Reading the Scriptures and the Holy Fathers

What you read also has an impact on the way you think. So does what you watch on TV or at the movies. You want to think about what you want to let into your mind to influence your thinking. Your reading should be something that will be a positive impact on your spiritual growth.

To maximize the positive aspects you should plan to make time to regularly read the Holy Scriptures, the writings of the Holy Fathers and the lives of the Saints. You should organize your life so that you can spend at least a half hour a day for this task. Often a good time for this is in the evening just before bedtime and after your evening prayer. When you do this you will then fall asleep with these sweet thoughts in your mind.

The spiritual life is challenging. It is like an ascent up a steep slope or mountain side. It is a long and slow pathway with joyful moments along the way. As you move along the path you gain in strength and can begin to look back and reflect on how far you have come and yet still l see that you have much further to travel. As you gain in strength you will be able to face an ever more difficult terrain as well as the uncertainty of storms that you cannot predict. It is often a lonely path and at times it seems like you will never reach the summit.

As you face these difficulties the readings can inspire you with courage to continue along the path. You can see that others have traveled this path before you and with persistence and faith have reached much higher heights than you can even see. As you turn to those who had an intimate relationship with God, they will give you hope and kindle a spark of warmth in your heart. They will help you keep your head high and your eyes fixed on the summit ahead. They will show you that your capacity to choose, to change, and to endure is a reality. They will show you the way to wisdom and love and the potential to be able to radiate spiritual glory as you discover the uncreated light of God and find yourself in glorious union with Him.

source: http://www.stgeorgegreenville.org/TenPointProgram/Reading%20Scriptures.html

Prayer Rule

A prayer rule is the outline of our daily prayer routine. It is important to have a thought out rule. Casually going to your place for prayer and simply talking with God is not the best way to begin to develop your prayer life. We will find that we end up babbling in front of our God. We can take advantage of the centuries of wisdom and being by using proven prayers that will lift us up in our way of communicating with God.

A prayer rule should first specify the place and time of prayer.
Then it should outline the sequence of your prayers and the specific prayers you will say.

To read more visit: http://www.orthodoxprayer.org/Prayer%20Rule.html

Orthodox Prayer: Daily Prayer, Jesus Prayer, Lord's Prayer, Prayer Rule, Articles and Books, Prayers for All Occasions; Praying to Saints

Orthodox Prayer: Daily Prayer, Jesus Prayer, Lord's Prayer, Prayer Rule, Articles and Books, Prayers for All Occasions; Praying to Saints: "Prayer is the elevation of the mind and the heart to God in praise, in thanksgiving, and in petition for the spiritual and material goods we need. Our Lord Jesus Christ commanded us to enter into our inner room and there pray to God the Father in secret. This inner room means the heart, the core of our being.

The Apostle Paul says that we must always pray in our spirit. He commands prayer for all Christians without exception and asks us to pray unceasingly.

Orthodox Christians engage in both corporate and personal prayer. One’s individual prayer life is balanced with participation in the liturgical services of the Church where the whole community gathers for prayer and worship"

This is a great site to learn more about Orthodox prayer...a site to visit often

Are Orthodox Books Always Orthodox?

Where do people get the information about the Orthodox Church and how correct are these sources? Archbishop LAZAR discusses this in this video.

Patriarch's Message for the Day of the Protection of the Environment

Message from Patriarch BARTHOLOMEW on this day of prayer for our
environment:

As we come again to the changing of the Church year, we reflect once more on
the state of God's creation. We think about the past and repent for all that
we have done or failed to do for the earth's care; we look to the future and
pray for wisdom to guide us in all that we think or do.

These last twelve months have been a time of great uncertainty for the whole
world. The financial systems that so many people trusted to bring them the
good things of life, have brought instead fear, uncertainty and poverty. Our
globalised economy has meant that everyone - even the poorest who are far
removed from the dealings of big business - has been affected.

The present crisis offers an opportunity for us to deal with the problems in
a different way, because the methods that created these problems cannot
provide their best solution. We need to bring love into all our dealings,
the love that inspires courage and compassion. Human progress is not just
the accumulation of wealth and the thoughtless consumption of the earth's
resources. The way that the present crisis has been dealt with has revealed
the values of the few who are shaping the destiny of our society; of those
who can find vast sums of money to support the financial system that has
betrayed them, but are not willing to allot even the least portion of that
money to remedy the piteous state the creation has been reduced to because
of these very values, or for feeding the hungry of the world, or for
securing safe drinking water for the thirsty, who are also victims of those
values. On the face of every hungry child is written a question for us, and
we
must not turn away to avoid the answer. Why has this happened? Is it a
problem of human inability or of human will?

We have rendered the Market the centre of our interest, our activities and,
finally, of our life, forgetting that this choice of ours will affect the
lives of future generations, limiting the number of their choices that would
probably be more oriented towards the well-being of man as well as the
creation. Our human economy, which has made us consumers, is failing. The
divine economy, which has made us in the image of the loving Creator, calls
us to love and care for all creation. The image we have of ourselves is
reflected in the way we treat the creation. If we believe that we are no
more than consumers, then we shall seek fulfilment in consuming the whole
earth; but if we believe we are made in the image of God, we shall act with
care and compassion, striving to become what we are created to be.

Let us pray for God's blessing on the United Nations Climate Change
Conference in Copenhagen in December, so that the industrially developed
countries may co-operate with developing countries in reducing harmful
polluting emissions, that there may exist the will to raise and manage
wisely the funds required for the necessary measures, and that all may work
together to ensure that our children enjoy the goods of the earth that we
leave behind for them. There must be justice and love in all aspects of
economic activity; profit; and especially short-term profit; cannot and
should not be the sole motive of our actions.

Let us all renew our commitment to work together and bring about the changes
we pray for, to reject everything that is harming the creation, to alter the
way we think and thus drastically to alter the way we live.

September 1st, 2009 A.D.
Your beloved brother in Christ and
fervent supplicant before God,
+ BARTHOLOMEW of Constantinople

Ancient faith of their Middle East fathers

Guardian Weekly reader Catherine Ann Lombard writes on a visit to Mor Ephrem, the Syrian Orthodox Monastery at the far eastern border of the Netherlands and meets 45 boys who are learning to read and chant in kthobonoyo, the litur­gical language that only about 300 people in the world speak today

Tuesday September 1st 2009

An orthodox nun. Photograph: Petros Karadjias/AP

The morning is hot and sticky, but I have promised Dayrayto Shmuni to help in the monastery kitchen and put on my long-sleeved T-shirt. How the nun manages during the summer months in her long black habit and cowl is a miracle. After a short bike ride through the wooded fields, I walk into the kitchen that is bustling with women and the sounds of Aramaic.

I am on the far eastern border of the Netherlands, but I might as well be in southeastern Turkey. The madrashto, or summer school, is in session at Mor Ephrem, the Syrian Orthodox Monastery, and 45 hungry boys will be lining up after the midday prayer for lunch. My husband works as a teacher for the church and so I volunteered to help.

With only a few words in Aramaic, the ancient language that Jesus spoke, I spend these mornings chopping vegetables and washing pots and pans. It is Wednesday, which is a fasting day, so the menu is simple. Baked potatoes, lentil soup, sesame-covered rolls, fish cakes, pickled vegetables, and melon. No meat, eggs, milk products or sweets.

The boys are all Dutch, learning to read and chant in kthobonoyo, the litur­gical language that only about 300 people in the world speak today. Their parents are immigrants, having fled the Turkish government and Kurds in the 1970s and 80s, leaving their homes and farmlands in Tur Abdin. Others escaped from Iran and Syria, and, recently, from Iraq. They are a complex diaspora community of 300,000 worldwide, only united by their Aramaic dialect and Christian faith. As man in his 30s told me, “We have no land. We have no ­nation. We only have the church. Without it, we are left with no identity.”

One of the women is now humming a chant; the window is open and I can hear some of the boys chanting as they sit outside. I am slicing melon and its juicy sweetness makes my mouth ­water. We women will eat only after all the teachers, priests, monks, boys and archbishop have finished their meal, which is eaten in silence. I steal a piece of melon and hurry to finish my task before the chapel bell rings, calling us to prayer.

Afterwards, I have to remind myself that I am in the Netherlands. What will happen to all this as the newer generations become more European? How will this refuge of ancient Christian life survive in our secular world?

source: http://www.guardianweekly.co.uk/?page=editorial&id=1231&catID=23

Christ And The One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church

The first Orthodox Faith Seminar of 2008 was conducted at St Gregorios Orthodox Cathedral in Bellwood, IL on January 12, 2008. The guest speaker for the topic of Christ and the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church was Mr. Tenny Thomas, Director of FOCUS for the American Diocese of the Malankara Syrian Orthodox Church.

The PDF associated to this Seminar is located here: http://stmaryscathedral.net/downloads...

You can listen and watch to his talk in this video.