Monthly Archives: March 2017

∼ Words from the Church Fathers ∼

Some people living carelessly in the world have asked me: ‘We have wives and are beset with social cares, and how can we lead the solitary life?’ I replied to them: ‘Do all the good you can; do not speak evil of anyone; do not steal from anyone; do not lie to anyone; do not be arrogant towards anyone; do not hate anyone; do not be absent from the divine services; be compassionate to the needy; do not offend anyone; do not wreck another man’s domestic happiness, and be content with what your own wives can give you. If you behave in this way, you will not be far from the Kingdom of Heaven.’

St John Climacus, from The Ladder of Divine Ascent, (Step 1, Section 21)

∼ Words from the Church Fathers ∼

‘For with God nothing shall be impossible’ (Lk. 1:37).

And God said: ‘Let there be light’, and there was light; until God spoke the word there was no light. Neither could anyone conceive of the nature of light until God spoke and light came to be. In the same way, when God spoke, the water and the dry land came into being, and the starry vault, the plants and the animals, and finally man. Until God spoke, there was nothing of all this, neither could anyone except God know what might exist. By the power of His word, God created all that was created in heaven and on earth. Whatever God wished to be and called into being, that had to be, and it was impossible for it not to be, because the word of God is irresistible and creative. The creation of the world is a great miracle wrought by the divine word.

Having created all things, God also established by His word the order and manner of existence of all things and their behaviour and relationship one with another. And this order and manner of existence which God has established is a great miracle of the divine word.

But, as well as this order and manner of existence among created things, visible and comprehensible to us, there is an order and manner of existence unseen and incomprehensible. From this invisible and incomprehensible order and manner of existence, which is a mystery hidden in the Holy Trinity, there have occurred, and continue to occur, phenomena which people call miracles. One such phenomenon was the conception of our Lord Jesus Christ in the womb of the most holy Virgin Mary, who had not known a man. This seems to be an interruption of the visible and comprehensible order and manner of existence, but it is not at all a strange event for the invisible and incomprehensible world. This birth is indeed a great wonder; perhaps no greater wonder has ever been revealed to us mortals. But the entire created world is itself a miracle, and the entire visible and comprehensible order of things is a miracle, and just as this miracle came to be by the word of God, so in the same fashion the Lord took human form in a virgin’s womb. Both the one and the other took place by the power of the word of God.

Therefore the wondrous Gabriel replied to the Virgin’s question (a question asked by all generations: ‘How can this be?’): ‘With God nothing that He says shall be impossible.’

Amen.

∼ Words from the Church Fathers ∼

…we are not without hope of salvation, nor is it at all the right time for us to despair. All our life is a season of repentance, for God ‘desires not the death of the sinner’, as it is written, ‘but that the wicked turn from his way and live’ (cf. Ez. 33:11 LXX). For, if there were no hope of turning back, why would death not have followed immediately on disobedience, and why would we not be deprived of life as soon as we sin? For where there is hope of turning back, there is no room for despair.

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It is pointless for someone to say that he has faith in God if he does not have the works which go with faith. What benefit were their lamps to the foolish virgins who had no oil (Mt. 25:1-13), namely, deeds of love and compassion?

– St Gregory Palamas