TIMES OF KATHANAR -Desert Fr.Ji: September 2018

TIMES OF KATHANAR -Desert Fr.Ji: "Where there is neither illness, no sorrow, no sig...

TIMES OF KATHANAR -Desert Fr.Ji: "Where there is neither illness, no sorrow, no sig...: In an ancient folk legend, it is said that in times gone by, swallows did not know how to move to warm regions in the col...

"Where there is neither illness, no sorrow, no sighing."

In an ancient folk legend, it is said that in times gone by, swallows did not know how to move to warm regions in the cold season.

And, when the snow fell and frost hit, they severely suffered and died. Seeing this, one compassionate man took pity on them and began to do everything that he knew and knew in order to teach the swallows to fly to the south.

He gave them signs - the swallows did not understand them, he beckoned to them with food towards the south - did not help, frightened and drove them - in vain. Nothing happened to him.

Then he began to pray to God that He would make him a swallow.

God fulfilled his desire and turned a man into a swallow who could think and feel like a man.

Then the swallow man easily explained himself with the swallows and led them away in the warmer autumn.

Since then, the swallows have learned to fly to the south. Of course, this is only a poetic fiction.

But let him help us, at least to some extent, understand how the eternal Wisdom, born of eternal Love, incarnated and became a Man among people, to be led, by the earthly bitterness, to a new path, to warmer lands, in the The Kingdom of God:

"Where there is neither illness, no sorrow, no sighing."

But even in the small, human body, the great Lord remained Jehovah, Unchanging, Eternal. Always the way He was from eternity in the boundlessness of His Kingdom and His ineffable glory.

TIMES OF KATHANAR -Desert Fr.Ji: Sickness and Pain are a gift of God:

TIMES OF KATHANAR -Desert Fr.Ji: Sickness and Pain are a gift of God:: In the Kalyva of Saint Chrysostomos of the Skete of Koutloumousiou of the Monastery of Saint Panteleimon on Mount At...

Sickness and Pain are a gift of God:

In the Kalyva of Saint Chrysostomos of the Skete of Koutloumousiou of the Monastery of Saint Panteleimon on Mount Athos, there lived years ago Monk Daniel who for 20 years was sick and had headaches and backaches, kidney and heart problems, leg problems and pain sometimes throughout his entire body.

Many times he travelled to doctors and received numerous X-ray examinations and radiographies, but the outcome was always the same. The doctors could not find any physical explanation for his sickness.

Yet Monk Daniel continued to suffer his sicknesses and there was not a physician or scientist to be found that could help him.

One 27th of July, during the vigil of Saint Panteleimon, brother Daniel prayed with tears in his eyes and pleaded with Saint Panteleimon saying: "Saint of God and protector of our Skete, you who are a physician and for the love of Christ was martyred and spilled your blood, show your love and plead to the Master Christ to grant me health, so that with health I could glorify His name and psalmodize during the vigils."

Having said this, Monk Daniel grew a bit tired and took some sleep. He then in a vision saw Saint Panteleimon kneeling before the throne of God pleading for the health of Daniel. Monk Daniel heard the Master Christ say to Saint Panteleimon: "My brother Great-Martyr Panteleimon, do you think you are more compassionate than me?

do you think you love humanity more than me?

I understand that out of love for me you spilled your blood, but did I not also spill mine and daily spill my blood for the salvation of people's souls? Learn that it is my will in which it happens many times for the body to suffer in order for the soul to be saved. This is how I want many people to be saved."

When brother Daniel heard this he awoke and glorified the name of God, thanked Saint Panteleimon for his effort and mediation, and immediately, as the same monk related, a great burden was lifted off of him and related that we must endure with patience, joy and thanksgiving the cross and situation of our sicknesses.

TIMES OF KATHANAR -Desert Fr.Ji: The Elevation of the Precious Cross

TIMES OF KATHANAR -Desert Fr.Ji: The Elevation of the Precious Cross: The Lord’s Precious Cross is the supreme symbol of sacrifice and sanctification for the Church of Christ, Who was crucified and then r...

The Elevation of the Precious Cross

The Lord’s Precious Cross is the supreme symbol of sacrifice and sanctification for the Church of Christ, Who was crucified and then rose, because the Cross, together with the Resurrection, are the two pillars which support the life for the Church and its members.

The honour paid by the Orthodox Church to the Precious Cross on 14 September (though not only on that day) began in the very first, Apostolic years, through the Apostles themselves and the Fathers who followed them. Today, the Orthodox Church preserves intact the Biblical (Old Testament and New) and Patristic teaching and accords the Cross of Christ due honour as the outstanding instrument and symbol of the redemption of the human race.

In 326, after the 1st Ecumenical Synod, Helen, the mother of Constantine the Great, went to the Holy Land, where she began the construction of fine churches in those places at which, according to tradition, events linked to the presence of the Lord on earth and other Biblical occurrences had taken place. Central among them was the Lord’s Holy Sepulchre. During the second destruction of Jerusalem, in 135, the emperor Hadrian had built a temple to Aphrodite on this spot. He’d earthed over the sites of Golgotha and the tomb in order to prevent Christians visiting them. Saint Helen engaged in endeavours to discover the Precious Cross. After painstaking excavations, they finally found three crosses: the Lord’s and those of the robbers. Then according to Church tradition, Bishop Makarios of Jerusalem, having first said a prayer, touched the body of a dead woman with all three crosses. When the third cross, the Lord’s, was laid on her, she revived.

According to Church tradition, Saint Helen embraced the Cross immediately after its discovery and gave it over to Bishop Makarios. The news spread to all parts of Jerusalem. A whole host of believers crowded to touch the Precious Cross, but because of the sheer weight of numbers, the bishop raised the Cross on high and blessed those present with it. On the same day, we celebrate the second Elevation of the Cross, which occurred a few years later, in 335, the day after the inauguration of the church of the Resurrection.

Finally, on this same day, the Church records a third and final Elevation of the Precious Cross in the year 630. At that time, Emperor Heraclius was fighting the Persians who, 14 years previously, had conquered Palestine and made off with the Precious Cross. After Heraclius had defeated the Persians and regained the Cross, he set it up on the throne of Patriarch Zachariah, who’d been captured by the Persians. On September 14 he came to Jerusalem bearing the Cross upon his shoulders. When he reached the church of the Resurrection, he gave it over to the now restored Patriarch Zachariah, who raised it to show to the crowds and bless them. As he did so he sang ‘Lord save your people…’, the first time the troparion had been sung.

Ecclesiastical history sources mention that the feast of the Elevation was established long ago, perhaps even by Constantine the Great, at the exhortation of his mother, immediately after the discovery of the Precious Cross in Jerusalem in about 330, and in combination with the feast commemorating the inauguration of the church of the Resurrection on 13 May, in the year 335.

The Church honours the holy day of the Elevation of the Lord’s Cross in a particular way. During the Divine Liturgy, the Epistle reading concerns the importance of the Lord’s sacrifice on the Cross, while the Gospel describes scenes of the crucifixion. Moreover, the day has been declared a strict fast (without wine or oil), unless it falls on a Saturday or Sunday), because of Christ’s sacrifice, making it equal to Great Friday.

At this point, it’s worth noting the connection between the feast of the Transfiguration and that of the Elevation of the Precious Cross. The Transfiguration took place 40 days before the Lord’s passion, but we celebrate it on August 6, because it would have been difficult to celebrate a fest day of the Lord within the solemn period of Great Lent. Since, as we’ve just said, the feast of the Elevation of the Precious Cross is equal to Great Friday, the feast of the Transfiguration was fixed as being forty days before it.

On the occasion of the discovery and elevation of the Lord’s Precious Cross, the Church shows all of us the way of life we should be leading. So that we can be crucified together with Christ and then raised. We should draw strength and grace from this. Christ’s Cross is a symbol of obedience, humility, and love, it’s the sign of victory over hatred, self-centredness, sin, the passions and egotism.

Let us also struggle, insofar as we can, to imitate Him and obey Him. Imitate His humility His obedience and also His love, which was the same for everyone, for His disciples and for those who crucified Him and which remained with Him on the Cross. Let us pass the remaining time of our life in peace and repentance.