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Reflections and Daily Inspiration
Abandoning Yourself for the Fullness of Life

This is what you should do: do not make tabernacles in which to lodge the Lord and the Prophets or devise theories in order to solve your problems, but believe in the God-man and abandon your whole self to Him, receiving strength and life. Because He is the vine and you are the branches (see Jn 15:5).

It is the free person who is genuine. And the free person is one who has willingly enslaved himself to the One. “It is the law also by will to be obedient to One” (Heraclitus, Fragment 33).

And the wholly pure person, “if that were ever rarely to happen” (FG. 69), is the one who is nonexistent [self-emptied]: the one who has had the daring to sacrifice everything, even his own self, for the One, “for the sake of the Lord and His gospel” (cf. Mk 8:35).

We can say that everyone is good, that they are well disposed, but everyone falls short. “They have all gone astray, they are all alike corrupt; there is none that does good, no, not one” (Ps 13:3).

You should dare to sacrifice everything. You should melt, you should arrive consciously at “non-being”; and out of that sacrifice should rise something different, eternal, something not constrained by corruption, by passing glory, or by your righteousness, which is “like a polluted garment” (Isa 64: 6). And this “something different,” something unfamiliar and alien to your own self [the old man] (which it may ignore and despise), is your true self and your real existence. After this total sacrifice, you should receive much more than you imagined or expected. When people die, things they did not hope for or expect await them.

“The godly Fathers who have ordered all things well” are at your side. Through the canons which they have laid down and their being, which they have sanctified, they help you discretely and steadfastly in progressing towards the ultimate goal: the sacrifice of everything, putting off the garments of skin, free­ing yourself from your will, losing your very soul, in order to find your soul by grace—a soul that has become a faculty of perception, as you sur­render yourself unconditionally to the will and love of God the Word, the Creator of all.
- Elder Vasileios  
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Welcome to the Orthodox Church! Join Frederica Mathewes-Green, in this video series, on a journey into the Eastern Orthodox Church. Learn about Orthodox teachings and dogma, Orthodox architecture and terminology, and what it means to live an Orthodox life.

In this video, "Why Do Orthodox Christians Repeat 'Lord Have Mercy'?" Frederica talks a little about why Orthodox Christians seem to always repeat three words.
FROM THE NEWS
SAINT OF THE DAY
April 29 / April 16

The Holy Virgin-martyrs Agape, Irene, and Chionia, in Illyria (304)

All three were sisters from the vicinity of Aquileia. When Emperor Diocletian was staying in Aquileia he ordered that the distinguished spiritual father Chrysogonus be killed. At that time an aged presbyter, Zoilus, had a vision in which the location of the unburied body of Chrysogonus was revealed. Hastening, the elder found the martyred body of Chrysogonus, placed it in a coffin and kept it in his home. Thirty days later, St. Chrysogonus appeared to him, informing him that, in the course of nine days, these three maidens would suffer martyrdom and that he, Zoilus, would also die at that time. The same news was received in a vision by Anastasia the Deliverer from Bonds (December 22), who was a disciple of Chrysogonus. Indeed, after nine days the Elder Zoilus died and these three sisters were brought to trial before the emperor. The emperor urged these three maidens to worship idols, but they all refused and confessed their steadfast faith in Christ. Irene told the emperor that it was foolish to worship things made of stone and wood, which were ordered for an agreed price and made by the hands of a mortal man. The enraged emperor cast them into prison. When the emperor departed for Macedonia, all slaves and prisoners were taken with him, including these three saintly maidens. The emperor turned them over to a certain commander, Dulcitius, for torture. This commander, inflamed by dark passion, wanted to defile the virgins; however, when the commander attempted to enter the prison while the virgins were praying to God, he went insane. He fell among the black cauldrons, and pots by the gates and began to embrace and kiss them, departing sooty and blackened. The emperor, upon hearing about this incident, ordered that another commander, Sisinius, take over the trial of these sisters. After prolonged torture, the judge condemned the first two sisters to death by burning, while he detained Irene for a while longer, hoping to defile her. But when the judge sent Irene to a brothel with the soldiers, an angel of God saved this chaste virgin by staving off the soldiers and bringing her to a hill. The next day, the commander and his soldiers went to this hill, but they were unable to ascend it. He then ordered that Irene be shot with arrows. St. Anastasia gathered the bodies of these three sisters into one place and honorably buried them. They all suffered honorably for Christ the King and Lord in about the year 304.