Orthodixie

1. When, exhausted by illness, I sense that the end of my earthly existence is approaching: Lord, have mercy upon me.

2. When my poor heart, beating its last, is languishing and pining in the pangs of death: Lord, have mercy upon me.

3. When for the last time, my eyes fill with tears at the thought that with sins throughout my life I have offended Thee, O God: Lord, have mercy upon me.

4. When my rapid heartbeat speeds the departure of my soul: Lord, have mercy upon me.

5. When my face‘s deadly pallor and my cooling body strikes fear into those dear to me: Lord, have mercy upon me.

6. When my vision darkens, my voice is cut off, and my tongue is petrified: Lord, have mercy upon me.

7. When awful ghosts and visions cause me to despair of your mercy: Lord, have mercy upon me.

8. When my soul, startled by memories of past transgressions and fear of Thy judgment, flags in the battle with the enemy of my salvation, an enemy struggling to lure me into the realm of the dark of tortures: Lord, have mercy upon me.

9. When my body is covered with a deadly cold sweat, and my soul, painfully suffering, begins to leave the body: Lord, have mercy upon me.

10. When the darkness of death closes off from my darkened sight all of the things of this world: Lord, have mercy upon me.

11. When all sensation ceases in my body, when my veins and sinews are benumbed, and my muscles petrified in death: Lord, have mercy upon me.

12. When human speech and earthly sounds no longer reach my ears: Lord, have mercy upon me.

13. When my soul stands before Thy Face, O God, awaiting Thy ruling on my fate: Lord, have mercy upon me.

14. When I stand to receive the righteous sentence of Thy Judgment, that will determine my fate: Lord, have mercy upon me.

15. When my body, abandoned by my soul, becomes a quarry for worms, and a mass of corruption, and finally, my entire body turns into a handful of dust: Lord, have mercy upon me.

16. When at Thy Second Coming the sound of the trumpet awakens all, and the book of my deeds is opened: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon Thy sinful servant [name]. Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commit my spirit. Amen.

— Hieroschemamonk Partheny of Kiev’s Prayer Before Death

Taken from the parish newsletter (2/2011) of The Russian Orthodox Cathedral of St John the Baptist, Washington DC.

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There’s an old joke that goes like this: A bunch of scientists created a huge machine capable of complex calculations and called it UNIVAC. Eager to test their invention, they asked it, “Is there a God?” The vacuum tubes hummed and the tape spools spun for several minutes. Finally, the machine spit out a little card, on which was written, “THERE IS NOW.” On this day in 1951, the Remington Rand Corporation signed a contract to deliver the first UNIVAC computer to the U.S. Census Bureau …

Stolen from The Writer’s Almanac (3/31/11).

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As noted in the Endnotes of the book, We Came, We Saw, We Converted – The Lighter Side of Orthodoxy in America (concerning the chapter “Shut Up, Go Home, Pray More”):

The Not of This World Conference sponsored by Rose Hill College and TOUCHSTONE magazine — Aiken, South Carolina, May 1995 — was, hands down, the best theological gathering I have ever attended.

At that conference, Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Christians gathered for what was billed as an “Ecumenical Conference of Traditional Christians”. You can read about that event here.

These days, with all the issues surrounding HEALTH CARE, do “traditional Christians” agree on:

Stem Cell Therapy?

Abortion?

Euthanasia?

Organ Donation?

Infertility Treatments?

Eugenics?

Cloning?

Life Support?

Pain Management?

What determines the scope of “health care rationing”?

These and a host of other issues fall under the scope of BIOETHICS.

Given the current challenge — and the challenge of the future — all of us should be concerned and involved.

What are the issues? What is at stake? What (or WHO) determines our stance?

Health Care in a Secular Culture:
The Conscience of Physicians & Nurses at Risk

Join us in Houston during Bright Week — just after Easter — Friday, April 29h and Saturday, April 30th:

ORTHODOX: Dr H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr

PROTESTANT: Dr C. Ben Mitchell

ROMAN CATHOLIC: Dr Grattan T. Brown

Also, invited to Friday evening’s banquet:

ROMAN CATHOLIC: Daniel Cardinal DiNardo

PROTESTANT: Dr. Robert B. Sloan, Jr.

ORTHODOX: Bishop Thomas

Schedule

Register NOW!

General registration is $50, Clergy registration is $30, Student registration is $30. Registration includes admission to a day-and-a-half conference of panels, breakouts, and discussions, including three plenary addresses.

Friday Banquet Dinner – $18; Saturday Boxed Lunch – $8

Co-sponsored by Houston Baptist University, Pope John Paul II Forum, University of St. Thomas, Orthodox Clergy Association of Southeast Texas, and Touchstone Magazine.

A portion of this week’s episode, already in progress:

Having gathered in front of the temple, we were at the point, per the service rubrics, where I turned toward the door with the hand blessing Cross in my hand and forcefully knocked on the door, saying:

Lift up your gates, O ye princes; and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting gates, and the King of Glory shall enter in.

Nothing happened.

Realizing that much preparation had gone into this moment – that all the folks gathered behind me were expecting a great and festive service to commence …

I was, to say the least, disappointed and befuddled.

Those of you familiar with this custom during the service of Pascha will know the way this part of the celebration is supposed to go:

It’s a dialogue between the Priest and the Devil …

Priest: Lift up your gates, O ye princes; and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting gates, and the King of Glory shall enter in.

Who is this King of Glory?

Priest: The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in war. Lift up your gates, O ye princes; and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting gates, and the King of Glory shall enter in.

Who is this King of Glory?

Priest: The Lord of hosts, He is the King of Glory.

And, being not just a little embarrassed, I thought, “Well, maybe louder …”

BANG, BANG, BANG!

Lift up your gates, O ye princes …

“Alright, alright … I’m coming, I’M COMING! I say!”

What the – ?

Breaking protocol, I tried to open the church door only to find it locked!

Embarrassed, I looked behind me to see: no one.

I was all by myself. Naturally, the wind started to blow.

I bent over to look through the keyhole, only to see that all the people who were supposed to be behind me were now gathered quietly inside the church – in their PAJAMAS!

HELL-O-o–o!

“I said I’m coming!” came the voice …

The Orthodixie Podcast on Ancient Faith Radio.

Through The Looking Glass by Kenneth Rougeau.

Since I have a “bad habit” of giving copies of this book to those struggling to make Confession, and since it’s “that time of year” …
From a few years back:

Fr. Joseph:

I wanted to both congratulate you and personally thank you for the book you wrote. There are countless truths in love … thank God, throughout the book. However, the message, over and over, to come to one’s senses, confess, receive forgiveness, and struggle to repent is overwhelming. But, even more so … there is but one choice: Obedience. True blessing lies not in passions but in learning to surrender even our God-Given desires over to Him. Finally, that Struggle is good … keeps me from feeling like a failure all the time and gives me Hope to carry on in the struggle.

Thanks again for … writing such a life-saving and life-giving book; for as you said also: evil is nothing, God always creates, His nature and love cannot be denied …
Thank God!

— Sent via email from a layman.

More on DEFEATING SIN …

Bishop BASIL & Fr Chad Hatfield

Constantine Shepherd, Youth Director

John Maddex of Ancient Faith

Fr Michael Dahulich, Dean of St Tikhon’s Seminary

Ashley Kevorkian

Archimandrite Zacharias

Fr Josiah Trenham

You can order through the publisher at Regina Orthodox Press — or, of course, at AMAZON.