Apostles Fast Meditation

In order to be able to see anything, the eye needs light. In order to see truths about God, ourselves, the world, we require light of another kind. The “enlightenment” of our minds depends on God. As the 20th-century monastic elder Sophrony tells us, “To apprehend sin in oneself is a spiritual act, impossible without grace, without the drawing near to us of divine Light. …”

Divine Light and the insight that it brings is a matter of gift; it is grace. My access to it doesn’t depend entirely on me. I can’t will it into existence. For that matter, I can’t save myself, I can’t have faith purely out of my own intellectual acumen. I can’t become virtuous purely out of my own willpower; I can’t come to a right understanding of myself and my sinfulness on my own. God grants these gifts.

I have to seek divine Light, and cooperate with it. I have to earnestly desire it. I have to pray about it and pray for it.

—Dr. Peter Bouteneff, How to Be a Sinner

Apostles Fast Meditation

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God is indivisible in Himself. When He comes, He comes wholly, as He is in His eternal Being. We do not contain Him. He reveals Himself to us at the “point” where we knock: “Knock, and it shall be opened unto you” (Lk. 11:9). He speaks in brief dicta but life is not long enough to uncover their full content.

Reverently we sense His Fatherhood, His clemency. We see that He hungers to communicate to us His eternal life; to have us attain the perfection of His Son, who is the equal mold of the Father. Incomprehensible is His design for us. From “nothing” He creates gods like Himself. And our whole being bows before Him—not in dread before the stern Master but in humble love for the Father.

—St. Sophrony, On Prayer: Reflections of a Modern Saint

Meditation for the Apostles Fast

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 “I AM THAT I AM.” It is impossible to detect the actual process of our inner growth. I think this may be because our spirit thirsts for “those things which cannot be shaken” (Heb. 12:27–28)—that are not subject to progression. A life of profound prayer is a combination of our natural upsurges towards the eternal Being and the eternal Being’s descent to us. When the one true God reveals Himself to us, we are introduced into the sphere of His Being and undergo a radical alteration in our whole self not to be defined in ordinary language. We are too circumscribed to contain the gift completely. Nevertheless, our heart experiences an indescribable harmony of love, and the mind falls silent, astounded by the inconceivable vision.

—St. Sophrony, On Prayer: Reflections of a Modern Saint

Lenten Meditation -- Sixth Tuesday of Great Lent

 

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“We know that the greater the love, the greater the sufferings of the soul,” said Staretz Silouan. The man to whom it has been given to feel Christ-like love is aware that such love moves the heart to wish everyone well, without exception. Such love is a life-giving fire. It is uncreated Light, and streams of energy beneficial for all mankind pour forth from him who possesses it. When it penetrates us it makes us Christ-like, and as it were naturally includes us in the sufferings of His love, which cannot bear to see man deprived of the highest good.

—St. Sophrony, On Prayer: Reflections of a Modern Saint

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These words of St. Sophrony are very valuable and timely today. We are currently being subjected - at least in "public discourse" - to a very aggressive and intolerant form of "Christianity," that does not "wish everyone well, without exception."  Rather, it detects "enemies" everywhere. When that happens there is a real shortage of compassion for the "other," and not the slighest care for those "deprived of the highest good." 

St. Sophrony is outlining the "Orthodox Way," and that is a "way" that can cause "the sufferings to the soul." It is a "way" that can only be cultivated through prayer, fasting and almsgiving, practiced with humility and our sense of being sinners redeemed by Christ on the Cross.

Nativity Meditation from SVOTS

 

True prayer to the true God is contact with the Divine Spirit which prays in us. The Spirit gives us to know God. The Spirit draws our spirit to contemplation of eternity. Like grace coming down from on High, the act of prayer is too much for our earthly nature and so our mortal body, incapable of rising into the spiritual sphere resists.

The intellect resists because it is incapable of containing infinity, is shaken by doubts, and rejects everything that exceeds its understanding. The social environment in which I live is antagonistic to prayer—it has organized life with other aims diametrically opposed to prayer.

Hostile spirits cannot endure prayer. But prayer alone can restore the created world from its fall, overcoming its stagnation and inertia, by means of a mighty effort of our spirit to follow Christ’s commandments.

+ St. Sophrony: On Prayer: Reflections of a Modern Saint

Meditation for the Apostles Fast - June 17, 2025

 

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God is indivisible in himself. When he comes, he comes wholly, as he is in his eternal Being. We do not contain him. He reveals himself to us at the “point” where we knock: “Knock, and it shall be opened unto you (Lk. 11.9). He speaks in brief dicta but life is not long enough to uncover their full content.

Reverently we sense his Fatherhood, his clemency. We see that he hungers to communicate to us his eternal life; to have us attain the perfection of his Son, who is the equal mold of the Father. Incomprehensible is his design for us. From “nothing” he creates gods like himself. And our whole being bows before him—not in dread before the stern Master but in humble love for the Father. 

—St. Sophrony, On Prayer: Reflections of a Modern Saint