears and weeping. For just as one washed in a bath is again sullied with dirt and mud, so likewise a Christian washed in the laver of Baptism is defiled again with iniquity.

Just as one who out of filthy rags was clothed in purple and fine linen again takes off those beautiful garments and puts that foul rag on again, so everyone who commits iniquity after holy Baptism does likewise. For out of the rags of sin he was also clothed in Christ's robe of justification, but having spurned that beautiful garment he again puts on the rag of sin.

Just as one who comes from the darkness into the light and again returns to the darkness, so it is likewise with him who came from the darkness of sin to the light of Christ, the true Light, and returned again to that same darkness. Just as one who was freed from slavery and captivity comes to freedom and again returns to that same bitter bondage, so likewise a Christian who commits iniquity was delivered by the grace of Christ from the bitter slavery and captivity of the devil, but he returns to that misfortune.

Just as a man delivered from a deep pit falls again into that pit, so likewise a Christian that commits iniquity has been delivered from the pit of eternal perdition, but of his own will he casts himself again into that pit. "But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed, to her wallowing in the mire" (2 Pet. 2:22). To this calamitous condition belong

o Prodigals, fornicators, and all that defile themselves in any way.

o Thieves, brigands, robbers, and all that in any way unjustly acquire another's goods.

o Malicious people, and those that harm the lives of their neighbor.

o The sly, the cunning, hypocrites, and those that deal deceitfully with their neighbor.

o Blasphemers, revilers, and slanderers.

o Judges that give judgement according to bribes and gifts, and not according to their oath and to justice.

o Cruel masters.

o Merchants that sell inferior material for better, cheap for expensive, rotten for good, and take higher prices for their wares than they are worth.

o Those that work sorcery and those that summon them to their homes.

o All those that act against conscience and recklessly break the Law of God. "To all such has happened - according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed, to her wallowing in the mire."

Beloved Christians, washed in the laver of holy Baptism, let us examine ourselves, whether any of us have not turned away from Christ and fallen into the calamitous condition mentioned above. Whoever opposes the law works for the devil and is already far removed from Christ.

Woe to Christians that commit iniquity after holy Baptism! "It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the Day of Judgement than for such Christians" (Mt. 10:15)!

Poor Christian, examine yourself and beware lest you become the eternal captive of the devil and destruction. "Their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched" (Mk. 9:44). O God, spare Thy rational creature, made in Thine own image!

from: Journey to Heaven Counsels On the Particular Duties of Every Christian Our Father Among the Saints, Tikhon of Zadonsk, Bishop of Voronezh and Elets Jordanville, NY: Holy Trinity Monastery, 2004.

"On Repentance and Almsgiving"

I just finished reading On Repentance and Almsgiving by St. John Chrysostom.  It was a very in-depth reading.  Full of Scripture, mostly that based on the Old Testament, but wise and enlightening nonetheless.
Here are some excerpts from the book:


"However, be mindful of this; if you become lazy and indifferent, sin will seize you at one time or another. Therefore, show concern, if not for your brother, then at least for yourself."


"For God simply seeks from us one small please and then grants us the remission of our many sins."


"Therefore, why do we not take pleasure in these words, and why do we not go to Church every day in order to embrace repentance?  If you are a sinner, come to Church in order to tell your sins; and if you are righteous, come to Church so you may not fall from righteousness, because the Church is a harbor for both the sinner and the righteous."


"Holy Scripture states, 'Be the first one to tell of your transgressions, so you may be justified.' (Is. 43:26).  Admit the sin to annul it."


"This indeed is humility, to humble yourself in all things and to consider yourself the least."


"Almsgiving is the salvation of the soul."


"Have you sinned?  Enter into the Church and wipe away your sin...Likewise, as many times as you sin, repent for your sin; do not become discouraged."


"Let us weep for our sin.  Let us lament for our lawlessness so that we will appear to have offered some small thing, too."


"For the one who sins does not come to hopelessness and despair once he realizes that someone else has also fallen and was able to rise again."


"Let us now come to the sins of the soul.  Sin has the shame, sin has the contempt and the infamy as its lot. Repentance has courage, repentance has fasting.  Repentance procures righteousness."


"However, I entrust you to the hand of repentance, so you may learn its power, so you may learn its might, so you may learn that sin cannot overcome it, that there is no unlawfulness that can prevail over its power."