Orthodixie

The Rt. Rev. John Abdallah, Dean of St George Cathedral in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh, PA, the editor of The Word magazine, a professional counselor and an educator delivered a presentation — “Good Grief – Going Through the (Healthy) Process of Grieving” — at St George Antiochian Orthodox Church, Houston, on February 17, 2011. For nearly two decades Fr. John has led T.H.E.O.S. (They Help Each Other Spiritually), an international support group for widows and widowers.

Fr John’s entire talk, including the Q&A; is now available at:

Orthodox Houston Dot Com

Image Source

This from Wednesday, January 18, 2006:

Comments have been steadily flowing in from Vassula devotees since I put a moratorium on their comments on this blog. According to Sitemeter, her followers spend time googling blogs on the World Wide Web tracking down comments to comment upon. So, in an effort toward full disclosure, here’s her site: True Life in God. Use your own discernment.

Another old post – here.

Now this from the Ecumenical Patriarchate March 16, 2011:

Announcement On Vassula Ryden By The Ecumenical Patriarchate

Fr. Thomas Zain, Dean of St. Nicholas Antiochian Cathedral in Brooklyn, NY, writes:

“The following is a decision taken by the Ecumenical Patriarchate regarding Vassula Ryden and her organization ‘True Life in God (TLIG).’ As she has spoken in various cities around the North America (and all over the world) over the years and may have adversely influenced either some of our clergy or laity, we want it to be known that the Archdiocese endorses the following decision taken by the Church regarding her heretical teachings as well as the teachings of those who follow her. None of our clergy or laity should be involved with Vassula Ryden or her organization ‘True Life in God.'”

The Orthodox Church, following strictly the shining example and teaching of the Holy Apostles, the teaching of the Fathers of the Church who have their succession, and the divinely-inspired decisions of the Ecumenical Synods, safeguards as a pearl of great price the faith of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church which the Christian plenitude experiences through their participation in the Sacraments and entire spiritual life of the divinely-founded ecclesiastical body.

Hence, whatever movement and improvised tension, personal or collective, in contempt or in breach of the dogmas of the Orthodox Christian faith and life in Christ within the Church as the only path for the salvation of our souls, all the more the self-proclaimed “supposedly charismatic” personality, is rejected always as an unacceptable innovation.

In this spirit, and for the beneficial protection of our pious Orthodox plenitude from dangerous spiritual confusion, who do not know well matters underlying the risk of delusion, rejects from the Mother Church Vasiliki Paraskevis Pentaki – Ryden, widely known as a “Vassula”, and her organization founded under the title “True Life In God” which rashly and frivolously proposes teachings based on the supposed “direct dialogue between her and the Founder of the Church Jesus Christ our Lord”, and those conquered by her and the supporters of “True Life In God”, which deviate arbitrarily from the God-given teaching of the Church, but also scandalize the Orthodox phronema of pious believers.

Hence, we call upon the proponents of these unacceptable innovations and the supporters who maintain them, who henceforth are not admitted to ecclesiastical communion, not only to not be involved in the pastoral work of the local Holy Metropolis, but also to not preach their novel teachings, to prevent the appropriate sanctions under the Holy Canons.

We express, lastly, the profound sorrow of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of the acts of nine – fortunately few – clergy of the the Orthodox Church to be found at talks of the said “Vassula” and give to her a “certificate of Orthodoxy.”

At the Patriarchate, the 16th of March 2011

Of the Chief Secretariat of the Holy and Sacred Synod

Translated by John Sanidopoulos

Source

It’s the birthday of Flannery O’Connor [Savannah, Georgia (1925)] who wrote two novels and 32 short stories and who said: “I come from a family where the only emotion respectable to show is irritation. In some this tendency produces hives, in others literature, in me both.” When she was six, she and a chicken that she taught to walk backward appeared on the news. She later said: “I was just there to assist the chicken but it was the high point in my life. Everything since has been anticlimax.”

She said, “When we look at a good deal of serious modern fiction, and particularly Southern fiction, we find this quality about it that is generally described, in a pejorative sense, as grotesque. Of course, I have found that anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the Northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic. … Whenever I’m asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one.”

— Stolen from The Writer’s Almanac

Someone once told the Catholic writer Flannery O’Connor that it is more open-minded to think that the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar is a great, wonderful, powerful symbol. Her response was, “If it’s a symbol, to hell with it.”
[Source]

Flannery O’Connor: “When I know what the laws of the flesh and the physical really are, then I will know what God is. We know them as we see them, not as God sees them. For me, it is the virgin birth, the Incarnation, the resurrection which are the true laws of the flesh and the physical. Death, decay, destruction are the suspension of these laws. I am always astonished at the emphasis the Church puts on the body. It is not the soul she says that will rise but the body, glorified… The resurrection of Christ seems the high point in the law of nature.”
[Source]

It’s also, of course, the Great Feast of the Annunciation to the Theotokos (ns) — where we celebrate the Archangel Gabriel’s announcing to the Virgin Mary the Good News of our Salvation in Christ, her Son and God.

Happy Feast!

Image Source

Refashioned from 3/25/10.

Click the above image to enlarge.

Here’s the INFO and REGISTRATION.

NEW – Updated Schedule!

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

Hope to see you in Houston at the end of April!

There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come of out of him, those are they that defile the man ([St.] Mark 7:15).

This and similar passages – for example, But meat commendeth us not unto God (I Cor. 8:8) – are usually cited by those who do not like to fast, supposing that they thereby sufficiently justify the fact that they do not fast according to the rule and custom of the Church.

Everyone who is faithful to the Church knows how invalid this excuse is. Fasting decrees that we abstain from some foods not because they are defiled, but because we can more conveniently refine our flesh by this abstinence – something crucial for inner progress. This meaning of the law of fasting is so essential that those who consider some foods to be defiled are numbered among the heretics.

For those who are not well-disposed to fasting it is better not to insist on this point, but on the point that fasting is not obligatory, although it is definitely the means for overcoming sinful urges and the strivings of the flesh. There is no way that they can resist on this point.

If inner progress is obligatory, then the means by which it is obtained is also obligatory, namely, fasting. Each person’s conscience says this to him.

In order to soothe their conscience, they assert: I’ll compensate for my omission of fasting in another way; or, fasting is harmful for me; or, I’ll fast when I want to, but not during the established fasts.

However, the first excuse is inappropriate because no one has yet managed to cope with his flesh or to order his inner life properly without fasting.

The last excuse is also inappropriate, because the Church is one body, and to separate oneself from others within it means opposing its good order. One can remove oneself from the general customs of the Church only by leaving it; but, while someone is a member of it, he cannot say this or demand that.

The second excuse has a shade of validity. Indeed, among the limitations of fasting, the obligation is lifted from those upon whom fasting acts destructively, because the fast was established not to kill the body, but to mortify the passions.

But if one were to conscientiously count the true number of such people, it would be seen that they are so few that they do not even count.

Only one real reason remains – lack of desire. There is no point in arguing with this. You will not be brought to Paradise against your will.

FROM: St. Theophan the Recluse, Thoughts for Each Day of the Year According to the Daily Church Readings from the Word of God (Moscow/Platina, CA: Sretensky Monastery/St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 2010), pp. 196-197.

Thanks to FWD from Archbishop Chrysostomos of Etna; Image Source