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“You will lose nothing of what you have renounced for the Lord’s sake. For in its own time it will return to you greatly multiplied.” —St. Mark the Ascetic
“And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, "God, be merciful to me a sinner!"“Pray without ceasing.” —Luke 18—1 Thessalonians 5:1317
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welcome… me… just the sinner… a listener, an observer, a thinker, an admirer… I am an Orthodox Catholic Christian interested in computers, electronics, automation, soccer, music, life, love, Truth, Holy Tradition, the Holy Trinity, the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, the Holy Bible/Holy Scripture, ethics, morality, philosophy, religion, spirituality, asceticism, Creation, and pro-life.
The Holy Orthodox Church in America received me into membership by Chrismation by priest/monk Fr. Rev. E.A. (Simeon) Weare, memory eternal, in the parish St. Nicholas the Wonder-Maker in 1992. Orthodoxy [one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church] is the true faith believed by all the Saints, everywhere, at all times. We are Orthodox… but not Jewish… We are Evangelical… but not Protestant… We are Catholic… but not Papist… We are Pre-Denominational… but not Divided… We are the Christian Church… but not a Church… We have believed, taught, preserved, defended, and died for the Faith of the Apostles since the Day of Pentecost… We are the ORTHODOX CATHOLIC CHURCH… Est. 33 AD
Favorite Quotations:
“The problem with the future is that it keeps turning into the present.” —Bill Watterson
“The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.” — Friedrich —Friedrich Hegel “Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.” —Edmund Burke “Those who forget the past, they lose an eye. Those who dwell on the past, they lose both eyes.” —Hungarian Proverb
“[Behold] I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” —J. Robert Oppenheimer (chapter 11 verse 32 of the Bhagavad Gita)
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” —John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
“An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.” —Mahatma Gandhi
“Democracy is the dictatorship of the ignorant masses.” —Plato
“Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you're alive, it isn't.” —unknown
“And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count, it's the life in your years.” —Abraham Lincoln
“One today is worth two tomorrows.” —Benjamin Franklin
“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” —Maria Robinson
“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” —André Gide
“Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth, are never alone or weary of life.” —Rachel Carson
“Do not judge by appearances; a rich heart may be under a poor coat.” —Scottish Proverb
“Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.” —Margaret Mead
“A fool and his money are soon parted.” —English Proverb
“Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed.” —Friedrich Nietzsche
“Many people, especially ignorant people, want to punish you for speaking the truth, for being correct, for being you. Never apologize for being correct, or for being years ahead of your time. If you’re right and you know it, speak your mind. Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is still the truth.” —Gandhi—Mahatma Gandhi
“Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil.” —Plato
“Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.” —Abraham Lincoln
“A coward is incapable of showing love, it is reserved for the brave.” —Gandhi—Mahatma Gandhi
“Only the courteous can love, but it is love that makes them courteous.” —C. S. Lewis, The Allegory of Love
“He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare; and he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
“There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven't yet met.” —William Butler Yeats
“I teach them all the good I can, and recommend them to others from whom I think they will get some moral benefit. And the treasures that the wise men of old have left us in their writings I open and explore with my friends. If we come on any good thing, we extract it, and we set much store on being useful to one another.” —Socrates
“Art like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.” —G. K. ChesteronChesterton
“What a lot of things there are a man can do without.” —Socrates
“If everyone has his own truth, then where is falsehood?” —Archbishop Stephan (Kalaidjishvili)
“Faithful copies of a counterfeit original yield only more counterfeits.” —unknown
“Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart.” —Abraham Joshua Heschel
"True Christianity is glorifying God with our own lives. To glorify God with our own life is possible only when we have true faith and when that faith indeed exists, we express it in words and in deeds.” —St. John (Maximovitch) of Shanghai and San Francisco
“Orthodoxy is what Christ taught, the apostles preached, and the Fathers kept.” —St. Athanasius of Alexandria
“Never, never, never let anyone tell you that, in order to be Orthodox, you must also be eastern. The West was Orthodox for a thousand years, and her venerable liturgy is far older than any of her heresies.” —St. John (Maximovitch) of Shanghai and San Francisco
“There is nothing impossible unto those who believe; lively and unshaken faith can accomplish great miracles in the twinkling of an eye. Besides, even without our sincere and firm faith, miracles are accomplished, such as the miracles of the sacraments; for God's Mystery is always accomplished, even though we were incredulous or unbelieving at the time of its celebration. 'Shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?' (Rom. 3:3). Our wickedness shall not overpower the unspeakable goodness and mercy of God; our dullness shall not overpower God's wisdom, nor our infirmity God's omnipotence.” —St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ
“Unbelief is an evil offspring of an evil heart; for the guileless and pure of heart discovers God everywhere, everywhere discerns Him, and always unhesitatingly believes in His existence.” —St. Nectarios of Aegina
“If he seeks answers to questions related to his faith, his purpose in life, he will find happiness.” —Elder Justin (Pârvu) of Romania
“I guard you in advance against beasts in the form of men, whom you must not only not receive, but if it is possible not even meet, but only pray for them, if perchance they may repent…” —St. Ignatius of Antioch
“Until you have eradicated evil, do not obey your heart; for it will seek more of what it already contains within itself.” —St. Mark the Ascetic
“Whatever of that which is best has flowed into the heart, we should not pour out without need; for that which has been gathered can be free of danger from visible and invisible enemies only when it is guarded in the interior of the heart.” —St. Seraphim of Sarov
“The one who has not yet obtained divine knowledge activated by love makes a lot of the religious works he performs. But the one who has been deemed worthy to obtain this says with conviction the words which the patriarch Abraham spoke when he was graced with the divine appearance, ‘I am but earth and ashes.’” —St. Maximus the Confessor
“Do not say that ‘mere faith in our Lord Jesus Christ can save me.’ For this is impossible unless you acquire love for him through works. For in what concerns mere believing, ‘even the devils believe and tremble.’” —St. Maximus the Confessor
“We see the water of a river flowing uninterruptedly and passing away, and all that floats on its surface, rubbish or beams of trees, all pass by. So does our life. I was an infant, and that time has gone. I was an adolescent, and that too has passed. I was a young man, and that too is far behind me. The strong and mature man that I was is no more. My hair turns white, I succumb to age, but that too passes; I approach the end and will go the way of all flesh. I was born in order to die. I die that I may live. Remember me, O Lord, in Thy Kingdom!” —St. Tikhon of Voronezh
“I saw the snares that the enemy spreads out over the world and I said groaning, "What can get through from such snares?" Then I heard a voice saying to me, "Humility."” —St. Anthony the Great
“Wouldst thou comprehend the height of God? First comprehend the lowliness of God. Condescend to be humble for thine own sake, seeing that God condescended to be humble for thy sake too, for it was not for his own.” —St. Augustine
“The greatness of a man consisteth of humility, for in proportion as a man descendeth to humility, he becometh exalted to greatness.” —Paradise of the Holy Fathers, Vol. 2
“This is the wisdom and power of God: to be victorious through weakness, exalted through humility, rich through poverty.” —St. Gregory Palamas
“You will lose nothing of what you have renounced for the Lord’s sake. For in its own time it will return to you greatly multiplied.” —St. Mark the Ascetic
“Where can I flee? A place cannot save you because there is no place you can flee from yourself.” —St. Nikon of Optina
“A life lived in the world can be as good, in the eyes of God, as one spent in a monastery. It is indeed only the keeping of God's commandments, love of all, and a true sense of humility that matter, wherever we are.” —Elder Macarius of Optina
"The higher a person’s position in society the more he should help others without ever reminding them of his position.” —Tsar St. Nicholas II
“If you want your sins to be absolved by Christ, then don't speak to others about any virtue that you may have, because God will treat our sins the same way we treat our virtues.” —St. Mark the Ascetic
“If any man is able in power to continue in purity, to the honour of the flesh of our Lord, let him continue so without boasting; if he boasts, he is undone; if he become known apart from the bishop, he has destroyed himself.” —St. Ignatius of Antioch
“Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.” —C. S. Lewis
“The heart of a perfectly healthy man becomes weakened for faith and love to God and his neighbor, and easily gives itself up to carnal desires: to slothfulness, negligence, coldness, gluttony, avarice, fornication, pride. Whilst the heart of a sick man, or a wounded, oppressed, weary heart, is strengthened in faith, hope, and love, and is far removed from carnal passions. This is why the Heavenly Father, Who careth for our salvation, chastises us by various sicknesses. The oppression and afflictions of sickness make us turn again to God.” —St. John of Kronstadt
“Suffering reminds the wise man of God, but crushes those who forget Him.” —St. Mark the Ascetic
“What should not be heard by little ears, should not be said by big mouths.” —unknown
“I am incurably convinced that the object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.” —G. K. ChesteronChesterton
“What is slander? It is every sort of wicked word we would dare not speak in front of the person whom we are complaining about.” —St. Anthony the Great
“It is not then wealth that is the foundation of pleasure, nor poverty of sadness, but our own judgment and the fact that the eyes of our mind neither see clearly nor remain fixed in one place, but flutter abroad.” —St. John Chrysostom
“One who knows oneself, knows God: and one who knows God is worthy to worship Him as is right. Therefore, my beloveds in the Lord, know yourselves.” –St. Anthony the Great
“In whatever state a person is, he sometimes finds himself making pure and intense prayers. For even from that first and lowest sort, which has to do with recalling the future judgment, the one who is still subject to the punishment of terror and the fear of judgment is occasionally so struck with compunction that he is filled with no less joy of spirit from the richness of his supplication than the one who, examining the kindnesses of God and going over them in the purity of his heart, dissolves into unspeakable gladness and delight. For, according to the words of the Lord, the one who realizes that more has been forgiven him begins to love more.” —St. John Cassian
“The pure heart sees God as in a mirror.” —Abba Philemon
“The blessedness of seeing God is justly promised to the pure of heart. For the eye that is unclean would not be able to see the brightness of the true light, and what would be happiness to clear minds would be a torment to those that are defiled. Therefore, let the mists of worldly vanities be dispelled, and the inner eye be cleansed of all the filth of wickedness, so that the soul's gaze may feast serenely upon the great vision of God.” —St. Leo the Great
“God rests within gentle hearts. The gentle and merciful shall sit fearless in His regions, and will inherit Heavenly glory.” —St. John Climacus
“We don't understand that happiness is in eternity and not in vanity.” —Elder Paisios of Mt. Athos
“Why do you beat the air and run in vain? Every occupation has a purpose, obviously. Tell me then, what is the purpose of all the activity of the world? Answer, I challenge you! It is vanity of vanity: all is vanity.” —St. John Chrysostom
“The sun shines on all alike, and vainglory beams on all activities. For instance, I am vainglorious when I fast; and when I relax the fast in order to be unnoticed, I am again vainglorious over my prudence. When well-dressed I am quite overcome by vainglory, and when I put on poor clothes I am vainglorious again. When I talk I am defeated, and when I am silent I am again defeated by it. However I throw this prickly-pear, a spike stands upright.” —St. John Climacus
“At meals don't speak about food: that's vulgar and unworthy of you. Speak about something noble -- of the soul or of the mind -- and you will have dignified this duty.” —St. Josemaria Escriva
“When someone learns to acknowledge every man as being better than himself, then he has attained humility.” —St. Sisoes the Great
“It is a spiritual gift from God for a man to perceive his sins.” —St. Isaac the Syrian
“So in every test, let us say: "Thank you, my God, because this was needed for my salvation."” —Elder Paisios of Mount Athos
“Only the benumbed soul doesn't pray. Preserve in yourselves the feeling of need, and you will always have stimulation for prayer.” —St. Theophan the Recluse
“Make sure that you do not limit your prayer merely to a particular part of the day. Turn to prayer at anytime.” —St John Chrysostom
“When you meet with suffering, contempt, the Cross, your thought should be: what is this compared with what I deserve?” —St. Josemaria Escriva
“Behold, for years and generations, the way of God has been leveled by the cross and by death. How is this with thee, that thou seest the afflictions of the way as if they were out of the way? Doest not thou wish to follow the steps of the saints? Or doest thou wish to go a way which is especially for thee, without suffering? The way unto God is a daily cross. No one can ascend unto heaven with comfort, we know where the way of comfort leads.” —St. Isaac the Syrian, Mystic Treatises, Homily LIX
“Understand two thoughts, and fear them. One says, 'You are a saint,' the other, 'You won't be saved.' Both of these thoughts are from the enemy, and there is no truth in them. But think this way: I am a great sinner, but the Lord is merciful. He loves people very much, and He will forgive my sins.” —St. Silouan the Athonite
“If a wise man contends with a foolish man,
Whether the fool rages or laughs, there is no peace.” —Proverbs 29:9
“Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. … I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and indeed, all is vanity and grasping for the wind.” Ecclesiastes 1:2,14
“The work of righteousness will be peace,
“But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving of stripes, shall be beaten with few. For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more.” —Luke 12:48
“Then Abraham answered and said, "Indeed ‘Indeed now, I who am but dust and ashes have taken it upon myself to speak to the Lord."” ’” —Genesis 18:27 “The centurion answered and said, ‘Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof. But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed.’” —Matthew 8:8 “And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’” —Luke 18:13
“This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.” —1 Timothy 1:15
“And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.” —Ephesians 5:11
“What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” —James 2:14-17
“Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for a tree is known by its fruit. Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things.” —Matthew 12:33-35
“Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” —1 Corinthians 1:10
“Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” —Hebrews 4:14-16
“Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.
And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.” —Ephesians 1:15-23
“…endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism;” —Ephesians 4:3-5
