The whole lifestyle of modern man is arranged in such a way that there is no place for genuine spiritual life. Those who seek the spiritual life are thrown into despair, driven further and further into the mire of worldliness. The very pulse of modern life is nervous, refusing to allow a person any solitude for self-examination, creating an atmosphere hostile to leading a spiritual life. Modern man is like a screw or cogwheel in the gigantic machine of materialistic culture. He loses his individuality and personality and, as they say, runs in circles like a hamster in his cage. “Time is money” is the catchword for modern man’s lifestyle, therefore allowing no time for self-reflection, introspection, attention to the movements of one’s spirit and to the voice of one’s conscience. This nervous, rabid lifestyle wears one out entirely, drains a person’s energy and, thus, leaves him no time to work on himself, which is a necessary demand of the spiritual life. The only desire that remains is to be entertained, to relax, and to get away for a time from the oppressive mechanism of life. As a result, now all kinds of cheap, light-minded entertainment abound—movies, discotheques, etc., and places to spend free time from work and study. Without a doubt, this is the curse of modern life, corrupting all that is healthy in a person. It is the inevitable offspring of modern culture, of a person who has renounced God and made the foundation of his life the spirit of self-satisfying human pride.

All of modern entertainment acts like cocaine and alcohol on our contemporaries. Contemporary entertainment puts spiritual life to sleep in man, paralyzes spiritual impulses, and suppresses the voice of the conscience and of moral norms. Little by little, a person descends from the natural to gross carnality, becoming like a body without a soul according to the words of the Psalmist, I was so foolish and ignorant: I was like a beast before you (Ps 73:22). The terrible sentence of God, once directed to the contemporaries of righteous Noah who perished in the flood, is pronounced on such people: And the Lord said, “My spirit shall not always strive with man forever, for that he also is indeed flesh …” (Gen 6:3).

- Archbishop Averky Taushev

GM ☕ Truth is a person ☦️

Of course!

St. Maximus The Confessor (6th-7th century) writes in depth on this sort of thing. You may enjoy diving into some of his writings 🙏

John 12:3-8 — Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief, and having charge of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it. Jesus said, “Leave her alone, so that she may keep it for the day of my burial. For the poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me.”

The liturgical calendar changea lives.

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"A division within the Church has never occurred, nor indeed can one take place, while apostasy from the Church has and will continue to occur after the manner of those voluntarily fruitless branches which, having withered, fall away from the eternally living theanthropic Vine—the Lord Christ (John 15:1-6). From time to time, heretics and schismatics have cut themselves off and have fallen away from the one and indivisible Church of Christ, whereby they ceased to be members of the Church and parts of her theanthropic body. The first to fall away thus were the gnostics, then the Arians, then the Macedonians, then the Monophysites, then the Iconoclasts, then the Roman Catholics, then the Protestants, then the Uniates, and so on—all the other members of the legion of heretics and schismatics.”

+ St Justin Popovich

GM. Go to divine liturgy ☦️

If, as St. Paul says, Christ dwells in our hearts through faith (cf Eph. 3:17), and all the treasures of wisdom and spiritual knowledge are hidden in Him (cf. Col. 2:3), then all the treasures of wisdom and spiritual knowledge are hidden in our hearts. They are revealed to the heart in proportion to our purification by means of the commandments.

This is the treasure hidden in the field of your heart (of. Matt. 13:44), which you have not yet found because of your laziness. Had you found it, you would have sold everything and bought that field. But now you have abandoned that field and give all your attention to the land nearby, where there is nothing but thorns and thistles.

It is for this reason that the Savior says, ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matt. 5:8) for He is hidden in the hearts of those who believe in Him. They shall see Him and the riches that are in Him when they have purified themselves through love and self-control; and the greater their purity, the more they will see.

+St. Maximos the Confessor

"A division within the Church has never occurred, nor indeed can one take place, while apostasy from the Church has and will continue to occur after the manner of those voluntarily fruitless branches which, having withered, fall away from the eternally living theanthropic Vine—the Lord Christ (John 15:1-6). From time to time, heretics and schismatics have cut themselves off and have fallen away from the one and indivisible Church of Christ, whereby they ceased to be members of the Church and parts of her theanthropic body. The first to fall away thus were the gnostics, then the Arians, then the Macedonians, then the Monophysites, then the Iconoclasts, then the Roman Catholics, then the Protestants, then the Uniates, and so on—all the other members of the legion of heretics and schismatics.”

+ St Justin Popovich

The distracted man has a very simplistic and superficial understanding of all things, including the most important. He is not capable of deeply penetrating into the essence of things, of rationally and circumspectly considering what takes place around him. Therefore, his personal life is quite disorganized and fraught with blunders, and he often—at times involuntarily, due to his lack of sensitivity and thoughtfulness—causes much harm and suffering to others.

“He who is distracted,” says St Ignatius, “is often inconsistent: his emotions lack depth and strength and, therefore, are unstable and short-lived.” It follows that a distracted person cannot in any way be depended upon: he is an unreliable, unfaithful, light-minded person. He is inclined to let down, be unfaithful to or betray even those people by whom he is considered a close friend.

St Ignatius further says, “Love for one’s neighbor is foreign to the distracted man who indifferently looks upon the distress of others and easily lays upon them burdens grievous to be borne.” One who is inattentive to himself, of course, cannot enter into the soul, into the emotional states, of others. Therefore, his soul remains closed to others: he cannot have sympathy or understanding for the others’ woes. He is not in a state to understand what someone else is able or unable to bear, and, therefore, is faultfinding and exacting in relation to others, and often demands from them that which is impossible or beyond their strength.

Finally, according to St Ignatius (Brianchaninov), “sorrows affect a distracted man intensely, precisely because he does not expect them. He expects only joys. If the sorrow is great but quickly passes, he soon forgets about it in the bustle of distraction. Long-lasting sorrow crushes him.” And this is understandable, for the distracted man’s mission in life is to search out only that which is pleasant; thus, all that is unpleasant is very difficult for him to endure.

–Archbishop Averky Taushev

Mark 10:45 — For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Ascension of Our Lord

Lay Sermon by Eugene (Fr. Seraphim) Rose, June 1964

“God is ascended with jubilee, and the Lord with the sound of a trumpet."

[Psalm 46:5]

On the feast of the Ascension of our Lord we celebrate the fulfillment of this prophecy of King David, which is used as the prokimenon of the day. What does it mean for Orthodox Christians? It is not only Jesus Christ Who has ascended; for He has raised human nature itself to the heavens. We too shall rise from the dead and, if we are judged worthy, will rise with our regenerated, spiritual body to heaven, where, as the Blessed Augustine says, "all the people of God shall be made equal to the angels."

But the thought of this promise reminds us also of our responsibility. The risen Lord is no longer with us in the flesh, but only through His invisible Holy Spirit. The interim between the First and Second Coming of Christ is for us a time of witness and testimony of Him Whom we worship without seeing. The Lord, just before His Ascension, commanded His disciples: "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature" [St. Mark 16:15]; and He told them, "ye shall be my witnesses...unto the uttermost part of the earth" [Act 1:8].

Christ has been with us for forty days, and we have rightly feasted; we must now, being filled with the Holy Spirit of God, strive to spread His Gospel and be His witnesses before the world. For everything that we do, or fail to do, we shall be judged by Him Who shall return to earth in the same way He ascended to Heaven. With such a sobering thought in mind, how can we not be zealous to make His truth known, so that all may join in the joyous cry of this feast, "Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens, and Thy glory over all the earth" [Psalm 107:5].

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Fr. Rose speaks so well to the age we are in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtnlmuNRJAg

90 seconds of 🔥

The Father has always had a spirit (Holy Spirit) and has always had wisdom. The wisdom of God is Christ (the Word, Logos).