We pray, Most Holy Trinity, that you help us to die to our old self. Help us to escape from desperation, desolation, dysfunction, sin, sadness, sorrow, weariness, wastefulness, and want. In this way, we may be reminded that your love and mercy are freely given and that we too, must sacrifice in order to be love and mercy to others. Through this dying to self, we can be made new again. #Epitaphios #HolyTrinity #God #JesusChrist #HolySpirit #Sin #Sinner #Renewal #Redeemer

We beg you, O Lord, to let us dine with you at the Mystical Supper; not because we are worthy, but because we love you and desire to share everything with you. The work, the prayer, the silence, and the sacrifice. The healing, the reconciling, the anointing, and the raising up. Sharing in your mystical light at the Holy Table, O Lord, gives us the foretaste of the Eschaton. Lead us to you so that we may help give divine food and drink to the world. #JesusChrist #God #MysticalTheology #MeditativePrayer #prayer #Eschaton #MysticalSupper

Resuscitate us, O Lord, from our spiritual death. Lift us out of our obstructed, dark, and decayed tombs. Wash us, hold us, and awaken us. Heal us, renew us, and transform us. Help us re-discover the image of what the Father created us to be. Remind us that we are redeemed into your likeness. Awaken us to the mystical light of the Holy Spirit coursing through us. Bring forth the divine in us, so that we may do our part to help the sheep gather at your eschatological sheepfold. #Trinity #God #JesusChrist #HolySpirit #Spirituality #SpiritualTheology #MysticalTheology #luminousdarkness #Healing #humility #Love

"If one looks at a sinner's inward disposition and outward state then it will be found that sometimes he knows much, but is blind with regards to the works of God and the matters of his salvation. It will be evident that though he is incessantly troubled, he is not active with respect to the establishment of his salvation. Even though he experiences alarm or delight in his heart, he is completely insensitive and dead to everything that is spiritual. In this regard, all the faculties of our being are injured by sin, and a sinner is characterized by blindness, negligence, and deadness. He does not see his state, and that is why he is not aware of the danger of his state. He is not aware of his danger, and that is why he does not care to rid himself of it. It does not even occur to him that he must change and work out his salvation. He is in the firm belief, which nothing can shake, that he is in a good state and on the right way, so he does not wish for anything else, and he works so that everything should remain as it is. That is why he considers any reminder about another way of life as unnecessary for himself. He does not listen to these reminders and cannot even understand what they are for - he avoids and flees from them." - St. Theophan the Recluse, Turning the Heart to God, p.10 (published separately, this is the second part of The Path to Salvation). #StTheophantheRecluse #Salvation #Sinner #Sin #God #Repentance #Spirituality #SpiritualTheology

"Having been a sinful woman, You became through repentance a Bride of Christ. Having attained angelic life, You defeated demons with the weapon of the Cross; Therefore, O most glorious Mary you are a Bride of the Kingdom!" Pray for us, so that we, too, may seek the divine through repentance by the power of the Cross. - Kontakion from the commemoration of St. Mary of Egypt. #StMaryofEgypt #Cross #Crucifixion #saints #Repentance

"...this whirling is intensified and complicated a thousand times because the sinner is not alone. There is a whole world full of other people whose main concern is to test and scrutinize, to please themselves, and to possess. These people have justified all these things to themselves. They have put them in a certain order, subjected them to certain rules of propriety, and imposed the necessity of acting in accordance with these rules upon everyone under their dominion. Being connected with each other, these people necessarily come into contact and into conflict. During these frictions, people increase their inquisitiveness, their love for possessions, and their self-indulgence tenfold, a hundredfold, and a thousandfold. People tie all their happiness, bliss, and life to these things." - St. Theophan the Recluse, Turning the Heart to God, p.7 (published separately, this is the second part of The Path to Salvation). #StTheophantheRecluse #Materialism #God #Sin #Sinner #SelfIndulgence #Repentance

Please pray for us most-loving Mother; and intercede for us, though we are unworthy of your care. We implore you to help us give our total "yes" - body, mind, and spirit, just as you did - to the ever-living, Triune God who creates, redeems, and sanctifies. Let us ever remember to honor you in our prayers: "O Theotokos and Virgin, rejoice, O Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you: blessed are you among women and blessed is the Fruit of your womb, for you have borne the Savior of our souls." #JesusChrist #Mary #MotherofGod #IntercessoryPrayer #continualprayer #ContemplativePrayer #Repentance #Renewal #Annunciation

"So, a sinner persists incessantly in his troubles and anxieties, and in his search for excessive knowledge, many possessions, and diverse pleasures. He is always delighting in outward things, constantly acquiring possessions, scrutinizing things and testing them. He whirls around in this circular process for his entire life. This inquisitiveness attracts and entices the mind; the heart hopes to taste sweet things; and the will is carried away. Anyone can verify this by putting the movements of his soul under his own observation for just a single day." - St. Theophan the Recluse, Turning the Heart to God, p.5 (published separately, this is the second part of The Path to Salvation). #StTheophantheRecluse #Knowledge #Will #Sinner #Sin #Anxiety #Heart #Repentance

"The emptiness of the heart - which has deprived itself of real delight in the One who is everything - generates a thirst for many and various false pleasures: the searching and striving for those innumerable things in which one hopes to find sensory pleasure, both inwardly and outwardly." - St. Theophan the Recluse, Turning the Heart to God, p.6 (published separately, this is the second part of The Path to Salvation). #StTheophantheRecluse #Heart #Sin #Repentance #God #Pleasure

"The emptiness of the will - which has deprived itself of the One who is everything - produces numerous desires" striving to possess many things or even all things, so that everything could be in one's own power according to one's own will. This is the love of worldly possessions." - St. Theophan the Recluse, Turning the Heart to God, p.6 (published separately, this is the second part of The Path to Salvation). #StTheophantheRecluse #Will #Materialism #Sin #Repentance #God

"The emptiness of the mind - which has forgotten about the One who is everything - gives birth to a concern for excessive knowledge: for much scrutiny, curiosity and inquisitiveness." - St. Theophan the Recluse, Turning the Heart to God, p.6 (published separately, this is the second part of The Path to Salvation). #StTheophantheRecluse #Mind #Emptiness #God #Knowledge #Sin #Repentance

"He has fallen away from God, who is the fullness of everything. He is empty in himself. The only thing that remains is to spread himself among the endless variety of things and to live through them. So a sinner is thirsty, anxious, and troubled about many and various things which are apart from himself and apart from God. That is why the characteristic feature of a sinful life, when one is neglectful of his salvation, is an anxiety and trouble about many things (Luke 10:41)." - St. Theophan the Recluse, Turning the Heart to God, p. 6 (published separately, this is the second part of The Path to Salvation). #God #Sinner #Sin #StTheophantheRecluse #Repentance #Salvation