On Saturday, May 15, 2010,
Women's Retreat
All Saints is hosting a one-day Women's Retreat, "In Search of Reality," presented by Mother Andrea, Abbess of St. Nicholas Monastery, North Myers, Florida. There will be talks on Reality, Icons, and Optina. For details click the link above.
New Homily
We have a wonderful homily of Father Gabriel's, given on the Sunday of the Veneration of the Holy Cross during Lent: "Just Call Me Rooster."
This Week at All Saints:
Sunday, March 14 (n.s.) / March 1 (o.s.)
St. John Climacus
O John our father, saint of God,
thou wast revealed as a citizen of the desert,
an angel in a body and a worker of miracles.
Through fasting, prayer and vigils thou hast received heavenly gifts of grace,
and thou healest the sick and the souls of those that turn to thee with faith.
Glory to Him who gave thee strength;
glory to Him who crowned thee;
glory to Him who through thee grants to all men healing.
Truly the Lord hath set thee as a fixed star in the firmament of abstinence,
giving light to the ends of the earth,
O father John our teacher.
Welcome to Our Church!
All Saints of North
America is a parish of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside
of Russia. We are a traditional Orthodox Christian body, following the
Old Calendar (Julian) and other traditional practices. We are located in the heart
of Virginia's beautiful Shenandoah Valley, where our priest and many of us in the
parish were born and raised. All services are conducted in English. We invite you learn more about our parish and our faith in the links above, and to come pray and worship with us.
What is Traditional Orthodox Christianity?
Consider the words of St. Macarius:
The inhabitants of this world, the children of this age, are like wheat in a sieve. They are being sifted by restless thoughts of this world. They are constantly tossed to and fro by earthly care, desire and absorption in a variety of material concerns. Satan tosses such souls as a sifter sifts wheat.... By these concerns he disturbs men, keeps them anxious and in a state of nervous motion.
St. Macarius lived in the 4th century, but he clearly describes our situation today. The Church is a spiritual hospital. It is exactly the place where the tired and fearful and sifted need to be. Each Sunday when I enter the Sanctuary, pictures of former patients who were cured [i.e., icons of the saints] surround me. This hospital has a record of almost 2000 years of successfully curing the sick in heart.
Metropolitan Laurus, of blessed memory, in a lecture, "The Ascetic Podvig of Living in the World," wrote the following,
Christianity is an ascetic religion. Christianity is a teaching about the gradual extirpation of the passions, about the means and conditions of the gradual acquisition of virtues. And this Podvig, this struggle comes as we begin to separate ourselves from the world.
This is traditional Orthodoxy and the true Orthodox mind-set. We practice these disciplines not because we are required to do them, or because God will hate us if we don't. God calls us to practice them because they are good for us, they work, and without them we will never get well. Without them, we will not acquire the Holy Spirit. Without them, there will never be true joy.
Traditional Orthodoxy is the pursuit of holiness. A heart aflame with the Holy Spirit is possible for us all, even in this sinful and adulterous generation. To gain it, we must check in to our grace-filled hospital and do our therapies. This requires an Orthodox mindset that challenges the fast and strenuous lifestyle of this generation. May God help us to recover from the vain dream of the pursuit of happiness, a fantasy that grinds us with stress and toil and robs us of our Orthodox birthright: righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit!
The above was excerpted and adapted from a talk, "Living the Traditional Orthodox Life," given by our priest at a Southern Missions Conference. The full text is also available.
