Uncensored Heart

"If your heart has been softened either by repentance before God or by learning the boundless love of God towards you, do not be proud with those whose hearts are still hard. Remember how long your heart was hard and incorrigible. Seven brothers were ill in one hospital. One recovered from his illness and got up and rushed to serve his other brothers with brotherly love, to speed their recovery. Be like this brother. Consider all men to be your brothers, and sick brothers at that. And if you come to feel that God has given you better health than others, know that it is given through mercy, so in health you may serve your frailer brothers."   "If you love Christ God, then endure as He endured, and do all that is pleasing to Him. He taught and did. Unfailingly your love also should be such as does good, endures, is disturbed by nothing present, and in everything ever thanks Him not with words and tongue, but with very deeds. You must love Him with heart, ...

“As it is not possible to cross over the great ocean without a ship, so no one can attain to love without fear. The fetid sea, which lies between us and the noetic paradise, we may cross by the boat of repentance, whose oarsmen are those of fear. But if fear's oarsmen do not pilot the barque of repentance whereby we cross over the sea of this world to God, we shall be drowned in the fetid abyss. Repentance is the ship and fear is the pilot; love is the divine haven.”   This is such a pleasant thought. It almost makes us all want to fall in love and strive to love humankind as ourselves. NOT!! I have said it before and I will say it again, love and pain go hand in hand at least for a little while. The road to peace and true love hurts. I happen to like the band Def Leppard and their version of Love Hurts has the following chorus:   Love bites, love bleeds It's bringin' me to my knees Love lives, love dies It's no surprise Love begs, love pleads It...

"Just as the thought of fire does not warm the body, so faith without love does not actualize the light of spiritual knowledge in the soul."   A very poignant sentence. I have learned something in this affair we call love. There are those who would call themselves Christians and do what they are told. They never grasp the true meaning of anything, spiritual or otherwise. We make our vows to God to always keep faith and hope near to our hearts and try to live and walk in the spirit. If life were the desert school of theology as it were with Moses, we would fail miserably. I am guilty of the same thing. While I have never been selfish as a person or even a child, as I was able to spoil myself, I did. I did so blindly until I had no other place to go but on my knees. From the time my father died until my knees hit the floor I was angry with God, ignorant of my faith and had no idea who I was. I was angry with the world because I thought it owed me something. Looking...

Saint Silouan on Love The soul cannot know peace unless she prays for her enemies. The soul that has learned of God's grace to pray, feels love and compassion for every created thing, and in particular for mankind, for whom the Lord suffered on the Cross, and His soul was heavy for every one of us. The Lord taught me to love my enemies. Without the grace of God we cannot love our enemies. Only the Holy Spirit teaches love, and then even devils arouse our pity because they have fallen from good, and lost humility in God. I beseech you, put this to the test. When a man affronts you or brings dishonor on your head, or takes what is yours, or persecutes the Church, pray to the Lord, saying: "O Lord, we are all Thy creatures. Have pity on Thy servants and turn their hearts to repentance," and you will be aware of grace in your soul. To begin with, constrain your heart to love enemies, and the Lord, seeing your good will, will help you in all things, and expe...

"The way of humility is this: self-control, prayer, and thinking yourself inferior to all creatures."   Thinking we are inferior to all creatures seems so much to ask. But stop and think about that for a minute. Although we do not see ourselves as such how much more superior are we? What puts us above all other creatures, including our own kind? In other words, what makes you better than say…your neighbor? I know what we see as betterment, but the challenge here is to remove materialistic things from the list. So, now that your car, house, job…none of that matters, what are you left with? Yourself. Who you are and what makes you the person that you are. In judging only that part of you, your spirit….what in that makes you better or worse than your neighbor, your friends, your family. We are all created equal. Therefore, the differentiating factor is your heart and its place. This goes without saying in your everyday life. But lets take it a step further and consi...

I have admitted that I have fallen deeply for a man. Although my world was spun around and I have acknowledged much more than I thought I would. This is certainly strange and fearful theory. Yes, love is a theory to me. Even at my age, I have little experience in handling deep love. I will be honest it is very scary. I jumped in loving the theory and essence of its being. I’ve hit the brakes to ponder the feelings associated with the wretched organ. I have to be honest in that I am in a whirlwind of wonder and fear, each equally matched. I am forced to place it all on the back burner and put my faith and hope in a theory that may or may not come to pass. While spiritually I have grown leaps and bounds, I am not so sure my soul side has caught up. My trust in humans is very removed from existence. So how can I possibly expect to go forward in love? Faith and trust in God is what I have been told, the He holds and guards your heart always. But His is a perfect love, unwavering and ever...

In spite of our sinfulness, in spite of the darkness surrounding our souls, the Grace of the Holy Spirit, conferred by baptism in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, still shines in our hearts with the inextinguishable light of Christ ... and when the sinner turns to the way of repentance the light smooths away every trace of the sins committed, clothing the former sinner in the garments of incorruption, spun of the Grace of the Holy Spirit. It is this acquisition of the Holy Spirit about which I have been speaking. —St. Seraphim of Sarov Remember, never to fear the power of evil more than your trust in the power and love of God. —Hermas, one of the Seventy "As a handful of sand thrown into the ocean, so are the sins of all flesh as compared with the mind of God." "Just as a strongly flowing fountain is not blocked up by a handful of earth, so the compassion of the Creator is not overcome by the wickedness of his creatures." ...

As I sit here and write this my mind is focused towards the Resurrection services around the world in every Orthodox church tonight. It begins from the Holy Fire in Israel in the Holy tomb of Christ’s burial and moves through each of us around the world. This should be a day of reflection and love. In prayer we find peace. We should commune with God every day, but today is most important.   We should open our hearts and raise them to our Father in humility and forgiveness, asking for forgiveness and the strength to move forward in a new day, a new light. We should also commend ourselves and one another to each other and God. Stand humble in the light, heads bowed and silence our human soul….it is only this way that we can listen. Listen with your spirit and heart, not your mind. We as humans are flawed and flawed greatly. We are subject to logic, disbelief and anger. We respond with what we know to be scientifically factual. How can science explain resurrection or miracles? ...

While many Christians celebrated Easter over a month ago as a result of differing calendar calculations, Orthodox Easter takes place much later this year, falling on May 5. Thus, at midnight on Saturday, May 4, the night that our fourth-century predecessor on the Throne of Constantinople, St. Gregory Nazianzus, described as "brighter than any sunlit day," some 300 million Orthodox Christians will swarm churches to hear the words: "Come, receive the light!" On that night, throughout the world, entire congregations previously waiting in darkness and filled with anticipation will light up, their faces shining with joy and hope. Together they will all chant in numerous languages, depending on geography and culture, the triumphant hymn familiar to young and old: "Christ is risen from the dead, trampling death by death, and granting life to those in the tombs." "Life to those in the tombs" refers to a refreshing perspective on Easter: we see a...

Do the ones you love carry a price tag? If so, what is it? How much are you worth to another person who claims to love you unconditionally and selflessly? I believe we need to look at how much we are worth to ourselves. This is not a point about a self esteem. I am asking how much are you worth as a person and who are you? My price is death. Yes, death. I am not priceless but a man who claims to love me must be willing to die for me without hesitation. It is not a steep price to pay considering I would do so in return without hesitation. Why? Not because I am crazy or have lost my mental faculties, but simply because if you truly love someone you must love them more than yourself. As Christ came down to serve, not be served we should take example and serve ourselves. The Father loves us mercifully with compassion and understanding. Why can we not love each other in very much the same way? We cannot because we all have a price tag. How much we are worth and how much are we willin...

The relationships we have with one another are amazing and yet so very shallow. In the normal course of dealing with people, I have realized something which I consider to be very profound. A friend of mine made a comment to me that we are loved completely by our significant others. I am not so sure that I believe that to the core of my being. I don’t say this to be cruel or mean as one would think. Here is food for thought…. We as individuals are trapped in a world that is materialistically all encompassing. In our professional lives we strive greatly to achieve the great ladder of success. Although this ladder and its height varies from person to person, the desire remains the same. Where is our humility and compassion towards one another when we try to step and climb all over each other and push each other down constantly? Why exactly do we do this? We do this for the simple fact of achieving materialistic things such as title or wealth…none of which will transcend the boundar...