Be careful so that you don't hate those who don't believe. Pray to God for them... Look at them with compassion... Pray to God for them. Your first rule should be: pray to God for those who have fallen from faith.
Saint Nikolaj Velimirović
“Our Panagia doesn’t get tired of hearing our pain/struggles. How many times I pleaded to our Panagia for different problems and she heard me!”
“By the grace of the most holy Theotokos, there is no problem that cannot be solved.”
Saint Ephraim of Katounakia
@Nicholai_Korea@EliAyal17454205 [This distinction, while basic, can be too abstract when first encountered. It must be repeated and patiently explained over and over.]
“Salvation is understood not as justification attributed juridically to those who believe in God, or distributed by the Church from the deposit of created grace earned by Christ, but as a new life that shines forth directly from the sanctified and risen body in the members of Christ’s mystical body, which is the Church – that is, as an effect of the personal communion between the faithful and Christ. Thus salvation is not an external, juridical, and static position but a new quality in a continuous development of the human person.”
Saint Dumitru Staniloae, The Experience of God, Volume 5: The Sanctifying Mysteries, p. 126
@ryanalanstanley [Or, if love is fruit of the Spirit, and non-Christians love their children and others, does that fruit mean they too are in the Church?]
When God wants to have mercy on someone, He inspires others to pray for him and helps in that prayer. Therefore, it should be known that when the desire to pray for someone comes, it means that the Lord Himself wants to have mercy on that soul and graciously listens to your prayers.
St. Silouan of Athos
@patristicpill [Is there a link between the Prot doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture and overconfident private interpretations? If Scripture is clear and if a particular verse's meaning is clear to me, then my interpretation must be the true interpretation, right?]
In this video, Nun Maria (Litvinova) — a sister of our monastery — explains the meaning behind the prayer rope.
Discover the beauty of prayer ropes — or find your own — in our thoughtfully curated collection at the link: https://t.co/h5JASjX3wz
[Philosophy hat dusted off:
I would say, not that all knowledge is circular, but that, for man, knowledge is a major circular segment, an incomplete circle with a flat side; the flat side being self-evident truth upon which all else is based.]