"The goal of fasting is inner
unity."
- Thomas Merton
"To be alive spiritually man must have
union with God and must be conscious of it. Apart from this union his religious
life will be an empty drudgery, a mere imitation of true spirituality."
- Alan Watts, BEHOLD, THE SPIRIT
"The problem for and the function of
religion in this age is to awaken the heart. When the clergy do not or cannot
awaken the heart, that tells us that they are unable to interpret the symbols
through which they are supposed to enlighten and spiritually nourish their
people. When, instead, the clergy talk
of ethical and political problems, that constitutes a betrayal of the human
race. The substitution of social work, or heavy involvement in regulating the
intimate decisions of family life, has nothing to do with the real calling of
the clergy to open to their people the dimensions of the meaning of the Death,
Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus. These latter constitute a system of
symbols that works perfectly."
- Joseph Campbell
"You may have practical ethics and that
kind of thing, but there is no spirituality in any aspect of our Western
civilization. Our religious life is
ethical, not mystical. The mystery has gone and society is disintegrating as a
result."
- David Kudler
"The problem for and the function of
religion in this age is to awaken the heart. When the clergy do not or cannot
awaken the heart, that tells us that they are unable to interpret the symbols
through which they are supposed to enlighten and spiritually nourish their
people. When, instead, the clergy talk
of ethical and political problems, that constitutes a betrayal of the human
race. The substitution of social work, or heavy involvement in regulating the
intimate decisions of family life, has nothing to do with the real calling of
the clergy to open to their people the dimensions of the meaning of the Death,
Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus. These latter constitute a system of
symbols that works perfectly."
- Joseph Campbell
"The faith passes, so to speak, through
a distiller and becomes ideology. And ideology does not beckon [people]. In
ideologies there is not Jesus: in his tenderness, his love, his meekness. And
ideologies are rigid, always. Of every sign: rigid. And when a Christian
becomes a disciple of the ideology, he has lost the faith: he is no longer a
disciple of Jesus, he is a disciple of this attitude of thought… For this
reason Jesus said to them: ‘You have taken away the key of knowledge.’ The
knowledge of Jesus is transformed into an ideological and also moralistic
knowledge, because these close the door with many requirements.
... The faith becomes ideology and ideology
frightens, ideology chases away the people, distances, distances the people and
distances the Church from the people.
But it is a serious illness, this of ideological Christians. It is an illness,
but it is not new, eh? Already the Apostle John, in his first Letter, spoke of
this. Christians who lose the faith and prefer the ideologies. His attitude is:
be rigid, moralistic, ethical, but without kindness. This can be the question,
no? But why is it that a Christian can become like this? Just one thing: this
Christian does not pray. And if there is no prayer, you always close the
door."
The key that opens the door to the faith is
prayer.... When a Christian does not pray, this happens. And his witness is an
arrogant witness.... He who does not pray is arrogant, is proud, is sure of
himself. He is not humble. He seeks his own advancement. Instead, when a
Christian prays, he is not far from the faith; he speaks with Jesus."
- Pope Francis
"You cannot be too gentle, too kind.
Shun even to appear harsh in your treatment of each other. Joy, radiant joy,
streams from the face of him who gives and kindles joy in the heart of him who
receives. All condemnation is from the devil. Never condemn each other. We
condemn others only because we shun knowing ourselves. When we gaze at our own
failings, we see such a swamp that nothing in another can equal it. That is why
we turn away, and make much of the faults of others. Instead of condemning
others, strive to reach inner peace. Keep silent, refrain from judgment. This
will raise you above the deadly arrows of slander, insult and outrage and will
shield your glowing hearts against all evil."
- St Seraphim of Sarov
"Our job is to love others without
stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business
and, in fact, it is nobody's business. What we are asked to do is to love, and
this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy."
-Thomas Merton
"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. Christian! 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
As Girard writes in Hidden Things, "I
hold the truth is not an empty word, or a mere 'effect' as people say nowadays.
I hold that everything capable of diverting us from madness and death, from now
on, is inextricably linked with this truth."
According to Girard, the Bible shows that
violence does not come from God; rather, God sympathizes with victims. Seen
this way, the incarnation incarnates God in the person of Jesus, in order to
become himself a victim. God's only earthly throne is a cross. His only
"revenge" on his enemies is unconditional compassion and forgiveness.
This view is the opposite of satisfying the
blood lust of an angry god modeled on the pagan deities and the theological
theories of atonement. Rather, the Incarnation and Christ's murder points to
the futility of violence and to the path of salvation through all encompassing
empathy. Christ, in Girard's view, was not the ultimate sacrifice but a rebuke
by God of sacrificing anyone for anything... including some concept of
"truth."
Rather than demanding some sort of justice,
Christ sets the example of turning the other cheek. "Forgive them,"
he asks for his killers.
– Frank Schaeffer
No where does Jesus command us to rule like
autocrats forcing our views, morals and doctrines on anyone. If his kingdom
were of this world, then he would have done so. In fact, he resisted this
temptation in the wilderness when Satan showed him all the kingdoms of earth
and offered them to him to rule and we must also resist it. Because His kingdom
is not of this world He teaches the opposite way - the way of self-sacrifice
even to the point of death. If we follow
him, then we will not make demands on our neighbors. We do so out of fear and desire, the two
surest signs that we have not yet understood the Gospel.
– Fr. Antony
Do not ever close your mind or allow it to be
closed. St. Gregory of Nyssa says that "sin is the failure to grow."
Question, explore, think deeply, discover. The narrower the mind the easier it
is be fooled and to be controlled. The best definition of Orthodoxy is from Fr.
Alexander Elchaninov in THE DIARY OF A RUSSIAN PRIEST, "Orthodoxy is the
element of absolute freedom."
– Fr. Antony
"You must allow yourself to approach
silently nearer and nearer to yourself: the past, the present and the future in
this moment of silence... all the waters of your life which flow away and run
out and which are collected in the one basin of a heart aware of itself."
– Fr. Antony
"This 'closing off' that imagines that
those outside, everyone, cannot do good is a wall that leads to war and also to
what some people throughout history have conceived of: killing in the name of
God. That we can kill in the name of God. And that, simply, is blasphemy. To
say that you can kill in the name of God is blasphemy ... The Lord has redeemed
all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics.
Everyone! 'Father, the atheists?' Even the atheists. Everyone! ...
We all have a duty to do good. And this
commandment for everyone to do good, I think, is a beautiful path towards
peace. If we, each doing our own part, if we do good to others, if we meet
there, doing good, and we go slowly, gently, little by little, we will make
that culture of encounter: we need that so much. We must meet one another doing
good. ‘But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!’ But do good: we will meet
one another there."
– Pope Francis
The prayer of the faithful is, "Lord,
show me my delusion." The prayer of the faithless is, "Lord, give me
what I want." It is the faithless
that become extremists, not the faithful.
– Fr. Antony
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