ON PRAYER

In our prayer books, there are prayers of the Holy Fathers—Ephraim the Syrian, Macarios the Egyptian, Basilios the Great, John Chrysostomos, and other great men of prayer. Being filled with the spirit of prayer, they were able to up that living spirit into words, and handed it down to us. When one enters into these prayers with attention and effort, then that great and prayerful spirit will in turn enter into him. He will taste the power of prayer. We must pray so that our mind and heart receive the content of the prayers that we read. In this way the act of praying becomes a font of true prayer in us. St. Theophan the Recluse

Orthodox, Calendar Company. 2023 Daily Lives, Miracles, and Wisdom of the Saints & Fasting Calendar: Orthodox Calendar (p. 141). Orthodox Calendar Company. Kindle Edition.

VENERABLE MATRONA OF CHIOS

Matrona was one of seven daughters of noble parents from the island of Chios in the fifteenth century. From a young age, she loved God and desired to remain a virgin. However, when it was time for her to marry, she refused and fled to a mountain overlooking the village of Katavasis. She lived the life of an ascetic by fasting and prayer, and soon other nuns joined her. When her parents found her, they convinced her to return home, but she continued to lead a monastic life. Upon the death of her parents, Matrona distributed a part to the poor, widows, and orphans, and the remaining she used later to build a church. She returned to Katavasis, and one of her sisters would bring her food. After three years, she went to the capital city and found a small convent with three nuns. She received monastic tonsure and surpassed the other nuns in the virtues. Matrona was soon elected abbess, and God granted her the gift of healing the sick and raising the dead. As her fame spread, others came to live and struggle near her. But when conditions became crowded, she sold her own land and used the money to enlarge the convent. One day when Matrona entered the church, she found a treasure of gold. However, she was not sure if it was brought there by God or if it was a temptation from the devil. She prayed to God for it to disappear, and immediately the treasure turned to ash. St. Matrona received foreknowledge of her death seven days hence. She advised the other nuns, received Holy Communion, and peacefully died. She was buried in the monastery’s church, and many people received healing through her intercessions.

Calendar Company, Orthodox. 2022 Daily Lives, Miracles, and Wisdom of the Saints & Fasting Calendar (p. 528). Orthodox Calendar Company. Kindle Edition.

Know thyself

In order to become a divine likeness, good and blessed, and to commune with God, man must first of all know himself. Without self-knowledge man goes astray in his thoughts, is dominated by diverse passions, tyrannized by violent desires, troubled about many and vain things, and leads a disorderly, distracted life, erring in all things, wandering on the way, staggering at every step; and he stumbles, falls, and is crushed. He drinks every day potions of sorrow and bitterness, fills his heart with grief, and lives an unbearable life. He who does not know himself does not know God, either. And he who does not know God does not know the truth and the nature of things in general… He who does not know himself continually sins against God and continually moves farther away from Him. He who does not know the nature of things and what they truly are in themselves is powerless to evaluate them according to their worth and to discriminate between the mean and the precious, the worthless and the valuable. Wherefore, such a person wears himself out in the pursuit of vain and trivial things, and is unconcerned about and indifferent to the things that are eternal and most precious.

St. Nektarios of Aegina

The early church

The whole Christian world’s first ten centuries believed exactly the same way as now the Orthodox Church believes. St. Gabriel Urgebadze of Georgia

ST. KENELM OF MERCIA

also king. He had two older sisters: Burgenhilda, who loved him very much, and Cwendrida, the jealous and power-hungry one who tried to poison Kenelm, but God protected him. Then she had her lover Ascobert behead Kenelm during a hunting trip while he lay under a tree. Ascobert buried him in a pit. Queen Cwendrida and Ascobert then ruled with cruelty and violence. However, the soul of Kenelm, in the form of a white dove, flew to the Pope of Rome and dropped a scroll onto the altar. The message told of the murder of Kenelm and where his relics were hidden. The Archbishop of Canterbury, with the bishop and many priests and monks, uncovered Kenelm, where they saw a column of heavenly light. A stream of healing holy water gushed from that site for centuries, and a chapel was soon built there. Later, when the saint’s relics were being transferred to the Winchcombe monastery, at every stop, streams of holy water would appear at once. Thousands of pilgrims, including Thomas a Becket, flocked to St. Kenelm’s relics to pray and receive healing, and this continued for centuries. In the sixteenth century, Henry VIII destroyed the monastery.

Calendar Company, Orthodox. 2022 Daily Lives, Miracles, and Wisdom of the Saints & Fasting Calendar (p. 350). Orthodox Calendar Company. Kindle Edition.

HIEROMARTYR CYRIL, BISHOP OF GORTYNA.

When Cyril was sixty-eight years old, he was consecrated Bishop of Gortyna in Crete, and he served the Church for twenty-five years. During the Christian persecutions of Emperor Diocletian, Cyril persisted in his teachings to save people from idolatry. He foresaw a vision of his death, that of a large bird carrying away his head and putting it on a high mountain. At the age of 93, he was arrested and brought before Governor Agrianos. Cyril publicly denounced the idols and the myths surrounding them and the bloody sacrifices that were abhorrent. The governor sentenced Cyril to death. He was bound and thrown into a flaming fire, but only the fetters that bound him burned, and the flames turned to ashes. When the governor saw that Cyril remained unharmed, he released him. However, when Cyril continued to convert the Greek pagans to Christianity, it was decided to put him to death. St. Cyril was taken to a remote mountainous place and was beheaded in the year 299. There is a chapel in his memory at the summit of the Asterousia Mountains of Crete.

The Troparion of Cassiani

On Holy Tuesday evening, the matins of Holy Wednesday are chanted in the Holy Orthodox Churches. The last hymn of the evening is that of the pious and learned poetess of Byzantium, Cassiani.

The Byzantine historian Symeon Magistros (990 AD) wrote that Euphrosyne, the mother of Emperor Theophilos and daughter of Constantine VI, in her attempt to marry her son off in the year 830 AD, organized a large gathering of the most beautiful girls of the Empire in the magnificent hall Trikli of the palace of Constantinople. The event was attended by the most “beautiful virgins” of the Empire. When they lined up, sitting on luxurious couches, the emperor Theophilos came before them to choose his future wife and empress, by giving to the girl of his choice a golden apple.

The most beautiful was Cassiani, whose beauty dazzled the young Theophilos and he was about to give her the apple, a symbol of his favor. However, wanting to find out if her intelligence was commensurate with her beauty, he said to her: “«Ως άρα δια γυναικός ερρύη τα φαύλα“, meaning, “Corruption came from a woman” (Eve). Cassiani, however, was not surprised and, wanting to show her wit, replied: “Αλλά και δια γυναικός πηγάζει τα κρείττονα” (“And from the woman come the best, the noblest”), implying the Virgin Mary, who brought intto the world the greatest good, Christ.

However, this really smart answer was characterized by Theophilos as containing some pretense and superficiality, so he gave the apple to the also beautiful, but modest Theodora.

Cassiani was disappointed by her failure and decided to withdraw from the world and become a nun. She built a monastery with her own money, which later took her name, dressed in the monastic habit and dedicated herself to the worship of Christ and poetry, thus combining her deep piety and inclination to writing. It is even said that after her failure she would utter: “Because I did not become the queen of this temporary world, I will become a citizen of the eternal Kingdom of Christ”.

There, in the monastery, her innate artistic talent and her deep religious feeling were manifested, composing church hymns, troparia, idiomela. There, in the quiet and evocative atmosphere of the monastery, she composed the famous “Troparion of Cassiani” which was later established by the Orthodox Church as the Doxastic of the Apostlicha of the Orthros of Holy Wednesday.

It seems clear that Cassiani was inspired in writing this troparion from the words of the Evangelists, who do not refer to Mary Magdalene, as many believe, but to the anonymous sinful woman, the adulteress, whom Christ saved from certain stoning by the enraged crowd of her moral transgression, with those words of His: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her”. And when Jesus later found himself in the house of Simon the Pharisee the leper, the sinful woman felt the need to go and express her gratitude and devotion to Christ the Savior. She bought perfumes, dressed humbly and modestly and humiliated and crushed, with tears in her eyes, came and washed Jesus’ feet and wiped them with her unkempt hair. Her tears were tears of mercy and compunction and she wept passionately to the merciful God of love and forgiveness.

The above incident is reported by three of the four Evangelists.

Luke (7:37-38) writes: “

³⁷ And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, ³⁸ And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.”

Matthew (26:6-7): “

⁶ Now when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, ⁷ There came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment, and poured it on his head, as he sat at meat.”

And Mark (14:3) says: “³ And being in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious; and she brake the box, and poured it on his head.”

Cassiani’s wounded and aching heart could not help but be touched by the sincerity of that sinful woman. She expresses this in her masterpiece troparion, which bears her name, with lyrical exuberance suggesting the vibrations of her own soul.

VENERABLE MARK THE ANCHORITE OF ATHENS

Mark was born in fourth-century Athens. His parents died while he was still in his youth. He gave away all that he had to the poor and waited for God’s providence to guide the rest of his life. He sat upon a board and floated safely to Ethiopia, to a mountain called Trache. During his first thirty years there, Mark battled the elements and demons and suffered from a complete lack of water and food. He ate dirt and drank seawater. When Mark had conquered the evil spirits, angels of God fed him each day. He lived there for ninety-five years, and during this time, he survived the utter isolation of seeing neither man nor beast. Shortly before his death, he was visited by St. Serapion. God granted Mark the gift to work miracles. One day as he was conversing with Serapion, Mark asked, “Are there now amidst the world saints working miracles, as the Lord did speak of in His Gospel: ‘If ye have faith even as a grain of mustard seed, ye will say to this mountain; move hither from there, and it wilt move’ (Mt. 17:20).” And immediately, the mountain moved from its place 5,000 cubits towards the sea. When Mark realized it, he turned to it and said, “I did not order thee to move from thine place…wherefore go thou to thine own place!” And the mountain returned to its place. Abba Serapion fell to the ground in fright. Taking him up by the hand, Mark asked, “Hast thou not then seen suchlike miracles in thy lifetime?” “No, father,” answered Serapion. Then Mark wept bitterly, saying, “Woe unto the earth, since upon it live Christians in name only, and not in deeds.” At the age of 130, an angel of God carried St. Mark’s soul to an outstretched hand from heaven.

ARE YOU SAVED?

A man who is currently a monk, tells this beneficial story:

“I was once walking with a very pious and humble man, when we were stopped on the street by an old man distributing small pamphlets. The old man asked us, ‘Are you saved? Have you accepted Jesus?’
“My humble companion said, ‘I only know that I am a sinner.’
“The old man answered my friend: ‘Jesus has saved me. I have the assurance of his salvation. Praise God.’
“At these words, my companion very abruptly grabbed me by the arm, saying to the old man, ‘Leave us alone’ But as we walked my humble friend began to cry bitterly. Embarrassed that others were watching, he controlled himself.
“I asked him: “Why are you crying like this?”
“He quietly answered, ‘As that man told us that, a strange voice in my mind translated his words, so that he said, “I have saved myself. I have assured myself. Pride, lust, and sin no longer bother me, for they have conquered me. God must praise me.” The mere thought of his blasphemy and the state of his soul crushed me. God forgive us all.'”

When panagia gives lilies

Pastra, Kefalonia- Greece When the Mother of God gives flowering lilies

THE HISTORY of the Gravaliotissa icon and the miracle that happens every year is very beautiful. When Count Lianos was the lord of the village, one year, at the beginning of August, he sent servants to clear the fields in preparation for the harvest. An amazing thing happened to one of the servants: he found a large piece of wood in the grass and, picking it up, realised it was an icon of the Virgin Mary! He left the icon in a haystack and quickly went to the master’s house to tell him. But the master was busy, so he told him to take the icon to the Church of St. Dimitrios. The next night, the master dreamt of the Virgin Mary, who said to him, “Why are you taking me away from my home?”. When he woke up, the master was very frightened, went to the church and took the icon home. At the time, the master had a sick daughter who was in a wheelchair. When his daughter saw the icon, she stood up and worshipped it, being cured on the spot. Afterwards, the master built a church on the site of the icon. But an amazing thing happened: the servant also found a lily of Our Lady in the place where he found the icon! This is the origin of the local tradition: on the feast of the descent of the Holy Spirit (Pentecost), the women of the village bring to church a certain kind of lily, small, cut, which the priest places at the icon of Our Lady, behind the glass of the frame. Every day in the church, the Lady’s Chaplet is served and people notice how, from August 6 – the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Saviour – until August 15 – the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary – the dry, lifeless lilies, kept at the icon without water, begin to bud! These flowers, which have blossomed beautifully at the icon of the Blessed Virgin, are offered as a blessing to the participants at the liturgy celebrated on the occasion of this great feast.This year we also went to Pastra, both on the eve of the feast – on 14 August, when we marvelled at the sight of the white buds, with raw green veins, growing without any scientific logic on dry stems – and after the Divine Liturgy on 15 August, when our accompanying priest brought us such a blessed lily, lovingly given to us by the parish priest of Pastra! May it be to the blessing of those who saw and believed, as well as to those who were not there, but now see the photos and BELIEVE that the Mother of God can work such natural and simple miracles for us, her unworthy children – whom she loves with the infinite purity and gentleness of her soul as the Mother of God!

From https://www.facebook.com/groups/1127408834047823/