During this time of isolation, I encourage you to learn more about your inner life with God. If you do so in all earnest, you will taste His spiritual sweetness and find true rest in Him. "16. Therefore, O beloved brethren, since such good things have been offered to us and such wonderful promises have been made to us by the Lord, let us get rid of all obstacles. Let us renounce all love for the world and devote ourselves to that one good by a thorough seeking and yearning so that we may become sharers in that ineffable love of the Spirit about which St. Paul urged us to hasten after 'Seek after charity,' he says (1 Cor 14:1), so that we may be considered worthy to be converted from our hardness by the right hand of the Most High and reach that spiritual sweetness and rest, having been wounded by the love of the Divine Spirit." - Maloney, George A., S.J., trans. Pseudo-Macarius: The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter. Paulist Press, 1992, p. 57. An icon of St. Macarius the Great standing with a cherub.

"1. Blessed Abba Paul the Simple, the disciple of Abba Anthony, told the Fathers that which follows: "One day he went to a monastery to visit it and to make himself useful to the brethren. After the customary conference, the brothers entered the holy church of God to perform the synaxis there, as usual. Blessed Paul looked fully at each of those who entered the church observing the spiritual disposition with which they went to the synaxis, for he had received the grace from the Lord of seeing the state of each one's soul, just as we see their faces. When all had entered with sparkling eyes and shining faces, with each one's angel rejoicing over him, he said, 'I see one who is black and his whole body is dark; the demons are standing on each side of him, dominating him, drawing him to them, and leading him by the nose, and his angel, filled with grief, with head bowed, follows him at a distance.' Then Paul, in tears, beat his breast and sat down in front of the church, weeping bitterly over him whom he had seen. The brethren, seeing this strange behaviour and the abrupt change which had brought him to tears and compunction, asked him persistently to tell them why he was weeping, fearing lest he were doing it as a sign of accusation against all of them. Then they asked him to go to the synaxis with them. But Paul kept apart from them and remained sitting outside, lamenting over him whom he had seen in this state. "Shortly after the end of the synaxis, as everyone was coming out, Paul scrutinized each one, wanting to know in what state they were coming away. He saw that man, previously black and gloomy, coming out of the church with a shining face and white body, the demons accompanying him only at a distance, while his holy angel was following close to him, rejoicing greatly over him. Then Paul leaped for joy and began to cry out, blessing God, 'O the ineffable loving-kindness and goodness of God!' and he went running up to an elevated place and in a powerful voice he said, 'Come, see the works of the Lord, how terrible they are and worthy of our wonder! Come and see Him who wills that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth! Come, let us bow down and throw ourselves at His feet and let us say, "Only You can take sins away!"' "Everyone ran together in haste, wanting to hear what he was saying. When they were all assembled, Paul related what he had seen at the entrance to the church and what had happened afterwards and he asked that man to tell them the reason why God had suddenly bestowed such a change upon him. Then the man whom Paul pointed out told all that had happened to him in front of everyone, saying, 'I am a sinful man; I have lived in fornication for a long time, right up to the present moment; when I went into the holy church of God, I heard the holy prophet Isaiah being read, or rather, God speaking through him: "Wash you, make you clean, take away the evil from your hearts, learn to do good before mine eyes. Even though your sins are as scarlet I will make them white like snow. And if you will and if you listen to me, you shall eat the good things of the earth." (cf. Is. 1.16-19) And I, he continued, 'the fornicator, am filled with compunction in my heart because of this word of the prophet and groan within myself, saying to God, "God, who came into the world to save sinners, that which You now proclaim by the mouth of Your prophet, fulfil in me who am a sinner and an unworthy man. From now on, I give my word, I affirm and promise in my heart that I will not sin any more, but I renounce all unrighteousness and I will serve You henceforth with a pure conscience. Today, O Master, from this time forward, receive me, as I repent and throw myself at Your feet, desiring in future to abstain from every fault.' He continued, 'With these promises, I came out of the church, sure in my soul that I would no longer commit any evil before God.' At these words they all with one voice cried out to God, 'How manifold are thy works, Lord, in wisdom hast thou made them all.' (Ps. 104.24). "So, as Christians, having learnt from the holy Scriptures and from holy revelations, let us know the great goodness of God for those who sincerely take refuge in him and who correct their past faults by repentance, and let us not despair of our salvation. In truth, as it was proclaimed by the prophet Isaiah, God washes those who are dirty with sin, whitens them as wool and as snow and bestows the good things of the heavenly Jerusalem on them; just as, in the prophet Ezekiel, God has sworn by an oath, to satisfy us and not to let us be lost. "For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone says the Lord God; so turn, and live." (Ezek 18.32)" - The Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Cistercian Publications, 1975, p. 205.

Seeing darkness, I watch the clouds build on the horizon. Assuming rain, I wait for the clouds to whip up the sea and the sand. What really comes? Not clouds, but a cloud. The cloud. "The angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God'" (Luke 1:35). Rejoice in the cloud that Overshadows. Rejoice in the cloud that brings Light. Rejoice in the cloud that reveals the Holy Spirit. Rejoice in the cloud that brings Christ. Unworthy as I am, I beg your intercession Most Holy Mother of God. For my Spirit rejoices in the Lord, and My soul thirsts to magnify Him (cf. Luke 1:46-47).

No doubt you had doubts Dear Fisherman and Apostle Peter. It is clear you had fear When accused by crowds, Leader of Twelve. You could not Stop protesting a Relationship with Jesus. "I do not know Him." "I am not" His. I don't "know what you" say. You objected three times To the questions Put to you that night. When "the Lord turned and looked at" you, With bitter anguish You wept. Then, there was a breakfast On a shore When you were asked anew. "Do you love me more than these?" "Do you love me?" "Do you love me?" "Yes, I do." "Yes, Lord." "You know all things. You know that I love you." Forgiving, Jesus said, "Feed My lambs." "Tend My sheep." "Feed My sheep." After betraying Jesus Peter was restored. And us, too. We are shown mercy. We are forgiven. We are loved ...right now. Partake of His Body and Blood! Pray in the Holy Spirit! The Holy Apostle Peter, a 6th-century icon from Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai.

Beware of those kinds of priests. The ones who really worship Baal While they pretend to serve Christ. They wear their cassocks Swing their censers and Lead the services While they look with scorn At the people who light their candles And close their eyes to pray and prepare. You know that you know them. They laugh loudly in the enjoyment of the pain they inflict. And feast on the manipulations of Jezebel. They drink from the cup of Baal's blood And tear at the cornerstone of the temple While they lust after the love of no one but themselves. May their cackling outbursts be silenced in the Churches! Let the Word of God reign The blood of Christ flow and The fire of the Holy Spirit enflame every truly faithful heart! Holy Prophet Elijah, you who were the incarnate Angel, intercede for us before the only Loving One, that we may be delivered from these demons in our midst, and gather with those men and women who truly worship the Most Holy Trinity. This image is a portion of the icon depicting The Fiery Ascension of the Prophet Elijah.

When was the last time I reflected on The possibility of Eternal punishment? It's such a sick, sad, twisted affair. No, not this thing We call damnation. Not even the fate of sheep and goats. It's this place we call life That really bothers me. The pit we call human relationships. A real cesspool of humiliation and degradation. All the while These two realities Stare us straight in the face: The world of now and the world to come. Rarely a motivator Infrequently a rejuvenator We run away from it Because it is hard to hear. Perhaps because Some reformer somewhere Decided scarring and scaring you Was the best way to catechize. It's simpler than that really. There's darkness, Then there's illuminated darkness, That's the real choice. Nihilism or apophaticism? Falling deeper into an abyss Or climbing the mountain? Choose. Choose now! Icon of the Last Judgment by Viktor Vasnetsov (1848-1926).

An inestimable gulf exists Between what I am And what You made me to be. That is why I stare with longing Across the waters That lie between us. Maybe that's the point? Of this life lived so long On the shore of desire, To stand watch For what is true and real To seek and to find the Divine. Oh, this journey of mine! I hope and I love I hear, I see, and I know You are the One that Keeps me, while here, Only to walk upon the bridge Built by Christ and Sanctified by Your Spirit. Life is but a journey Filled with unquenchable desire, So strike out into the deep! Onward to the Eschaton! Rocky coats of picturesque sea against sunset sky · Free Stock Photo (pexels.com)

"I am descending deep into my heart, to see who is dwelling in it besides me and You, O Eternal God. "And I am filled with fear as I find legions of strangers fighting over portions of my heart. I found as many of them in my heart as time contains human and inhuman souls from the Fall of Adam. "And then I understood why my heart has become weary, and cannot receive either You or me into its chambers, but instead shoves us to the outer perimeter – pushing the proprietors out to the edge of their property. "Even before I came out of the womb of my mother, the world with its desires was dwelling within me. "I used to pay dearly and too dearly for every flattery of the world. I would always break off a piece of my heart and give it as payment, until eventually I gave my whole heart to the world and the flatteries began to become boresome to me. "Old men complain to me about their years, saying: “Our heart has grown old under the weight of many years.” In truth, old men, your heart has not grown old beneath the weight of many years but beneath the weight of many desires. "And so, when alone I advise my heart: break away from yesterday’s day, because it has already broken away from you. All those objects, to which desire bound you yesterday, do not exist today. Some of them have changed, others disease has disfigured, still others have died. Nor do the objects of your desires of tomorrow exist. With its whip, time flogs its flock, and its flock sweats and bleeds beneath the blows. But the objects of today’s day are throwing into you, my heart – already brimming with shadows of the dead – new desire, which tomorrow will be even more of the same shadows of the dead. "Do not revive memories of the past, my heart, for those memories will bind you to the pillar of time as many times as you revive them. And you will be a slave to time; you will grow old and will die before death. "As quickly as possible, break the knots of the passions, which have become entangled by desires and emotions combining and frequently recurring. It is easier to break the individual threads of desires and the individual threads of emotions than the knots of passions. Nevertheless you must break them even if it causes you to bleed, if you want a new childhood, a new youth, more beautiful and eternal than your former youth. "Cast the world out of yourself, my heart, and then observe how feeble it is. And then observe yourself, and you will feel unheard-of power. The world seems powerful to us only when we serve it as its slave. "You will be as vast as eternity, and eternity itself will come to dwell within you. "O triune God, You have a heart that is devoid of darkness and free of the world. Clear out from my heart the uninvited strangers, who have sullied my heart with darkness. Let my heart be radiant; let darkness hover around my heart, but let it never occupy it. "Let my heart be the heart of a son and a lord and not the heart of hireling and a thief. "Grant me the heart of Jesus, around which darkness waited in vain to enter, but never could. "O Queen of heavenly beauty, embrace my heart with motherly caring. "O Holy and Almighty Spirit, make my heart fruitful with heavenly love – so that everything that is born and grows within it may not be of flesh and blood but of Thee, my Holy Spirit and Lord." - St. Nikolai Velimirovich, "XLIV." Prayers By the Lake, Rt. Rev. Archimandrite Todor Mika, S.T.M. and V. Rev. Dr. Stevan Scott, trans., Independently Published, 2018, p. 115.

Cacophonous and Thunderous, O World of Mine Rending and Reaping with your Screeching and Shrieking, Tending to the Flocks of your Dead souls. Having sacrificed and Saved O God of Mine, By descending and Ascending to tend the Flocks of Your Blessed souls. What are we to do with The newly dying, Lying dormant between Prayerless tombs and Pleas for help? Help us open their ears, Eternal One, To the sound of Your mystical silence, For the final hour comes! Icon of the Apocalypse of St. John the Divine

As horrifying as it is to hear it and to speak it, the entire Christian world will once again witness the unfolding drama of the Passion during Holy Week. For many of us, this time will be one of sincere repentance and deep reflection. For some, it will be just another week marking the gentle return to spring. But for others, it will be the perfect time to deny, discredit and attempt to destroy the Truth. This last group consists of people who ally themselves with the forces marshaled by the Adversary himself. These are the ones who propagate the tradition of betrayal that extends from as far back as the serpent in the Garden of Eden, the host of Old Testament betrayers like Alcimus and Ahithophel, and Holy Week’s apostle-turned-apostate himself, Judas Iscariot. The worst part of this week, however, is that the story of Christian betrayal didn’t end when Judas hanged himself. It continued afterward in the guise of heretics fighting against the early Church, and it still exists in our day. In fact, the age in which we are living is decidedly despicable because not only has it invented its own heresies, but it is resuscitating the same ones put to rest in the early Church. That is why it is vitally important for Catholics, the Orthodox and other-tradition-minded Christians to understand our patrimony. We must inform ourselves about the ancient faith and use that knowledge and a commitment to prayer to learn to spot heresy in our own time. As soon as Holy Week is over — since you would have been reminded of the story of Judas — take some time to understand more about the historical development of Church doctrine by becoming more familiar with the debate surrounding certain early heresies. Include in your research Gnosticism-Docetism (denying God came in the flesh), Arianism (denying Jesus is God), Pelagianism (denying man is dependent on God), Iconoclasm (denying the use of images of God in prayer), Macedonianism (denying the Holy Spirit is God), Origenism (denying an eternal judgment) and Messalianism (denying the sacraments and ecclesiastical obedience). While doing so it might appear that some of these heresies are obscure debates that have little to do with the modern person in the pew. On the contrary, the controversies over doctrine in the first centuries of the Church are at the very heart of the challenges we face today. Therefore, the second activity you can undertake is to make connections between what happened in the early days of the Church and what is happening today. In other words, once you are grounded in these doctrines and debates, I hope to help you see how the modern world is re-adapting these heresies and passing them off as some sort of modern cultural orthodoxy. Specifically, notice how Gnosticism-Docetism is alive in Scientology, the entertainment world and even some parishes. Arianism can be found among Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Unitarians and in certain parts of inter-religious dialogue. Pelagianism is rampant in American culture and can be found in modernist spirituality and homiletics. Iconoclasm is captured in public policy and is prevalent in the design of modernist churches. Macedonianism has reappeared in the New Age movement (which is largely synonymous with environmentalists now) and in modernist spiritualities within the Church. Origenism can be found not only within the wider secularist culture but also among Christians who dismiss the truth of the final judgment. Lastly, Messalianism can be found among Quakers, Buddhists and Marxist spiritualities that reject sacraments and ecclesiastical obedience. Recognizing these connections should mean to us that Docetism, Origenism, Arianism, Macedonianism, Pelagianism, Iconoclasm and Messalianism are not obscure theological and spiritual debates weighed down by the miniscule ravings of hermitic lunatics who sought to hide in caves away from a disappointing world. These seven heresies, in fact, are vitally important to how we understand God and His Church. More than that, betrayal and heresy-as-betrayal offer us an important key to unlocking the rather confusing and disheartening times in which we live. The people behind these heresies, the theological details of these heresies and the spiritual impact and meaning of these heresies can all be found in our world today. It is possible, in fact, to say evil was at work in the early Church, and we can say it is today, too. But it is altogether too important to ignore man’s decidedly dark attempts throughout our history to destroy God’s Churches, to dissuade His followers and to try to dissuade God’s people from the validity of His sacraments. That is why the third activity you can take on after Holy Week is to pay better attention to the prayers right before Communion. In the 1970 Missal of the Roman Rite (Novus Ordo) take note of the phrase: “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you […]” In the 1962 Missal of the Roman Rite (Blessed John XXIII) the believer begs: “Let not the partaking of Thy Body, O Lord Jesus Christ, which I, though unworthy, presume to receive, turn to my judgment and condemnation […]” Finally, and most significantly in the Byzantine Catholic Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, the believer asks and promises: “Accept me today as a partaker of your mystical supper, O Son of God, for I will not reveal your mystery to your enemies, nor will I give you a kiss as did Judas […]” Let us not be like Judas and let us fight against those who are. For we know the truth that God Himself became man so that man could become more like God. We know He came in the flesh, worked miracles, preached the Kingdom, was betrayed, beaten and crucified. Thankfully, we also know He was resurrected. But we must take what we know into the world. Our efforts during this week and in the weeks to come will make us wiser in understanding and handling the hidden messages and methods used by the forces of those who wish to ignore the revelation of God. Understanding and rooting out this betrayal where it exists will further toward the ultimate, heavenly goal: theosis or union with Him for all of eternity. _________________________________ This article originally appeared here: Judas, Alive and Well (catholicexchange.com).

Awake and arise my little children. I am not here to tell you a bedtime story, I am here to tell you the truth. Awake and arise so I can tell you about the Christ. Did you not hear me my little ones? He is risen. Truly, He is risen. Why do you not leap to your feet and run to Him? Can you not say a word? Filled with fantasy you cannot recognize Him But only the characters in slumber’s play. You have been lulled to sleep You cannot see Him anymore. Re-live the farce of His betrayal Look at His indignity. Watch Him bound and beaten See Him laid in the tomb. He released you from the millennial sleep But you spend time wallowing in your fantasies. He cries out for you But your minds are numbed by the images that mesmerize. You are indifferent and it shows. You are indifferent and it crucifies. If you hated Him at least I would know you were alive. I could share what I have been told then you could be about your business. But that’s just it isn’t it? You made a deal not to listen. You made a deal with the one who despises you. All you had to do is to promise that you wouldn’t wake up from your sleep. Awake and arise before it’s too late! You have forgotten the Christ The One who reaches out for you in truth In goodness. In beauty. Wipe away the sleep from your eyes See Him. Open your ears Hear Him. You have been sleeping in the frozen winter. Wake up. Choose the Savior Rush to the Body. Rush to the blood. You still crave sleep? Distraction is simpler than the sacrifice of love. Go back to sleep. Go back to sleep my sweet little Judas’. ‘Arrest of Christ (Fragment)’ was created in 1311 by Duccio in Proto Renaissance style.

"Your birth, O Christ our God, dawned the light of knowledge upon the earth. For by Your birth those who adored stars were taught by a star to worship You, the Sun of Justice, and to know You, Orient from on High." O Lord, glory to You. - From the Apolytikion (a dismissal hymn) of the Feast of the Nativity - Icon of the Adoration of the Magi (from the Menologion of Basil II, 10th-11th c.)