'You will love Him alone...'

Dear Parish Faithful,

GREAT LENT - The Nineteenth Day

"You will love Him alone, and to him alone you will offer worship with all your mind, heart, and strength, and His words and commandments will be in your heart, so that you practice and study them, and speak about them with others."

- St. Gregory Palamas

 

 

 

St Gregory Palamas: On God's providence

Dear Parish Faithful,

GREAT LENT - The Seventeenth Day

 

"We can free ourselves more easily from passions that are a matter of our own volition than from those rooted in nature. It is disbelief in God's providence that makes it difficult for us to eradicate the passions that arise from our love of possessions, for such disbelief leads us to put our trust in material riches. ...

 

"Yet when wealth comes, it proves itself to be nothing, since its possessors, unless they are brought to their senses by experience, still thirst after it as though they lacked it. This love that is no love does not come from need; rather the need arises from the love. The love itself arises from folly, the same folly that led Christ, the Master of all, justly to describe as foolish the man who pulled down his barns and built greater ones (Lk. 12:18-20). ...

 

"The truth is that people are frightened of being poor because they have no faith in Him who promised to provide all things needful to those who seek the Kingdom of God (Matt. 6:33)."

 

- St. Gregory Palamas (+1359)

 

 

 

'The most excellent of God's acts...'

Dear Parish Faithful,

 

GREAT LENT - The Sixteenth Day

 

"When the Lord became man, the most excellent of God's acts was completed indeed. For although every prior act that God providentially accomplished on our behalf was fine and good, and straining towards this end, the most excellent act of all, or rather the only one that is excellent beyond compare, is the act of our Lord Jesus Christ becoming man, an act whose end was the saving Passion and Resurrection."

 

- St. Gregory Palamas (+1359)

 

 

 

Victory over the Passions

Dear Parish Faithful,

 

GREAT LENT - The fifteenth day

 

"For us, the beginning of this imitation (of Christ) is Holy Baptism, a type of the Lord's Burial and Resurrection. The mean is the life of virtue according to the Gospel. The end is the victory over the passions through spiritual struggles, a victory that introduces us to the painless, imperishable and heavenly life."

 

St. Gregory Palamas (+1359)

 

 

Who is St. Gregory Palamas? - Yesterday, on the Second Sunday of Great Lent, we commemorated the "towering figure" of St. Gregory Palamas. And yet, the question remains: just how many of today's Orthodox faithful are aware of St. Gregory? Trying to help make him a "household name" - in least in Orthodox homes - I focused on St. Gregory in the homily and post-Liturgy discussion. That was at best an introduction.To further that effort, I am providing a link to a good summary of his life that includes some of the major theological issues that he responded so brilliantly to. Please make the effort to read about this great saint who is one of our great teachers about prayer and life in Christ:

 

https://oca.org/saints/lives/2018/03/04/12-2nd-sunday-of-great-lent-st-gregory-palamas

 

We commemorated St. Gregory on  the same day that the Academy Awards were taking place, and Oscars were being handed out. If we happen to know some of those "stars" who entertain us so well, perhaps we can also know this saint who initiates us into the mysteries of Christ so well.

 

 

'The person I love the least...'

Dear Parish Faithful,

GREAT LENT - The Twelfth Day

"I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least."

- Dorothy Day, journalist and activist