St. Porphyrios: A Gift from God to Humanity

St. Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia (source)

  
St. Porphyrios: A Gift from God to Humanity
"St. Porphyrios is a gift from God to humanity, to an age very tired and burdened.
We still have not come to understand what Porphyrios means. He was greatly ahead of his time, ahead of the perceptions and attitudes of many within the Church.
In St. Porphyrios, you do not find "do" and "don't"***, forcing and angst, extremes and exaggerations. You will not find cheap and shallow explanations.
There is not shame nor threats, nor fear and misery. His teaching is full of Christ, light, joy and freedom.
  
"An Athonite Abbot told me: "My Father, you find one like Porphyrios every 1000 years or so...a great gift from God..."
Another monk, exhausted and crushed by strict and rigid canons, told me: 'With St. Porphyrios, I found rest. I found Christ, freedom, I found myself...Believe me, Father, for two years I do not allow anything within my nous other than the Gospel, the Gerontikon, and the words of St. Porphyrios. And I am happy..."
However, the great Porphyrios was a simple little Elder. A little priest who wouldn't even catch your attention. You would likely pass by him with indifference. You would not see him "selling" holiness.
  
"Because holiness is simplicity, humility, immediacy, it does not ring bells and does not shine windows, it is not sold in the markets, like another honored Athonite Father says.
Elder Porphyrios did not call anyone to him; he did not burden or force anyone. He let you come to him, to want him and to desire him. He did not have any manic "catechism", no angst to show off something; he was free. He did not preach himself, but his life spoke!!!

"He gave to you when you were ready. He opened your eyes to look on Heaven when you were ready to see, with discernment, simply, beautifully. Together with him was your being, your uniqueness, and thus he helped you to breathe deeply, to become beautiful and magnificent, to become that which you always were but had forgotten."
-Quote of Fr. Livios on St. Porphyrios
(source)
  
***Note: St. Porphyrios did routinely emphasize the need for asceticism (see examples here and here), and did not justify sin. The author however is highlighting how the Saint focused on inspiring the love of Christ within people, and that this would transform the rest, helping to transform their lives.
  

Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us! Amen!

 

St. Iakovos of Evia: "For married people, your prayer ropes and prostrations are your children..."

Christ blessing the children (Source)

  
There was once a pious couple with nine children. The husband was very pious and a little overly-zealous as regards spiritual things.

By letter he said that he wanted to do everything like a monk. His wife complained to St. Iakovos of Evia that she was exhausted and that she wanted help. When they came to the Monastery of St. David, at night, while the children were crying and screaming, the wife also was crying because she was so tired...

The husband went to a chapel at the Monastery of the Holy Unmercenaries and was doing prostrations, praying the prayer rope and serving vigil.

The wife complained to St. Iakovos and she was right.

The next day, the Saint, as soon as he saw them in the courtyard of the Monastery, understood what was going on and that they were starting to fight amongst themselves.

The Saint spoke with sweet words and with discernment in order to comfort the pained and exhausted mother, and with discernment and a smile he said to the father: "I was proud of you last night. You chanted all night and prayed. Good job! But you would have had an even greater blessing and reward if you sat a half hour instead of three, near your wife helping her to feed the children and put them to bed, because for married people, your prayer ropes and prostrations are your children. When they grow up you will have time to do them, but "a brother is helped by a brother". Let everything be done by mutual consent."
(source)
  

St. Iakovos of Evia surrounded by children (source)

  

Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us! Amen!

Elder Symeon Kragiopoulos: "But, what is God’s will?"

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Savior (source)

  
Every now and then, some people ask:
“But, what is God’s will? I don’t know the will of God.”
  
What don’t you know? You don’t know, for example, that you should be praying a bit more than you are now? Does somebody really need to tell you this? You don’t know that the little prayer you do should be done with your whole heart? You don’t know that you shouldn’t talk back to someone, shouldn’t talk to him in a way that makes him distressed? You don’t know that you should help him? You don’t know that you should forgive him? That you should tolerate him? Should love him? And should pray for him? You don’t know that you must be patient? And that you shouldn’t get angry?
Do what you know. And God, seeing your sincere disposition to continually know his will, will find a way to make clear to you that which you don’t know, every time.
  
Continually making a new start, doesn’t mean that we will be doing unexpected things. Rather, we will do the things we know, do the familiar things, but with another spirit, another disposition. As we study the whole issue we’ll understand it and we’ll make a new start –today, tomorrow, and the day after; and it is never ending. Neither will anyone ever get tired and say: “I’m tired of making a start”. On the contrary, each day you will feel it within yourself as a necessity to do so. And this will be a witness, a sign, a proof, I would say, that one more piece of your subconscious, one more piece of your unconscious, has come out of the dark basement and is now under your control. At this point you place it under the grace of God and even this is made holy. Whatever is evil, whatever is tarnished, is dissipated and purified by grace, and only your soul remains pure.
  

And so, every particular moment, in every particular instance, remembering that you made a start and that again you delivered yourself to God –as an uncontrolled piece came out from your subconscious, which however now is able to be in your control –you will try to not let this piece conquer you, and to not do that which it urges you to do. But what then? You do that which a saint would do, that which that very hour Christ tells you to do.
  
In this way, in every moment you are inside the will of God and not inside your own will.
-by Archimandrite Symeon (Kragiopoulos), (source)
  

Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us! Amen!

St. John Climacus: "There is a time for everything under heaven..."

Jesus Christ, the Pantocrator ("Ruler over all") (source)

  
“If there is a time for everything under heaven, as Ecclesiastes says, and by the word ‘everything’ must be understood what concerns our holy life, then if you please, let us look into it and let us seek to do at each time what is proper for that occasion. For it is certain that, for those who enter the lists, there is a time for dispassion and a time for passion (I say this for the combatants who are serving their apprenticeship); there is a time for tears, and a time for hardness of heart; there is a time for obedience, and there is a time to command; there is a time to fast, and a time to partake; there is a time for battle with our enemy the body, and a time when the fire is dead; a time of storm in the soul, and a time of calm in the mind; a time for heartfelt sorrow, and a time for spiritual joy; a time for teaching, and a time for listening; a time of pollutions, perhaps on account of conceit, and a time for cleansing by humility; a time for struggle, and a time for safe relaxation; a time for stillness, and a time for undistracted distraction; a time for unceasing prayer, and a time for sincere service. So let us not be deceived by proud zeal, and seek prematurely what will come in its own good time; that is, we should not seek in winter what comes in summer, or at seed time what comes at harvest; because there is a time to sow labours, and a time to reap the unspeakable gifts of grace. Otherwise, we shall not receive even in season what is proper to that season”
-St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent (Step 26, Section 87)
  
(source)
  

Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us! Amen!

A short story of St. Paisios, Fasting and Discernment

St. Paisios of the Holy Mountain (http://www.rel.gr/photo/displayimage.php?album=3&pos=49)

A short story of St. Paisios, Fasting and Discernment (amateur translation)
Two visitors, who appeared to be hard pious people, continued to look with disapproval on the Elder who was [boiling milk] being careful not to let it overflow or burn. Eventually one of them couldn’t stand it anymore and said to the Elder:

“Elder Paisios, we are in the first days of Lent, we have a strict fast, and you are boiling milk to drink?”

The Elder was silent. He did not respond. He took off the pot because the milk was boiling. Next, he went to the cell, brought six small, old, porcelain cups, arranged them in a row and carefully filled them. He waited a while for them to cool, while all were looking on in amazement, silently.

The two pious people saw all this with disgust, because they were thinking that because there were six people visiting and six cups, the monk therefore would dare to offer them milk during these days of strict fasting.

Elder Paisios took the filled cups one by one and placed them on a wooden tray, carried them seven meters away and left them on the ground, at the edge of a bush.

He placed them all there in a row, and then came and sat beside us and began to make a slow, strange whistling with his mouth, gazing towards the bushes.

A few minutes hadn’t passed before a viper appeared cautiously and later five baby snakes—her children.

I held my breath.

The snakes came, and passed all of us slithering, slowly reaching the cups, and gently began to drink their morning milk...
(amateur translation of text from: http://agioritikesmnimes.pblogs.gr/2010/02/581106.html)
 

St. Paisios the Athonite (source)

 

Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us! Amen!