All posts by GretchenJoanna

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About GretchenJoanna

Orthodox Christian, widowed in 2015; mother, grandmother. Love to read, garden, cook, write letters and a hundred other home-making activities.

The answer to St. Sophrony’s prayer.

quotes, saints, , , , , ,

From a church bulletin:

“…in the early twenties—before my departure to Mt. Athos in 1925, I wept and prayed to  God: ‘Find a way to save the world—to save all of us, we are all defiled and cruel.’

I would pray with particular fervor for the ‘little ones,’ the poor and oppressed.
Towards morning, with my strength waning, my prayer would be disturbed by the
thought that if I grieve for mankind with all my heart, how is it that God can look on indifferently at the pain and torment of millions of beings whom He Himself had created? Why does He allow the innumerable instances of brute force in the world?

And I would turn to Him with the insane challenge, ‘Where art Thou?’ And in my heart I heard: ‘Was it you who was crucified for them?’ …The gentle words uttered by the Spirit shook me to the core—He Who was crucified had answered me as God.”

—Saint Sophrony, reposed July 11th, 1993

Edward Arthur Fellowes Prynne: Jesus is Nailed to the Cross

The kindness may be unpleasant.

philosophy, quotes, , ,

“Why do men learn through pain and suffering, and not through pleasure and happiness? Very simply, because pleasure and happiness accustom one to satisfaction with the things given in this world, whereas pain and suffering drive one to seek a more profound happiness beyond the limitations of this world. I am at this moment in some pain, and I call on the Name of Jesus — not necessarily to relieve the pain, but that Jesus, in Whom alone we may transcend this world, may be with me during it, and His will be done in me.

“But in pleasure I do not call on Him; I am content then with what I have, and I think I need no more. And why is a philosophy of pleasure untenable? — because pleasure is impermanent and unreliable, and pain is inevitable. In pain and suffering Christ speaks to us, and thus God is kind to give them to us, yes, and evil too — for in all of these we glimpse something of what must lie beyond, if there really exists what our hearts most deeply desire.”

– Fr. Seraphim Rose

Weekday Vespers

church, smells,

Vespers was in our little old church this evening, and very beautiful in every way. Beforehand a few of us read an akathist prayer to Mother Olga of Alaska by candlelight. I think the wood paneled walls of this church are infused with 80 years’ worth of incense; something makes it smell good even when no services have been held recently. But tonight we had fresh incense, as well as warm singing and earnest supplications.

In each minim mote.

poetry, ,

OPENING WORDS

I believe the earth
exists, and
in each minim mote
of its dust the holy
glow of thy candle.
Thou
unknown I know,
thou spirit,
giver,
lover of making, of the
wrought letter,
wrought flower,
iron, deed, dream.
Dust of the earth,
help thou my
unbelief. Drift
gray become gold, in the beam of
vision. I believe with
doubt. I doubt and
interrupt my doubt with belief. Be,
beloved, threatened world.
Each minim
mote.
Not the poisonous
luminescence forced
out of its privacy,
The sacred lock of its cell
broken. No,
the ordinary glow
of common dust in ancient sunlight.
Be, that I may believe. Amen.

-Denise Levertov