The Shepherd, December 2008
PRACTICAL TIP
ON CHRISTMAS EVE conscientious Orthodox Christians will have been keeping the fast for forty days to prepare to celebrate the Great Feast of the Lord’s Nativity. In that period, they should have achieved some improvement of life spiritually, some deepening of their understanding, however modest that improvement may be. Even if it is minute, be careful not to cast it all away, by then returning to life as “normal.” Many keep the fasts quite strictly, and prepare to receive the Holy Mysteries on the feast with care, but immediately afterwards forget what they have been granted, and immediately slip back into their old ways, sometimes, even more or less lapse until the next fast! This may not be entirely profitless, at least they are, from time to time, remembering that they should struggle, but it brings very little profit spiritually. It is like trying to fill a bucket with water but continually slopping most of it out again. You gain little and make a mess - in this instance, of your spiritual life. Be aware of the danger, and approach the end of the fast with a resolution to hold whatever little you been given spiritually during its course. If, like the present writer, you are so careless as not to profit much from the fast, then be even more careful not to lose anything at its end, otherwise you will be slipping back!
From The Evergetinos
Volume IV of The second Book
SEVERAL brothers went to visit a holy Elder who lived in the desert. Outside his cell, they found boys grazing their animals and uttering indecent words. After confessing their thoughts to the Elder and deriving benefit from his knowledge, they asked him: “How do you put up with these boys, Abba? Why do you not order them to refrain from using bad language?” “Brothers,” the Abba replied to them, “there are days when I want to tell them off, but I immediately chide myself and say: ‘If I cannot put up with this small vexation, how will I endure if a great trial is unleashed against me?’ This is why I do not say anything to them, so as to be able to withstand whatever comes my way.”
STOP PRESS: As we reached the end of preparing this issue, we heard of the death on 5th December (n.s.) of His Holines Patriarch Aleksii II of Moscow. We ask the prayers of the faithful for his repose, that he find mercy
|
