Pride month is so clearly a symptom of a hideous disease.

We Americans have a shallow understanding of what "freedom" is. Christ and His Church offer the only path to true freedom and it is most certainly a narrow one.

"Sickened by the swells of the cares of life, sinking with my fellow seafarers, the sins, and thrown overboard to the soul-corrupting monster, like Jonas, O Christ, I cry to Thee: Lead me up out of the deadly deep." (Ode Six Heirmos, Monday of Pentecost)

The Threefold Work of the Holy Spirit Monday - after Pentecost Comforting His disciples, the Lord tells them that it is better for them that He ascend into heaven. For after ascending, He will send in His place the Comforter—the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit descended and abides in the Church, carrying out the work of Christ in every believer. Every Christian is a partaker of the Spirit. This is so essential that it can be said that whoever does not have the Spirit does not belong to Christ. Examine yourself carefully and determine whether the Spirit of grace is within you. For He does not remain with everyone. It can happen that He departs. Consider this: first comes the spirit of repentance, teaching the Christian to turn to God and amend his life. Having completed its work, the spirit of repentance hands the Christian over to the spirit of light and purity, which is then followed by the spirit of adoption. The characteristic of the first is diligent zeal; of the second, warmth and the sweet burning of the heart; and of the third, the sense of sonship, by which sighs arise from the heart toward God: “Abba, Father!” See on which of these stages you stand. If you find yourself on none of them, then take care and labor diligently for your soul. ☦️St. Theophan the Recluse - Thoughts for Every Day of the Year

👀😍

Newrome Press

Holy Bible Reader's Edition

The Holy Bible Reader's Edition includes the Lexham English Language Septuagint (complete) with the Eastern / Orthodox (EOB) New Testament. T...

First Fr. Josiah and now Fr. De Young.... Glory to God! The Tucker Carlson Show: The Secret History of Biblical Giants, Demons, and the Advanced Civilizations Before the Great Flood Starting from: 00:00:00 Episode webpage: http://www.tuckercarlson.com/ Media file: https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pdst.fm/e/chrt.fm/track/384D27/mgln.ai/e/101/pscrb.fm/rss/p/clrtpod.com/m/traffic.megaphone.fm/TCN3351548116.mp3#t=0

Jonathan Pageau recently on X (I'm not over there, but this was sent to me). Following a bit of the Protestant polemics against Orthodoxy recently, and I realize just how difficult it is to communicate the mind of the Church across these lines. A simple example is seeing people confused about whether someone who is not baptised and participating in Orthodox communion can be "saved". Protestant are noticing that there are different answers in their estimation, and so are confused about them. The confusion comes from the belief that being "saved" or not is about "where you go after you die", when for the Orthodox "saved" means being made whole, being healed, being restored to the original purpose God had for us. For this reason, when Protestants see declarations of how communion in the body of Christ is the only way to salvation, they immediately think this is a declaration that all the non-Orthodox are going to hell after they die. When Protestants then hear the very same person who just told them that salvation is in full participation to the body of Christ go on to intimate we have nothing to say about the eschatological finality of any specific soul, it is like a short circuit that many Protestants cannot compute. This is what I could see when @OrthodoxEthos and @Acts17David were discussing and it is what I have seen in @gavinortlund 's videos. In a similar vein, when a Protestant says he has the "assurance of his own personal salvation", this is confusing to the Orthodox. Orthodox also obviously have assurance of salvation, that assurance is Christ. He shows us what it means to be made whole and makes us participate in that wholeness. But how can I say that I am "saved" if I see that I am still a wretch, still prideful and arrogant and sinful? So the Orthodox, knowing they are are still sinning, though also knowing Christ has made them grow in the virtues will say something like: "I know that I am being saved." That is I can see that I am being healed, being made whole, being reformed to the resemblence of God. But again, this completely confuses the Protestant who just wants to know what will happen when you die. What side of the fence will you end up on? I am not sure how to get accross these lines, and I feel that unless we can, we will perpetually be talking past each other.

👀 Oh boy

Uncut Mountain Press

The Homilies of Metropolitan Neophytos of Morphou, Vol. I – Uncut Mountain Press

From the day of Pentecost, the Gospel has spread not by “the sharing of the word” of Scripture, but through “the eyewitnesses of the Word.”...

The general gifts consist of the four elements and all that results from them, all the wonderful and awesome works of God outlined in Holy Scripture. The particular gifts are those gifts which God bestows upon every man individually, whether it be riches for the sake of charity, or poverty for the sake of patience with humility; whether it be authority for the sake of justice and the strengthening of virtues, or subjugation and slavery for the sake of the expeditious salvation of the soul; be it health for the sake of helping the infirm, or illness for the sake of the wreath of patience; be it understanding and skill in gaining wealth for the sake of virtue, or weakness and lack of skill for the sake of submissive humility. Even though they appear contrary to one another, all these are very good according to their purpose. ☦️St. Peter Damascene

-My baptismal name is John as his Gospel prologue was the last domino for me in my search for Truth. ☦️ Holy Apostle and Evangelist John The son of Zebedee and Salome, Saint John was called by Jesus Christ and immediately left his fishing nets and followed the Lord. From that day, John was with Him until the end. He witnessed the Transfiguration of the Lord and was present at the raising of Jairus' daughter. At the Last Supper, he inclined his head on Christ's chest and when all the other apostles had abandoned the crucified Lord, John remained beneath the Cross. He was entrusted to protect the Holy Virgin Mary until her Dormition and then, with his disciple Prochorus, taught the Gospel in the city of Ephesus. Bringing many to Christ through his miracles, he shook paganism to its roots. He was summoned to Rome and tortured by Emperor Domitian, but neither poison nor boiling oil harmed him. Exiled to the island of Patmos, the beloved Theologian wrote his Gospel and Revelation. The only apostle to not be martyred, Saint John's death is shrouded in mystery. When Emperor Constantine opened his tomb - it was empty.

This excerpt goes HARD. The man who has withdrawn from the world in order to shake off his own burden of sins, should imitate those who sit outside the city amongst the tombs, and should not discontinue his hot and fiery streams of tears and voiceless heartfelt groanings until he, too, sees that Jesus has come to him and rolled away the stone of hardness from his heart, and loosed Lazarus, that is to say, our mind, from the bands of sin, and ordered His attendant angels: Loose him (cf John 11:44) from passions, and let him go to blessed dispassion. Otherwise he will have gained nothing. Those of us who wish to go out of Egypt and to fly from Pharaoh, certainly need some Moses as a mediator with God and from God, who, standing between action and contemplation, will raise hands of prayer for us to God, so that guided by Him we may cross the sea of sin and rout the Amalek of the passions (Exodus 17). That is why those who have surrendered themselves to God, deceive themselves if they suppose that they have no need of a director. Those who came out of Egypt had Moses as their guide, and those who fled from Sodom had an angel. The former are like those who are healed of the passions of the soul by the care of physicians: these are they who come out of Egypt. The latter are like those who long to put off the uncleanness of the wretched body. That is why they need a helper, an angel, so to speak, or at least one equal to an angel. For in proportion to the corruption of our wounds we need a director who is indeed an expert and a physician. Those who aim at ascending with the body to heaven, need violence indeed and constant suffering especially in the early stages of their renunciation, until our pleasure-loving dispositions and unfeeling hearts attain to love of God and chastity by visible sorrow. A great toil, very great indeed, with much unseen suffering, especially for those who live carelessly, until by simplicity, deep angerlessness and diligence, we make our mind, which is a greedy kitchen dog addicted to barking, a lover of chastity and watchfulness. But let us who are weak and passionate have the courage to offer our infirmity and natural weakness to Christ with unhesitating faith, and confess it to Him; and we shall be certain to obtain His help, even beyond our merit, if only we unceasingly go right down to the depth of humility. ☦️Saint John Climacus

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