Category Archives: church

Saint Seraphim of Sarov

church, quotes, saints,
January 2nd is the feast of St. Seraphim of Sarov, the patron saint of my parish. It is the day he reposed (died) in the Lord in 1833. It’s lovely how our celebration of his bright life comes right in the middle between Nativity and Theophany festivities, and in the dead of winter. Some pictures of Father Seraphim show him in a snowy forest, and many sayings of and about him talk about the warmth of prayer and of the Holy Spirit.

Here in the Northern Hemisphere we need all the heat we can get right about now. Most of us have been extra elated and/or exhausted by our holidays, leaving us vulnerable to emotional ups and downs. I know that in the last couple of years, the doldrums of January got a hold on me, but this year I intend to fortify myself and resist the downward pull by various means. When the earth is dark and cold it’s clear how earthly, not heavenly, is my own self. But the Light of the World has come, and with some effort I hope to rest more constantly in the sphere of His brilliance.

I’ve been hunting around the Internet for more quotes from St. Seraphim to add to my treasures, and found on this blog a list of “Ten Counsels of St. Seraphim,” of which the quotes on Despondency seem to the point:

Just as the Lord cares for our salvation, so the devil, the killer of men, strives to lead man to despondency.

When despondency seizes us, let us not give in to it. Rather, fortified and protected by the light of faith, let us with great courage say to the spirit of evil: “What are you to us, you who are cut off from God, a fugitive from Heaven, and a slave of evil? You dare not do anything to us: Christ, the Son of God, has dominion over us and over all. Leave us, you thing of bane. We are made steadfast by the uprightness of His Cross. Serpent, we trample on your head.”

Father Seraphim spent many years alone in the forest, learning to pray and acquiring the Holy Spirit, after which he returned to the monastery where he spent many more years counseling and healing the crowds who lined up to see him every day. He “gave them the Lord” as I’ve heard people put it.
Communion bread

One meeting and conversation that Father Seraphim had with his friend N.A. Motovilov tells us quite a bit about him and is quoted at length here. Father Seraphim talked much about our need to “acquire the Holy Spirit Who acts within us and establishes in us the Kingdom of God.”

That is certainly what I need. Even now, after much excitement and little sleep just in the last few days, I feel that earthy heaviness mocking my faith. But with God’s help, and by the prayers of Saint Seraphim and all the saints, I hope to get the blood moving in my lazy soul, trample more often on that ugly head, and keep putting one foot in front of the other until I reach Springtime.

 

St. Basil the Great

church, quotes, saints

Today we celebrate, among other events, the life of St. Basil the Great, Bishop of Cappadocia in the 4th century. These passages from his writings form a fitting exhortation for this season:

Man was made after the image and likeness of God; but sin marred the beauty of the image by dragging the soul down to passionate desires. Now God, who made man, is the true life. Therefore, when man lost his likeness to God, he lost his participation in the true life; separated and estranged from God as he is, it is impossible for him to enjoy the blessedness of the divine life.

Let us return, then, to the grace [which was ours] in the beginning and from which we have alienated ourselves by sin, and let us again adorn ourselves with the beauty of God’s image, being made like our Creator through the quieting of our passions. He who, to the best of his ability, copies within himself the tranquility of the divine nature attains to a likeness with the very soul of God; and, being made like God in this manner, he also achieves in full a semblance to the divine life and abides continually in unending blessedness.

 ….

He Himself has bound the strong man and plundered His goods – that is, us, who had been abased in every manner of evil – and made us into vessels fit for the Master’s use, the use of our free will being made ready for any good work. Thus through Him we have our approach to the Father, Who has transferred us from the dominion of darkness to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.

In consideration of all this, I wish you a bright and happy New Year!

Snowmen and Jello – Christmas

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Two Glad Grandboys

While we are waiting for Christmas and preparing our gifts, and thinking about what Santa and our parents are preparing for us, children are lucky if we have some snow around with which to build a snowman or snowlady.

My own grandchildren sometimes have that. But when I was a child, I only had the beloved “Frosty the Snowman” 45 to play on my little record player.

It’s the only record I remember from my youth until I bought such ones as “Like a Rolling Stone,” and I listened to the Frosty tale over and over so that I can still hear the voice — maybe it was Red Foley — in my head. On the other side he sang “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” The image below is not quite like what I owned, but it evokes the memory well enough.

I remain snowless, and don’t mind a bit. Besides, I can watch “The Snowman” on video. Those who lack the technology for watching movies (and I know there must be some of those people still, though they are probably not the ones reading this) could read the wordless book The Snowman.

But the video is so enchanting, with its haunting tune. The first time I borrowed the movie from the library, it was a version with the song, but since then I have only found it with a purely instrumental score. We are all fortunate now, and I am more than pleased to tell you that YouTube has a clip that includes sung lyrics of “Walking in the Air.”

When I turned fifty a friend took me browsing in a quilt shop to pick out a few pieces of fabric as a birthday present from her. Several prints called to mind images from the adventures of the snowman and his little boy, and I took rectangles of them home with a theme brewing.

I sewed by hand several potholders that I call my Snowman Potholders. Of course, they have nothing to do with Christmas, except for their frequent role in pulling pies out of the oven for Christmas dinner.

Waiting….We Orthodox are still waiting until December 25 (or January 7) for the feast and waiting to feast, because we are preparing our hearts, which are tightly bound to our bodies. But in preparing for culinary aspects of the feast I’m considering this festive rainbow jello I made for one Christmas Day:

RAINBOW RIBBON DESSERT


1 (3 oz.) package (each flavor) raspberry, lime, orange, lemon, and strawberry Jell-O
6-1/4 cups water
1-1/4 cups evaporated milk

Dissolve raspberry Jell-O in 1 cup boiling water. Remove 1/2 of Jell-O to a bowl and add 1/4 cup cold water. Place into a 9-inch square pan. Place in refrigerator until slightly firm. To the remaining half of Jell-O, add 1/4 cup evaporated milk. Cool and place over slightly firm layer in pan. Continue procedure with remaining flavors of Jell-O in this order: lime, orange, lemon, and strawberry. Cool each mixture before layering. Chill completely. Cut into squares to serve. Yield: serves 8 to 12. 

I’m trying to figure out how to tweak this colorful recipe into a frozen dessert. It already has the brightness of Tolkien’s wintery image, and I think I might attract my snowmen friends to my holiday table if I just advertise that for dessert we are serving a treat called “Northern Lights.”

(This is the third in my contributions to Pom Pom‘s Childlike Christmas Party.)