Someone recently wrote me the following: Can you please give us a word regarding the topic of “how to overcome thoughts of pride in our hearts that inevitably come after labouring on good works for our families and people around us.” I have been struggling with that lately. How is it that we can reach a point where we don’t count and remember the good we have done for others? I would…
Experiences of God’s mercy increase our hope. However in the midst of difficult times, we don’t remember these experiences. We don’t remember the times in the past when God saved us out of difficult circumstances. Or worse yet, we have come to remember past deliverance from difficult or dangerous circumstances as luck, as accidental coincidence. Or worst of all, we have come to remember past deliverance as examples of our own prudence,…
Continuing in homily 42, St. Isaac gives us another warning. When you find unchanging peace, that is, when everything is going smoothly for you most of the time, then “beware: you are very far from the divine paths trodden by the weary feet of the saints. For as long as you are journeying in the way to the city of the Kingdom and are drawing nigh to the city of God, this…
Recently I have encountered several people who are in distress because they don’t feel that they are doing some aspect of their spiritual life correctly. They experience stress, depression, fear, even trembling and extreme anxiety because, for example, they fear they aren’t fasting correctly, or are not believing completely in the resurrection (or incarnation or the authority of the Church), or are not confessing well, or are not attentive enough in divine…
Confession takes various forms depending on the circumstances and your relationship with your confessor. At a minimum, it involves standing before the icon of Christ, saying a short prayer, confessing your sin to God in the priest’s presence, getting whatever counsel the priest may have, and kneeling to receive absolution. However, sometimes confession takes the form of sitting and talking–or at least begins that way, especially if your confessor is more of…
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the passions and how they afflict us like a disease. Even when you fight against the passions, I find that I am often tricked by them. Really the only hope I have found is to call out to God (using the Jesus Prayer) when I am strongly feeling a passion. However, if someone doesn’t strongly fight the passions, then they take over his life. Some…
