By John Nixon

When our heart is in Christ, He takes what is ours, such as our weaknesses and afflictions, and gives us the gifts that come from God. Beyond eternal life in heaven, these gifts, the evidence of the Holy Spirit’s work in us, are love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These attributes become possible for us as our faith in Christ and faithfulness to His commandments grow, as we struggle with our own passions. Read more HERE

“We should notice the way in which Christ healed.” 

He spat on the earth and ‘made clay of the spittle’. We note this, because every sacrament of the Church heals in the selfsame manner:

Clay cannot heal the blind and yet with the breath of God, it becomes the container for the healing grace of God.

Water cannot heal and yet the water of baptism heals because the blessed water bears the Holy Spirit.

Oil cannot heal and yet the oil of chrismation and unction heal because they are filled with the grace of God.

A piece of cloth cannot heal and yet a priest’s stole can heal through the grace of Christ at the sincere confession of sins and the repentant intention not to sin again.

Bread and wine cannot heal and yet bread and wine transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ heal through the Holy Spirit.

Wood and paint cannot heal and yet icons can heal by the Holy Spirit Who penetrates into their material essence and radiates grace from them.

Smoke cannot heal and yet incense burnt brings healing through the blessing of Christ.

Christ teaches us then that all things can be used for our healing and benefit and salvation, but that they must first be touched by His grace.

In this way our bodies, mere flesh and bones and blood, can become containers of Christ. Our souls activated, we can become lamps of the Holy Spirit; the eyes of our souls, the doors of perception, become seeing, and we see the whole of God’s Creation as it really is. We see that every blade of grass and every hill, every tree and every cloud, every drop of rain and every ocean, all creatures and all people, are miracles of God’s handiwork, signs of His sacramental presence among us, and we see that we live not in the banal, everyday world, but in potential Paradise, the world as it really is, as God made it first, for we see God the Creator behind all things and all people.

And then we too, together with the man born blind, can say: ‘I was blind, now I see’.

Read the entire homily here

 

 

 

by Metropolitan Anthony Sourozh

The Holy Gospel has not given us the name of the Samaritan woman. But the Tradition of the Church remembers, and calls her in Greek – Photini, in Russian – Svetlana, in the Celtic languages – Fiona, in Western languages – Claire. And all these names speak to us of one thing – of light.

Having met the Lord Jesus Christ she has become a light shining in the world, a light that enlightens those who meet her. Every Saint is offered us as an example; but we cannot always emulate the concrete ways in which a Saint lived, we cannot always repeat their way from earth to heaven. But we can learn from each of them two things. The one is that by the grace of God we can achieve what seems humanly impossible; that is, to become a person in the image and likeness of God, to be – in this world of darkness and tragedy which is in the power of lies – a word of truth, a sign of hope, the certainty that God can conquer if we only allow Him access to our souls. Because if the Kingdom of God is not established within us, if God is not enthroned in our minds and hearts, a fire that destroys everything unworthy of ourselves and of Him, we cannot spread God’s light around.

And the second thing which the Saints can teach us is to understand the message which their names convey to us. And today’s Samaritan woman speaks of light. Christ has said that He is the Light of the world, the light that enlightens all men; and we are called to give shelter within our souls, minds and hearts – indeed, within our whole self – to this light; so that the word spoken by Christ, “Let your light so shine before all men, that seeing your good deeds they may give glory to your Father who is in heaven”, may be fulfilled and accomplished in and through us.

It is only through seeing our deeds, through seeing how we live that people can believe that the light is God’s light; it is not in our words, unless they are words of truth and of power like those of the Apostles, or of Christ Himself indeed. And let us reflect, each of us, on the meaning of our name and on the way in which we can become what we are called.

The Samaritan woman came to the well without any spiritual purpose; she came, as she came daily, to fetch water – and she met Christ. Each of us may meet our God at any turn in our life, when we are about our most homely tasks, if our hearts are turned in the right direction, if we are prepared to receive a message, to listen; indeed – to ask questions! Because the Samaritan woman asked a question of Christ, and what she heard transcended her question in such a way that she recognized in Him a prophet, and later – the Christ, the Savior of the world.

But the light must not be pushed under a bushel. Having discovered that the Light had come into the world, that the word of divine truth was resounding now amidst men, that God was among us, she left behind all concerns and ran to share the joy, the wonder of what she had discovered with others. She brought her fellow-citizens to Christ. She told them first why she believed; and when perhaps curiosity, or the convincing power of her words, and the change that had occurred in her brought them to Christ, they saw for themselves and said to her, It is no longer because of what you say that we believe – we have seen, we have heard.

And this is what the Samaritan woman teaches all of us: be open at every moment of life, while we are busy with the simplest things, to receive the divine word, to be illumined by the divine light, to be cleansed by His purity, to receive it in the depths of our souls, receive it with all our life, so that people seeing what we have become may believe that the light has come into the world.

Let us pray to the Samaritan woman to teach us, to guide us, to bring us to Christ in the way in which she came, and to serve Him in the way in which she served Him, being the salvation of all who were around her.

One year before he refused to sacrifice to the idols, in 325 A.D., Saint Constantine attended the sessions of the First Ecumenical Council, where the Church Fathers recited the Trisagion (“Thrice Holy”) hymn ‒ “Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal…” – as an Orthodox doctrine.

It was the most crucial point in my opinion, which is also the opinion of historians who study these issues. Constantine did not sacrifice to the Caesar, in other words to himself, because he acknowledged that there is no other “Caesar” on earth but God. Not surprisingly, Zosimus seized the opportunity to interpret this fact as evidence of Constantine’s hatred and enmity towards all Romans. In his eyes he was sacrilegious, an enemy of justice, a foul villain. All because he had rejected a tradition. A tradition, you know, has real value only if it carries true meaning. Our salvation does not rest on an arbitrary notion of “tradition”. We, as Orthodox Christians, speak of Tradition in the name of the Holy Spirit. A tradition that is devoid of the Holy Spirit makes no sense. What good is it, if it just serves the perpetuation of certain habits or the preservation of mores and customs? What significance does it have, especially if it happens to be a demonic tradition [as in the aforementioned case]? This is something that Zosimus could never understand. Read more here: Saint Constantine

Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou

The disciples ‘rejoiced when they saw the Lord’ [John 20:20]. Their joy however was not psychological, but spiritual and lifted up their spirit to Heaven. He filled them with his peace, with delight, but even more than that, he filled them with His own life, as ‘he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost’ [See John 20:22]. This act of the Lord brings to our mind the awesome moment of man’s creation, when ‘God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul’ [Gen. 2:7]. Through His breath, God gave life to His creature ‘according to His image and likeness’, in a similar way Christ now breathes in the faces of the disciples, refashioning them and imparting the Spirit of eternal life.

Through His word, ‘Receive ye the Holy Ghost’, He inaugurated a new creation. In His breath, He imparted the first dispensation of the Holy Spirit that would heal and strengthen their nature, so it would be able to bear the grace of the Comforter on the day of Pentecost, the fulness of divine love. If man’s nature is not strengthened, it cannot bear anything heavenly. ‘The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God’ [1 Cor. 2:14]. The disciples received the anointing of grace during the appearances of the Risen Lord. Their hearts received the earnest of the Spirit [See 2 Cor. 1:21-22 and 5:5; Eph. 1:13-14] that would refashion them into apostolic hearts, which ‘drew all the world into their net’ [See Apolytikion of Pentecost]. The ‘little flock’ [Luke 12:32] that was gathered together ‘for fear of the Jews’, was transfigured into a hidden leaven, that would soon leaven the whole lump, that is, all the world unto the ages of ages.

Read more here