There are also some good pictures of Optina Monastery at the blog Recountingrus that I think you might appreciate.
HT: Fr. Benedict
When we went shopping for our transplants for the garden we saw some blueberry bushes for sale as well. We decided to buy 2 bushes and see if we could grow them. The bushes are about 3 years old and they are already producing blueberries though they are green berries right now. I will keep you updated on what we learn from our attempt at growing blueberries. I look forward to the day I can put some on my oatmeal or cereal.
When the soul’s incensive power is aroused against the passions, we should know that it is time for silence, as the hour of battle is at hand. But when this turbulence grows calm, whether through prayer or through acts of mercy, we may then be moved by a desire to proclaim God’s mysteries, restraining the wings of our intellect with the cords of humility. For unless a man sets himself at utterly at nought, he cannot speak of the majesty of God.
- Diadochus of Photiki
My herbs are growing well. We used some oregano, thyme, basil and rosemary in our spaghetti sauce this past Monday and it was very good. I added some mint to my iced tea and I am getting ready to use some in a Mint Julepe or two over the summer. Come to the farm or the lake for a visit and I will share one with ya! The picture above is one of my tomatoes. The tomato in the picture looks bigger than it actually is. I am almost to the point of having to stake my tomatoes. It is not too late to plant your own garden. Check out squarefootgardening.com and get started.
I saw the snares that the enemy spreads out over the world and I said groaning, ‘What can get through from such snares?’ Then I heard a voice saying to me, ‘Humility’.
- St Anthony the Great
Those who seek humility should bear in mind the three following things: that they are the worst of sinners, that they are the most despicable of all creatures since their state is an unnatural one, and that they are even more pitiable than the demons, since they are slaves to the demons. You will also profit if you say this to yourself: how do I know what or how many other people’s sins are, or whether they are greater than or equal to my own? In our ignorance you and I , my soul, are worse than all men, we are dust and ashes under their feet.
- St Gregory of Sinai
“Tradition means giving a vote to most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead.”-Orthodoxy, Ch.4, “The Ethics of Elfland”, G.K. Chesterton
I deeply appreciate much of what G.K. Chesterton has written. I have quoted the above by Chesterton concerning Tradition and Democracy and for many years I agreed with it until one day I was listening to a lecture, Tradition and Culture*, by Fr. Patrick Reardon and my mind, with some hesitation, was changed. Fr. Patrick pointed out that if Chesterton’s statement were true, then we could one day out vote our ancestors. Fr. Patrick then went on to say that he believed in the aristocracy of the dead, which I think expresses a more Orthodox approach to Tradition. Every generation is not simply rediscovering what our ancestors believed and voting for it again. If this were the case then we might just discover something different and vote for that instead. We might even say we share something with our ancestors, but decide to add to what they have given to us in the name of progress. No, we receive the Truth (Jesus Christ) from our ancestors, our Fathers, and preserve and pass it along unchanged to our own children.
In this same lecture Fr. Patrick pointed out that our culture is the generation of Esau who sold his birthright for one bowl of porridge. Our culture has sold out for the temporary pleasures and passions of our fallenness.
*I have heard Fr. Patrick give this lecture twice. I think the first lecture given for Touchstone Magazine’s Evening Lecture series was better than the second lecture given for the Anglican Colloquium which can be heard on Ancient Faith Radio, linked above. The first lecture can be purchased from Orthodox Tapes by calling (479) 750-3808 evenings before 9:00 Central Time.
Methodius of Olympus, Fragments from On the Resurrection
These two short paragraphs are the only fragments that remain of an otherwise lost work, On the Resurrection, by Methodius. He, like so many of the early Fathers, relates the Passion and Resurrection of Christ to the story of Jonah in the belly of the whale.
Fragments from the book On the Resurrection.
I. The history of Jonah contains a great mystery. For it seems that the whale signifies Time, which never stands still, but is always going on, and consumes the things which are made by long and shorter intervals. But Jonah, who fled from the presence of God, is himself the first man who, having transgressed the law, fled from being seen naked of immortality, having lost through sin his confidence in the Deity. And the ship in which he embarked, and which was tempest-tossed, is this brief and hard life in the present time; just as though we had turned and removed from that blessed and secure life, to that which was most tempestuous and unstable, as from solid land to a ship. For what a ship is to the land, that our present life is to that which is immortal. And the storm and the tempests which beat against us are the temptations of this life, which in the world, as in a tempestuous sea, do not permit us to have a fair voyage free from pain in a calm sea, and one which is free from evils. And the casting of Jonah from the ship into the sea, signifies the fall of the first man from life to death, who received that sentence because, through having sinned, he fell from righteousness: ‘Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return’. And his being swallowed by the whale signifies our inevitable removal by time. For the belly in which Jonah, when he was swallowed, was concealed is the all-receiving earth, which receives all things which are consumed by time.
II. As, then, Jonah spent three days and as many nights in the whale’s belly, and was delivered up sound again, so shall we all, who have passed through the three stages of our present life on earth — I mean the beginning, the middle, and the end, of which all this present time consists — rise again. For there are altogether three intervals of time, the past, the future, and the present. And for this reason the Lord spent so many days in the earth symbolically, thereby teaching clearly that when the fore-mentioned intervals of time have been fulfilled, then shall come our resurrection, which is the beginning of the future age, and the end of this. For in that age there is neither past nor future, but only the present. Moreover, Jonah having spent three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, was not destroyed by his flesh being dissolved, as is the case with that natural decomposition which takes place in the belly, in the case of those meats which enter into it, on account of the greater heat in the liquids, that it might be shown that these bodies of ours may remain undestroyed. For consider that God had images of Himself made as of gold, that is of a purer spiritual substance, as the angels; and others of clay or brass, as ourselves. He united the soul which was made in the image of God to that which was earthy. As, then, we must here honour all the images of a king on account of the form which is in them, so also it is incredible that we who are the images of God should be altogether destroyed as being without honour. Whence also the Word descended into our world and was incarnate of our body in order that, having fashioned it to a more divine image, He might raise it incorrupt, although it had been dissolved by time. And, indeed, when we trace out the dispensation which was figuratively set forth by the prophet, we shall find the whole discourse visibly extending to this. From Monachos.net
I will sell for a little less.
My blog is worth $19,758.90.
How much is your blog worth?
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Monk Patrick posted a paper well worth your time considering a possible solution to the filioque question. You can read the paper on his blog Sacred Traditions.
