Tag: Christianity

Georgia, November 24, 2023

sportime.gr     

Olympic wrestler and political activist Elder “Luka” Kurtanidze, known for his brutality both on and off the bat, has turned over a new leaf.

Kurtanidze, born in 1972, took bronze medals at both the 1996 and 2000 Summer Olympics, as well as gold, silver, and bronze medals from the FILA Senior World Championships and the FILA Senior European Championships.

He later turned towards politics, and in May 2011 he took part in a rally against the government of President Mikheil Saakashvili, which saw him severely beaten in a clash with police. The next year, he became president of Georgia’s Wrestling Federation and head of physical training at the Georgian Police Academy. He has been accused of using physical violence against others in the Wrestling Federation.

“Physically formidable, explosive in character, hot-tempered, and impulsive in life, Luka followed a path without spiritual ‘brakes’… This was Luka’s life before Christ,” writes sportime.gr.

Now, a very different Kurtanidze can be seen in the stands at wrestling matches.

At a recent match, “the camera captured a gentle and sweet priest, sitting in the stands, quietly and humbly watching the athletes. The face was radiant, the smile Heavenly, the physiognomy reminiscent of gentle elders of Orthodoxy. Only the bulk of the body and the intense features of the face made you suspect who it was.”

“It was Father Luka, reborn through repentance… Repentance transforms people, rebaptizes them into a new reality, and makes them unrecognizable,” the outlet writes. “Of his old self, there remains only his love for sports and his beloved wrestling, which he served worthily for so many years.”

The report continues:

Meek, humble, conscious, forever changed, because he found Christ at the darkest hour of his life. And so the “beast” became… a lamb. A living proof that people can radically change, because if the heart is altered by the truth of the Orthodox faith, any character, no matter how extreme it was before, can be sanctified. And the greatest miracles are not the visible ones that happen in the healing of bodies, but those unseen ones that happen within souls and resurrect them.

Fr. Luka himself wrote in a recent post: “Many say… Luke became a father… I’m just Luka Eldar Kurtanidze, a sinful Georgian who lived for his homeland Georgia, through mistakes, ups and downs, but only for Georgia! That’s why I’m like this, and with tears in my eyes I thank the Lord for the path that led me here today!”

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After 40 years worth of creating, growing, and reinventing the House of Yahweh in Lawndale, you would think Sister Michele Marie Morris had an iron-clad template for how the nonprofit can continue its success for the next four decades.

But the 90-year-old doesn’t operate that way. Neither does reality, she believes.

“I only work in the present with the light I get from God at that moment,” she said, eyes gleaming as she sat at a meeting-room table in the organization’s office trailer recently. “I don’t plan ahead. You go step by step and things just evolve, one miracle after another.”

That’s been a motto of sorts for Morris, who founded the House of Yahweh in 1982 to help residents in the South Bay who experience food insecurity, lack of clothing, and difficulty in applying for vital services.

In the words of its mission statement, House of Yahweh seeks “to serve the economically disadvantaged, especially women and children, so they can attain greater fullness of life.”

Since retiring five years ago , the Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet Los Angeles has left much of the heavy lifting these days to Donna Quirk, executive director, who first joined House of Yahweh in 2015 to lead its transitional housing program. She took over as executive director in 2018.

“And I’ve been in this pair of roller skates ever since,” said Quirk, who first met Morris when the two were parishioners at St. Raymond Church in Downey and happened to have a common interest in animal care. Today, she leads a staff of seven.

Morris still remembers a renewal weekend retreat more than 40 years ago at St. Catherine Laboure Church in Torrance. The pastor came across a homeless person sleeping where the program took place, something she described as “the spark” for the program’s genesis.

“That was a wake-up call, and I was the one to wake ’em up,” said Morris, who was working at St. Catherine at the time. She recruited the local deacon and two others to start brainstorming through the parish council. “Those renewal weekends were intense, but it was the perfect moment. You’re irresponsible if you try to wake the people up without giving them something to do.”

Through her connections at various local parishes going back to her teaching days in the 1960s, Morris was able to start a 501c3 nonprofit named “South Bay Outreach Center.”

But its permanent name came from another spark — a moment when Morris and her assistant, Lyndon Reid, were praying with a Jerusalem Bible translation of Psalm 23. The last line read: “My home, the House of Yahweh, forever.”

“The spirit moved me to name it right then and there,” said Morris, who soon came across a graphic artist who created a burning-bush logo to represent the inspiration.

She went fundraising and soon found property across the street from Lawndale City Hall, left behind by another nonprofit that had moved. She launched a soup kitchen and makeshift thrift store.

One of the guests who regularly came by for hot meals worked at a trailer park a few blocks away and had empty spaces. An appeal in local Catholic parish bulletins asked for donated trailers to be used as temporary shelters. They ended up with 10 spaces.

Today, House of Yahweh sits off of Marine Avenue near the 405 Freeway, about a mile from its original location. Since Sister Michele’s retirement, its operations have been streamlined. One notable change: its thrift store is housed in a 5,000-square foot portable structure, managed by Denys San Martin. Clothes, shoes, blankets, and hygiene kits go out to more than 125 people a month. The food distribution, run by longtime employee Mirna Anaya, has some 400 local families registered for pickups. A permanent mailing address is being provided for more than 150 homeless guests.

But through a steady pool of donors and income from fundraisers, as well as a volunteer base that has come back stronger after the pandemic, Quirk said she has been delighted to see the operations thrive on a Monday-through-Saturday basis, welcoming visitors whose needs sometimes even include help with asylum applications. 

“I’m always surprised by people who are afraid to ask for help,” said Quirk, who now attends St. Gregory the Great Church in Whittier. “It just seems they’re afraid and don’t know how. You call us, make an appointment, and we will give you an hour of uninterrupted time to work with you on your needs.”

Bob Breen, an American Martyrs Church volunteer, said he responded to a bulletin request looking for a driver for homebound food delivery on Tuesdays and Thursday. That led to him helping in the thrift store as a fill-in cashier.

“It’s a wonderful mission for those in need from our own neighborhood,” said Breen, whose son, Tim, was recently ordained a Jesuit priest. “I see people who come into the store able to buy almost everything and some who just have 25 cents in their hands, but we adjust and make sure they get what they need.”

The organization’s 41st year of operations kicked off Nov. 1, with plans ramping up for its annual distribution of Thanksgiving turkeys, hams, and gift cards. It then moves to collecting toys in the month of December to distribute in the days before Christmas.

Morris still visits the House of Yahweh facility every Monday to visit with guests and pick up donations that she takes back to South Gate, where she’s lived since the 1980s. She also gathers donut donations to bring back to fellow Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet who live in assisted living in Santa Monica.

Morris credits the one-to-one relationships formed with guests, some that go back to its opening 40 years ago, with the organization’s longevity.

“This is God’s house, it doesn’t belong to me — it’s not mine,” she said. “It is where you have to be a listener. That’s how you honor someone. It’s unconditional love. We can get caught up in the doing and miss just being. And each day is a new adventure. I think that’s what keeps House of Yahweh going.”

LA is rich in museums. Here’s one you may have missed: the Forest Lawn Museum, billed as “a small museum at a cemetery featuring changing exhibits focused on religious & historical art.”

From Oct. 19 to Feb. 11, 2024, you can check out an exhibit there called “La Reina de Los Angeles.”

That the Queen of LA would be the Virgin of Guadalupe, patroness of the Americas and revered throughout the Mexican community and beyond, is only fitting.

The exhibit features the work of Nydya Mora, 34, a native Angelena and youth librarian with a background in urban planning who also possesses a fierce love for her family and her city.

Since 2012, she’s been taking informal photos of the innumerable incarnations of the Virgin that dot the neighborhoods of LA.

She grew up surrounded by such images. The living room of her mother’s home still features a large shrine to the Virgen de Guadalupe — “It’s bedazzling!” laughs Mora.

In fact, the whole idea of collecting images arose from her initial vision of a kind of coffee table book that she hoped would please her mother.

Why is the Virgin of Guadalupe so universally loved?

“I think she represents many things for many people. She instills a sense of hope, especially in immigrant or historically marginalized communities where people don’t feel empowered or emboldened to reach out to official forms of protection, or who don’t have the financial means to buy, for example, security cameras: mom-and-pop businesses, tucked-away residential communities. In that sense, she’s a beacon of hope and protection.”

“For me, she represents my culture. She represents cultural and social pride, my upbringing.”

Thus, she appears on Gomez Appliances in South Central LA, on Lupita’s Market on E. Hubbard Street in East LA, surrounded by a phalanx of guitars in Mariachi Plaza.

The Freeway Virgin, visible from the 101, adorns a spot on the north wall of the downtown cathedral. She shows up in taquerias, carnicerias, tattoo parlors, food trucks, and chop shops. She takes up residence on school windows, beside back doors, behind security fences, beneath wooden lattices, on walls of cinderblock, stucco, corrugated tin, and glazed tile.

Some images are painted in full-on color, with blue-green, star-speckled robes. Others are mere suggestions, a haloed outline in black and white. Statues are draped with string lights, or bedecked with votive candles, tinsel, and garlands. Murals stand lonely sentinel on an inner-city street corner.

You can see many of the images on Mora’s Instagram page, Virgens de Los Angeles, @virgensdela. The account’s followers number over 13,000. Mora also provides a Google map of her Virgin of Guadalupe captures.

She calls herself a documentarian rather than a photographer.

Most of the images are snapped on her phone, and the whole DIY, on-the-run, informal, down-home approach perfectly matches the spirit of the works themselves.

She considers the project her love letter to LA.

“It’s always been a very intimate project for me. It started on my phone. It’s still my phone. It’s all so happenstance. ‘Oh! There she is!’ ”

These are works of true folk art. Each homage to La Virgen is a unique expression. Each is a small urban memento, witness, treasure. Each is an emblem, somehow, of exuberant hope.

A few of the images are iconic: Paul Botello’s “Virgin’s Seed,” for example, painted in 1991. “That one’s in East LA. She looks like she’s on fire and glowing. It’s really impressive.”

But for the most part no one knows who created the mural or sculpture or painting. Some are signed with a phone number that generally culminates in a dead end: the number’s been changed or the phone’s been disconnected.

The images are one-of-a-kind and they’re also ephemeral. They get painted over, knocked down, washed away, destroyed.

Always, however, Our Lady resurrects, popping up in new forms. When Mora started out, the finds were mostly serendipitous. Now people often send her tips, so her image searches are a little more intentional. 

“I started actively going out, taking surface streets instead of freeways. I’ve been driving up and down LA ever since I had a car. Sometimes I’ll just take Rosecrans up from Paramount, where I grew up and still have family.”

One thing’s for sure. She’s never going to run out. The images are everywhere.

Since the Instagram page took off, lots of Our Lady lovers have reached out. “People will say, ‘Hey, there’s one here’ and ‘There’s one at my neighbor’s house.’ It’s been really phenomenal to have this supportive community.”

Forest Lawn also reached out through Instagram: “Hey, are you interested? We think your content would be perfect for an exhibit.” Mora was thrilled. So was her mother.

Her photography is somehow of a piece with her work as an outreach librarian for the LA Public Library. “I go to community events to connect community members who can’t access the library for one reason or another. We help to bring the library services and resources to them.”

Like the library, the Virgin of Guadalupe is for everyone. Mora has followers from all over the world: Brazil, Japan. Under that blue mantle, Our Lady harbors all of humanity.

But let’s face it: she has a special heart for LA.

“La Virgen creates a place for the culture. And the culture creates a place for her.”

St. Nektarios of Aegina

“>St. Nectarios of Aegina is one of the most well known Greek saints of modern times, glorified by many miracles. He was born in 1846, became a monk in his youth, and later became the bishop of Pentapolis in the Alexandrian Orthodox Church. Due to intrigues and false accusations from detractors the saint was sent into retirement and exiled. Moving to Greece, he labored as a simple preacher in province of Euboea, and later founded a woman’s monastery on the island of Aegina. The bishop and elder reposed in 1920 and was ranked among the saints of the Greek Orthodox Church in 1961. Below we publish extracts from the saint’s letters, compiled by the monastery of the Paraclete in Oropos (Attica).

The Path to Happiness

There is nothing greater than a pure heart, because such a heart becomes the throne of God. Is anything more glorious than the throne of God? Of course not. This is what the Lord says to those who have a pure heart: I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people (2 Cor. 6:16). Thus, who can be happier than these people? And what blessings could they lack? Aren’t there all blessings and all gifts of the Holy Spirit in their blessed souls? What else could they possibly lack? Nothing, verily nothing! Because they have the greatest goodness in their hearts—God Himself!

How those people err who seek happiness outside themselves—in foreign countries and travels, in riches and glory, in large properties and delights, in pleasures, abundance, and in empty things, which end in bitterness! Erecting a tower of happiness outside our own hearts is the same as building a house in a place that is constantly subjected to earthquakes. Such a building will soon collapse…

Brothers and sisters! On HappinessOnce a certain priest went to visit the now reposed elder Archpriest Nicholai Guryanov and told him about the sorrows and problems he was having. Fr. Nicholai heard him out and said, “Rejoice!” “What is there to rejoice about?” The priest thought to himself.

“>Happiness is in us ourselves, and blessed is the one who has understood this. Search your hearts and be watchful of its spiritual state. Perhaps you have lost boldness before the Lord? Perhaps your conscience reproaches you for violating His commandments? Perhaps it reproaches you for injustice, for falsehood, for not fulfilling our obligations before God and neighbor? Search yourself; perhaps evil and passions have filled your heart; perhaps it has turned away to the crooked and impassible path…

Unfortunately, whoever has left his heart without attention has lost all blessings and fallen into a multitude of evils. He has cast out joy and been filled with bitterness, sorrow, and vexation of soul. He has cast out peace and gained depression, worry, and horror. He has cast out love and gained hatred. And finally, he has cast out all the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit that he received at his Baptism, and become kin to all evil-doing that makes a man pitiful and accursed.

Brothers and sisters! The All-Merciful God wants us all to have happiness in both this life and the next. For this He has founded His holy Church, so that it would cleanse us from sin, illumine us, make peace between us and God, and give us heavenly blessings.

The Church’s embrace is always open to us. Let those whose conscience is heavy hasten to this embrace. Let us hasten, and the Church will take up the weight of our burden, give us boldness before God, and fill our hearts with happiness and bliss.

***

Holy Baptism

As many of you who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ (Gal. 3:27).

What a great truth does the apostle Paul show us by these words!

Baptized Christians do not wear the old man with the passions and lusts, but have put on the new man, have put on Christ Himself, Who now lives in their hearts. And the words, “put on” do not refer to some simple and external garments, but to something deeper, something essential and inalienable.

Through our faith in Christ and through our Baptism we put on Christ Himself and become children of God, the habitation of the All-Holy Spirit, temples of God, holy and perfect, gods by grace. Thus have we thrown off corruption from ourselves and been clothed in incorruption. We have put off the man of sin and put on the man of righteousness and grace. We have cast out death and put on immortality…

But have we understood our great obligation, which through Baptism we have taken upon ourselves before God? Have we recognized that we should behave like children of God and brothers of our Lord, that we must make our own will the same as God’s will; that as children of God we must abide free from sin, that we must love Him with all our strength from the depths of our hearts and souls, that we must worship Him and impatiently await being united with Him forever? Have we thought about the fact that our hearts should be so filled with love that it will pour out upon our neighbors? Do we have the feeling that we are obligated to become saints and perfect, the image of God, children of God, and inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven?

For the sake of all this we must struggle, so that we will not turn out to be unworthy of God’s call and be rejected. Yes, brothers and sisters, let us struggle with zeal and self-denial, that we might be victorious. Let none of us lose his boldness, so that we might not neglect our duty, or be cowardly, not lose heart in the face of the difficulties of spiritual battle. Therefore do we have God as our helper, Who will strengthen us on the difficult path of the virtues.

Spiritual warfare

The goal of our life consists in becoming perfect and holy, to be shown to be God’s children and heirs to the Kingdom of Heaven. Let us be vigilant, that for the sake of this life we might not lose the future life; that in our daily cares and fuss we might not neglect the goal of our life.

Fasting, vigil, and prayer do not by themselves bring the desired fruits, because these are not the goal of our life but the means for achieving the goal.

Adorn your lamps with virtues. Struggle to cut off emotional passions. Purify your heart of all defilement and preserve it in purity, so that the Lord would come down and abide in you; so that He would fill you with the Holy Spirit and divine gifts.

My beloved children, all your zeal and efforts should be aimed at this. This should ceaselessly be your goal and striving. Pray for this to God.

Ask the Lord every day, but within your heart and not outside of it. And when you find Him, stand in fear and trembling like the cherubim and seraphim, because your heart has become God’s throne. But in order to find the Lord, humble yourself to the ground, because the Lord hates the proud, but loves and visits the humble of heart.

If you struggle in the good fight, God will strengthen you. In struggles we discover our weaknesses, our inadequacies, and our defects. It is the mirror of our spiritual state. Whoever does not struggle will not come to know himself.

Be attentive also to your insignificant falls. If from inattentiveness some sin happens with you, do not despair but immediately take yourself in hand and fall down before God, Who has the power to raise you up.

In excessive regret pride is hidden. Therefore it is harmful and dangerous, and is often made even worse by the devil, in order to stop the progression of the struggler.

The path that leads to perfection is long. Pray to God that He would strengthen you. Patiently accept your falls, and having immediately arisen, run [to God], do not stop like children who sit in the place where they’ve fallen, crying and sobbing inconsolably.

Be vigilant and pray, so that you would not fall into temptation. Do not despair if you continually fall into old sins. Many of them are strong in essence, and come from acquired habit. Nevertheless, they are conquered with time and zeal. Let no one deprive you of your hope.

Temptation

Temptations are sent to us in order to reveal our hidden passions and so that we would struggle against them, and in this way heal our souls. They are also a sign of God’s mercy; therefore, give yourself into God’s hands and ask His help, that He would strengthen you in your struggle. Hope in God never leads to despair. Temptations bring humble-mindedness. God knows how much each of us can bear and allows us temptations according to the measure of our strength. But we must also take care to be vigilant and attentive, and not lead our own selves into temptation.

Trust in God Who is Good, Strong, and Living, and He will lead you to a place of rest. Remember, that after temptations come spiritual joy, and that the Lord watches after those who endure temptations and suffering for the sake of His love. Thus, do not be fainthearted or afraid.

I do not want you to suffer and be confused by all that is happening against your will, no matter how just it might be. Such suffering testifies to the existence of egoism. Watch out for egoism, which hides under the façade of correctness. Watch out also for inappropriate regret, which springs up after deserved rebukes. Excessive distress [over this] is a temptation. The only true [proper] distress is what we feel when we are well aware of how wretched the state of our soul is. All other distress has no relation whatsoever to God’s grace.

Take care to preserve the heart, in order to guard the joy of the Holy Spirit and not allow the evil one to pour his poison into us. Be attentive, so that paradise, which is within us, would not turn into hell.

Prayer

Man’s most important labor is prayer. Man was created to glorify God. This is the labor worthy of him. Only this is capable of revealing his spiritual essence. Only this justifies his extraordinary status in all the created world. Man was created in order to honor God and to be a participant in His divine goodness and blessedness.

As the image of God, man desires God, fervently strives for Him and thirsts to be raised up to Him. Through prayer and hymns, he exalts. His spirit rejoices, his heart leaps, and the more he prays, the more his soul casts off worldly lusts and is filled with heavenly blessings. And the more he separates himself from the earthly and delights of this life, the more he delights in heavenly exaltation. Our experience proves to us that this is the truth.

God accepts those prayers raised up in the proper manner; that is, with a feeling of our imperfection and unworthiness. But in order for this feeling to exist, there must be complete self-renunciation of our low selfishness, and submission to God’s commandments; there must be humility and ceaseless spiritual labor.

Entrust the Lord with all your cares—He provides for you. Do not be fainthearted and do not fret. He Who searches the hidden depths of the human soul also knows about your desires, and He has the power to fulfill them as [only] He knows how. But you must ask God and not lose boldness. Do not think that because your striving is holy you have a right to complain when your prayers are not heard. God fulfills your desires in ways that you do not know about. And so, be at peace and call out to God.

Our prayers and requests do not lead us to perfection by themselves. The Lord Who comes and abides in us leads us to perfection when we fulfill His commandments. And one of the first commandments is that in our lives, not our will but God’s be done; and that it be done exactly, as in heaven with the angels. So that we too could say, “O Lord, not as I wish, but as Thou willest, may Thy will be done on earth and it is in the heavens.” Thus, without Christ in us, prayer and requests lead us to prelest [spiritual delusion].

Love

Acquire love. Ask God every day for love. Along with love comes a whole multitude of blessings and virtues. Love, so that you also might be loved. Give God your heart, so that you would abide in love. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him (1 Jn. 4:16).

You must maintain great caution in your relationships with others and respect each other as sacred images. Never look at his body or beauty, but watch after his soul. Be attentive to the feeling of love, because if the heart is not warmed by pure prayer, love risks being fleshly and unnatural; it risks darkening the mind and scorching the heart.

It is necessary to confess every day—perhaps our love [for another] does not proceed from our bond with Christ, does not flow from our complete and total love for the Lord. Whoever is attentive and preserves love in purity is protected from the snares of the evil one who tries to gradually turn our Christian love into general love and sensual love.

Good Christian manners

Christians, according to God’s commandments, should become saints and perfect. Perfection and sanctity are first engraved deep in the soul of the Christian, and only later are they also imprinted in his desires, speech, and deeds. In this manner, God’s grace, which exists in the soul, is poured out upon his entire outward personality.

A Christian must be polite with everyone. His words and deeds should breathe the grace of the Holy Spirit, which abides in his soul; so that in this way his Christian life would be witnessed and the name of God be glorified.

He who tests every word also tests every deed. He who searches the words he is about to speak searches also the deeds he intends to commit, and he never oversteps the boundaries of good and virtuous behavior.

A Christian’s grace-filled speech is characterized by sensitivity and politeness. This is what gives birth to love, and brings peace and joy. On the contrary, rudeness gives birth to hatred, enmity, grief, the desire to win [arguments], disorder, and wars.

Thus, let us always be polite. May no base words proceed from our lips—words that are not filled with the salt of God’s grace—but may our speech be always filled with grace, with goodness; speech that witnesses to politeness in Christ and a developed soul.

Photo: Kyrill Kukhmar / ТАSS     

Not long ago, I related a story about my friend Fr. Evgeny and a demonically possessed woman.

Some time passed, and Batiushka and I returned to that theme. Although this was to him very strange. He is not one of those people who spends all their time looking for demons—everywhere, in everything and everyone—except in themselves!

Fr. Evgeny for as long as I’ve known him (and that is over twenty years now!), never especially got into those “infernal” matters. He always quietly served God in his little church, always trying to help others. And he always wanted to see Christ in everyone and everything happening and around him, even in what is hard to look at. And he always tried to understand God’s Providence… But when something was hard to understand (which happens rather often), he simply said, “O Lord! I trust You! May Your will be done!”

Simply, like a child.

One day I only remember how Batiushka said to me with a certain pain, “The main thing for me now is not to betray Christ!”

This is when it all began. He is from there—Death and Faith in DonbasThe war is on not for us, but for each one of you, because if we don’t win we won’t exist. Remember this.

“>from the territory. It was terrifying, incomprehensible, and no one could imagine what would come next. It’s even terrifying now. But we’ve sort of gotten used to it, you might say. People can get used to anything. Even to war and to death.

But I digress.

“Most important of course is Christ, but at the outset of my religious life, and in fact at the outset of my priestly service, I did ask questions about unclean spirits. How powerful is the demons’ authority over us? How do they manifest themselves in our lives? I told you about… Is that how they cast the youth into fire and water, like in the Scripture? And do they force the the modern ‘Gadarene demoniac’ to smash everything on his path and beat his head against a rock? And do they exist even now, the youth and this demoniac? And there was that incident with the woman… But as a matter of fact, this was only one incident in a whole series of answers from God. Probably so that I would think that it’s just a coincidence. This was a period of true, personal revelation regarding this matter.”

“Go to the church—that’s their expertise!”

“I remember a story that could have been right out from the holy fathers,” began Fr. Evgeny.

At that time, two unfamiliar women brought a man to him. The man was in a completely crushed, unhealthy state. His mother and sister (these were a mother and her children) explained to Batiushka that he had just been released from the psycho-neurological ward at the hospital.

“Go to the church,” the doctors said, “that’s their expertise. We can’t help you.”

“This was already a good thing,” Batiushka told me. “Because I sometimes encounter situations when medical personnel send people to some old ladies, ‘folk healers’… In the course of our conversation the man told me that sitting on his shoulders were two “strange comrades,” who talk with each other non-stop. They were driving him out of his mind; he couldn’t eat or sleep, or rest at all. He would sometimes fly off the handle and then end up in the hospital.

When this man left the hospital and went to the church, two “comrades,” in his own words, we again sitting invisibly on his shoulders and discussing what was going on.

“Look where they’re taking us!” one of them said. “We’re done for! Now they’ll kick us out!”

“Not today they won’t kick us out, don’t worry,” the other replied. “They won’t be able to!”

And so on…

So, it’s true the hospital wasn’t much help.

“You know the Bible better than all of us!”

Fr. Evgeny started asking the man about his life. As it turns out, he had searched long and stubbornly for himself in the spiritual sense. But instead of going to church he had gone, now to various old ladies, now to sorcerers, now to various “spiritual” movements—of which there were many in his town. You could find any Occultism and Mental HealthIt can be deduced that God often punishes those committing the sin of occultism with mental health problems. It does not always result in psychosis, but occultists are practically guaranteed to develop depression.

“>occult movement according to taste.

Finally he chose the least radical one, which was very popular in the region, a kind of Billy Graham. But not exactly him.

“In general, it’s of course amazing how ordinary, practical rural Ukrainians were so “taken” by all sorts of American religious figures,” Fr. Evgeny said to me, “but what happened, happened…”

Their talks were constantly being broadcast on Ukrainian television, with a return address: “Join us, and we’ll send you a Bible.”

“The man watched a program, wrote a letter, received a Bible, and started studying it,” Fr. Evgeny went on. “With time he drew his acquaintances, friends, and family into this process, and a Bible study group formed around him. In the end, these people said to him, “Listen! You know the Bible better than all of us, you cite it and sort it all out. Why not become our pastor?” So they chose him as their pastor.”

This man started leading their “services.” And the further it went, the more amazed everyone was at how well he understood God’s word, how many citations he had in his head, how much he knew and how well he explained it all…

“That’s how they praised him: ‘You’re great! What a smart guy!’ until this problem arose,” said Fr. Evgeny.

“He wanted to become a church himself.”

That day the man was at home, studying the Bible as usual. Then suddenly Christ appeared to him, in radiant light, shining garments, etc., just like in the Lives of the Saints.

“You are one of my best disciples!” a voice sounded. “You have learned the word of God better than anyone I know. But that’s not enough. In order to have the fullness, you need to unite with me. Do you agree to have me enter into you?”

“I agree,” the man joyfully replied. “Of course I agree!”

After these words it was as if he were struck by lightning. His body shook, the picture of the good-natured, shining Christ shattered before his eyes, and he heard terrifying laughter:

“Ha-ha-ha, I’m satan!”

And immediately the two invisible devils appeared on his shoulders and started talking with each other.

Batiushka didn’t make any of this up. This is what the man told him.

His sister and mother said that he began to smash the furniture in the room and shatter the windows. They had to call the ambulance and the police. That is, the militia—that’s what they were still called then.

They put him into a straitjacket, injected him with tranquilizers, and treated them however they could. But in the end they couldn’t do anything with the “comrades” who had appeared on the man’s shoulders, and so they sent him to church.

“But the whole problem is that they came to me for a ‘pill’,” Fr. Evgeny told me. “At the hospital they told them what to do, and they obeyed. ‘Batiushka, do something, quickly!’ But when I started telling them about repentance, about entering into the life of the Church, they waved me aside. ‘No-no-no, not that. He knows the Bible well enough as it is. He himself is a pastor! We just need these two to leave his shoulders and so that he would get physically better. That’s all!’ But that this was prelest [spiritual delusion] (for that is what it was), they simply didn’t want to know. The devil had deluded him, telling him about his supposed spiritual gifts. And in fact, he had almost told him the truth—that he needs to unite with Christ. But the lie was that this was how to do it. This is done in the Church, in the Sacraments. There is no salvation outside the Church! And the gates of hell will not prevail over it! But this man had started thinking of himself as a “church”. He himself studied, himself wrote this or that, and himself distributed his books. He had organized a sect and become its head. And then ‘christ’ tells him, ‘You’re the best. You’re super!’ And so he entered into him. Only it wasn’t Christ, but the evil one. And he even put two demons on his shoulders. It was these demons that this man and his family wanted to rid themselves. But not of his ‘chosenness’—no! Thus they left and never returned. Well, it was just as it’s written by the holy fathers… I had read it and doubted, but here I saw it with my own eyes. The Lord showed me…”

One hand doesn’t let the other cross itself

Soon after that, another incident occurred. “To strengthen me,” as Fr. Evgeny said.

He was called to bless an apartment. Ordinary, “average people”: a husband, wife, children, grandmother…

“We performed the rite,” Batiushka related. “Then suddenly behind my back I heard a crash, frightening shouts, some kind of fuss. I turned around and saw everyone standing there with wide-open eyes. But one of them was missing—the head of the family…

During the reading of the Gospel the man had bolted out of the room. The family, with Fr. Evgeny at the head, set out to look for him, and found him barricaded in another room, where he had pushed a large armchair against the door.

“Everyone was worried—what was the matter?” Batiushka recalled. “Even I was frightened. Will he jump out the window, or do some other irrevocable thing? I stormed the door, burst into the room, and saw that the man had garrisoned himself in a crevasse between the hutch and the wall… And from there he was looking at me with such panic-stricken eyes, like a cornered animal. I made the sign of the cross over him and prayed. But he just cried and kept looking at me in fright. ‘Batiushka, what’s going on with me? What’s happening?’ I said, cross yourself!’ ‘I can’t,’ he said. I looked, and saw that his left hand was pinning his right hand and not letting it make the sign of the cross. It was gripping so hard that his knuckles were turning white, as if a tourniquet were wrapped around the other hand. He wailed, ‘I can’t do anything!’ I poured holy water on him and his arms relaxed. It turned out that it was all the result of going to various old ladies.”

Fr. Evgeny tried to explain to the man why this was happening. That he needed to go to church, confess his sins, receive Communion, and war with this uncleanness and also with himself. Otherwise, the consequences will be grievous. But as far as he can recall, these people never showed up in church, and he doesn’t know the man’s fate, although so many years have passed. Perhaps they’ve already come to God, or are on their way to Him.

“I was terrified,” he admits. “What demonic power over a man that he wants to cross himself, but one hand doesn’t let the other do it. And he can’t control himself.”

“An insurmountable force is pushing me.”

“There was yet another incident, when a frightened woman ran into the church, also after going around to different occultists,” Fr. Evgeny related.

Not long before, at home she had gone to do something she herself didn’t want and had never even considered—to commit suicide. She had taken a hammer and nails in order to fix a noose and kill herself.

“I’m going to do it,” the woman said. “I myself don’t want to do it, and I cry. But some kind of insurmountable force is pushing me. When I began to hammer in the nail, the hammer hit my finger. And I immediately came to myself. So I’ve run to you in the church…

Batiushka started talking with her and discovered that in an “amnesia” she had gone to various old lady occultists.

“When I started telling her about Confession. God Is HereRepentance destroys hell in the penitent’s soul and transfers him to Paradise.

“>confession, about Communion, she suddenly started contorting, like a cobra. And she hissed. Later, thank God, she gradually started coming to church…

Here I personally remember a story unrelated to Fr. Evgeny. It happened to my friend. When she was young, she fell in with a sect of charismatics in Moscow. She would go there on Sundays. One day, toward the weekend, she got sick, lay in bed with a high fever, and couldn’t get up.

“So, the time was approaching for the ‘service’, and I suddenly arose like a robot, and got ready to go there. I understood that I shouldn’t, that I was sick. But it was as if someone was pulling me. My mother forced me to stay home. Then I understood that it’s time to get out of there…”

“But you know, it’s not always so cut and dried,” said Fr. Evgeny suddenly. “If a person is possessed or something like that, that doesn’t necessarily mean he himself is to blame, that he’s gone to psychics. It’s true, some of them might have. But you probably remember Granny Liuba?”

Yes, I remember Granny Liuba. An elderly lady, an innocent soul. She was in church for every service, prayed, confessed, received Communion. But during the Gospel reading she would screech and fall unconscious. Then the priests would read a prayer over her: “Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered…” and she would come to. And thus it was every time, from year to year.

“She had that problem from childhood,” Batiushka said. “Why—no one knows. A very kind person. She bore her cross with humility. She was always poor, but she helped others. Even me. I’d meet her in town and she’d always put something in my hand. I felt uncomfortable taking it, but I couldn’t refuse, because it came from a pure heart. So we judge, but only God really knows why or for what reason this happens.

These are the stories that Fr. Evgeny told me.

St. Matrona of Constantinople Christ is in our midst, my dear readers!

The Lives of the Saints are ageless. They are always relevant, regardless of the times in which their heroes lived. Venerable Matrona the Abbess of ConstantinopleSaint Matrona, Abbess of Constantinople was born in the city of Perge Pamphylia (Asia Minor) in the fifth century.

“>Venerable Matrona of Constantinople lived in the fifth century. Her marriage was not a happy one, she had to endure her husband’s attacks, she suffered from him but did not divorce him. How lightly today certain priests decide the fates of families. You have a bad husband, he doesn’t let you go to church, blasphemes God? Leave him and save yourself alone. But it sometimes happens that after abandoning one cross, the woman who listened to the woebegone priest condemns herself to a worse one.

Instead of complaining about her husband, St. Matrona wept over her sins and prayed for her spouse, so that he would believe in Christ. She left her husband only after a extraordinary divine vision, which commanded her to take the monastic path. She didn’t leave her home in order to lighten her life, but in order to make her podvig even more severe. Unfortunately if sometimes happens that people join a monastery because their lives didn’t work out: Their husbands are bad, their children don’t love them, they can’t find a job, and so on. But the passions don’t leave those people alone there either, because you can’t run away from yourself.

What was St. Matrona looking for in monasticism? Glory? Honor? Reverence? No, she even dressed in men’s clothing so that no one would recognize her, and spent all her time in silence, fasting, and prayer. And what is amazing, it is precisely the person who flees human talk and glory whom God glorifies most of all not only in eternity, but not rarely in earthly life as well. Such was the path of St. Matrona of Constantinople. No matter how she hid herself, God glorified her all the more. The venerable one had left, you could say, for the edge of the earth in order to hide herself from human glory, but there a monastery formed around her. Finally, the Lord lead her back to Constantinople, where she lived out her days as the abbess of one of the most honored monasteries, and while still alive she was vouchsafed to see sweet paradise, whence her pure soul departed. What a wondrous and well-lived, wholesome life that holy woman lived.

And now look around you. To what lengths of vileness and meanness won’t certain public figures go in order to raise their rating and become famous. But how does it end? As a rule, ingloriously and eternally shamefully. And in general, what is the value of human glory? Who now remembers, for example the names of movie stars whose names even little children knew in the sixties? Now few even know the names of people who played key roles in the history of our nation. I’m not even talking about the glory that today is, but tomorrow as if sinks into the sea. That is how it is with people, but not with God. The glory that He gives to people never dies and never fades. And that after hundreds of years we still know the name of a woman saint who lived in fifth-century Constantinople is testimony to this.

Photo: dzeninfra.ru     

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits.
(Psalm 102:2)

All of one’s life is filled with God’s beneficence. There is no day, hour or moment in which our soul finds itself without Divine assistance. Like a never-setting sun, God’s goodness never ceases to pour out His bountiful gifts upon us: “These all wait upon thee; that Thou mayest give them their meat in due season. That thou givest them they gather; Thou openest thine hand, they are filled with good…” says the Holy Prophet David. (Psalm 103:27–28).

It would be impossible to enumerate all of God’s gifts sent down upon us. Everything good is of God, everything sinful is of ourselves. As St. Tikhon of Zadonsk: Victor Over Melancholy“There’s nothing I can do about it; I’m in despair,” can often be heard even from those parishioners whose experience in the Church has already enabled them to cope with many other internal problems. Melancholy, defeatism, mood swings, chronic fatigue from self and circumstances—it seems this is characteristic of believers of modern times moreso than of any other. But it’s worth it to remember that the saints experienced the same feelings—several—for example, St. Tikhon of Zadonsk.

“>St. Tikhon of Zadonsk says, “When God removes [from you] what is His, all you have is your sins.”

Let us call to mind the Gospel account of the nine ungrateful lepers who forgot their Divine Healer just as soon as they had received healing by His Almighty Word.

We also often do not want to notice God’s kindnesses toward us, or without being thankful, we forget about them. Yet, in our entire life there is not enough time in which to adequately thank our Creator, Who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases, Who redeemeth thy life from corruption… (Psalm 102:3-4). This is why the Gospel and our Orthodox Divine Services call upon us to daily offer up the sacrifice of praise.

True Christians consider it their irredeemable debt to emulate the Angels and constantly raise up praise for their Creator. No yoke of deprivation, suffering, or poverty could keep the Saints, who recognized God’s goodness, from singing His praises. Such a blessed state, something incomprehensible to those estranged from God, engendered in them the Lord’s boundless kindness, which the Saints profoundly felt in their thankful souls. In their hearts it was always a Feast Day, filled with Paschal Joy.

“My joy, Christ is Risen!” is how St. Seraphim of Sarov

“>St. Seraphim of Sarov greeted everyone, regardless of the season. “Glory to God for all things!” St. John Chrysostom“>St. John Chrysostom would constantly repeat, even just before his death, which he encountered on the martyric road into exile.

Giving thanks to God brings us abundant grace, protecting us from the sin of ingratitude. When a person forgets good done to him by another, we refer to his attitude toward us as frank ingratitude. Yet, we are incapable of determining the depth of our own ingratitude toward our All-good God. Forgetting Christ’s great gifts and kindnesses, we devote barely one tenth of our prayers and thoughts to praise and thanks to God. In our prayers, we ask more than we thank, and we complain and mourn more than being satisfied with what we have been given.

We need to fundamentally change our prayer life, and not forget that we should extol and offer thanks to our Creator for enabling us to see another day of His kindness. Whenever we go to bed, we should thank God for the passing day, whether good and joyous or difficult and sorrow-filled, for tomorrow the Lord can turn sorrow into joy, if only we would believe in His help and not become despondent. After all, through adversity that cleanses us of sin, the path to spiritual joy in Heavenly Eternity opens to us. In the Old Testament, the righteous Job sang “Blessed be the Name of the Lord,” in praise of his Creator, and through the devil’s envy, he was deprived of everything: his family that perished in the ruins of his house, his wealth, and finally, his health. He was covered in sores of leprosy, and a terrible stench emanated from him, but his lips continued to raise up God’s praises. And the Lord glorified Job who exalted Him.

Thus, Be filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:19), and In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you (I Thess. 5:18).

Photo: history.com     

What is “thanksgiving”? Considering that all in America who believe in God the Creator of the world Who provides for all recognize this day with songs of praise to God, “Thanksgiving Day

“>Thanksgiving Day” has a religious character.

And for us, Orthodox Christians, On ThanksgivingThe hope of eternal life is worthy of our struggle in this life, as we prepare for our life worshiping before the Holy Trinity. We have much to be thankful for.

“>thanksgiving is a testimony to God’s presence in the life of the world and man.

Thanksgiving is a profound religious response from our heart, with reverent gladness and awe, testimony to the fact that the Lord participates in our personal life by His grandeur, His glory and love.

Thanksgiving is a response to God’s gifts; it is a joyous appreciation of divine mercy and bounty manifested to us in our lives.

And finally, thanksgiving, the feeling of gratitude, is the foundation of our ever-renewing life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks (1 Thess. 5:17–18), the apostle Paul teaches us.

The feeling of Gratitude to God: Wisdom from the Optina EldersYou must thank God for sending you everything. This is for three reasons: in order to bring you to your senses, to awareness, and to gratitude.

“>gratitude to God is the first and main feeling in which a child must be brought up from earliest childhood in order to become an emotionally normal person, inclined toward and capable of spiritual development.

With these feelings and with this wish do we address you today, with a song of glory to the Most High. Amen.

Blessed Miguel Pro Juarez was born in Guadalupe on January 12, 1891. He was the oldest boy in his family, a very spiritual child who also loved practical jokes. He was often in trouble with his daring spirit, and had close calls with accidents and illness. 

Miguel was close to his older sister, and when she entered a cloistered convent, he felt a calling to the Jesuit life. He entered the novitiate in El Llano, Michoacan, when he was 20. 

In 1914, while Miguel was studying, the Mexican government initiated an intense period of anti-Catholic discrimination. Miguel’s order was forced to disband and flee to Los Gates, California. 

The next year, Miguel went to a seminary in Spain. He was ordained a priest in Belgium in 1925. Back home in Mexico, all the Catholic churches were closed, and religious members were being deported or imprisoned. Anyone trying to escape was shot, and celebrating the sacraments was punishable by imprisonment or death. 

Fr. Pro returned to Mexico, with permission from his superiors, and began to celebrate Mass and distribute the sacraments secretly. He became known throughout the city as the undercover priest. He would make house calls in the dead of night, dressed as a street sweeper or beggar, to perform baptisms and marriages, hear confessions, and distribute Communion. He used a police disguise to sneak into the prisons and distribute sacraments to Catholic prisoners before their executions. 

It is reported that when he celebrated Mass the day before he was arrested, at the Consecration, a brilliant light surrounded his entire body, and his face, hands, and vestments were so bright that no one could look at him. The next day, Fr. Pro and his brother were betrayed by an informant and arrested, and spent 10 days in jail, falsely accused of attempting to assassinate the president-elect. 

On Nov. 13, 1927, Fr. Pro was sentenced to execution, allegedly for his part in the assassination plot, but in reality because he continued to practice the Catholic faith. As he went from his cell to face the firing squad, he blessed the men about to kill him, and then prayed silently. He refused a blindfold, and, holding a rosary and a crucifix, held his arms in the form of a cross. As he prepared to die, he said, “May God have mercy on you! May God bless you! Lord, thou knowest that I am innocent! With all my heart I forgive my enemies!” Just before he was killed, he cried, “Viva Cristo Rey!” (“Long live Christ the King!”)

Fr. Miguel Pro was beatified by St. Pope John Paul II on Sept. 25, 1988.