81. Maintain Proper Temperature

82. Your Home Altar

Selections from St. John Chrysostom, “Address on Vainglory and the Right Way for Parents to Bring Up Their Children”:

“And so I urge this on you too, to call your children by the names of the righteous. In early times these other customs were reasonable, and men used to call their children by the names of their forebears. It was a consolation for death that the departed should seem to live through his name. But this is so no longer. We see at least that the righteous did not name their children in this wise. Abraham begat Isaac. Jacob and Moses were not called after their forebears, and we shall not find a single one of the righteous who was named so. How great is the virtue of which this is a token, this naming and calling by name, seeing that we shall find no other reason for the change of name save that it brings virtue to mind. ‘Thou shalt be called Cephas,’ says Christ (John 1:42), ‘which is by interpretation Peter.’ Why? Because thou didst acknowledge me. And thou shalt be called Abraham. Why? Because thou shalt be the father of nations (Genesis 17: 4). And Israel, because he saw God (cf. Genesis 35:9-10). And so let us begin the care and training of our children from that point.”

“To each of you fathers and mothers I say, just as we see artists fashioning their paintings and statues with great precision, so we must care for these wondrous statues of ours. Painters when they have set the canvas on the easel paint on it day by day to accomplish their purpose. Sculptors, too, working in marble, proceed in a similar manner; they remove what is superfluous and add what is lacking. Even so must you proceed. Like the creators of statues do you give all your leisure to fashioning these wondrous statues for God. And, as you remove what is superfluous and add what is lacking, inspect them day by day, to see what good qualities nature has supplied so that you will increase them, and what faults so that you will eradicate them. And, first of all, take the greatest care to banish licentious speech; for love of this above all frets the souls of the young. Before he is of an age to try it, teach thy son to be sober and vigilant and to shorten sleep for the sake of prayer, and with every word and deed to set upon himself the seal of the faith.”

“I shall not cease exhorting and begging and supplicating you before all else to discipline your sons from the first. If thou dost care for thy son, show it thus, and in other ways too thou wilt have thy reward. Hearken to the words of Paul, ‘if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety’ (I Timothy 2; 15). And even if thou art conscious of a myriad vices within thyself, nevertheless devise some compensation for thy vices. Raise up an athlete for Christ! I do not mean by this, hold him back from wedlock and send him to desert regions and prepare him to assume the monastic life. It is not this that I mean. I wish for this and used to pray that all might embrace it; but as it seems to be too heavy a burden, I do not insist upon it. Raise up an athlete for Christ and teach him though he is living in the world to be reverent from his earliest youth.”

St. John Chrysostom, “Address on Vainglory and the Right Way for Parents to Bring Up Their Children,” M. L. W. Laistner, Christianity and Pagan Culture in the Later Roman Empire (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press), 1951.

83. Live Free

Protopresbyter John Romanides, “Patristic Theology”:

“God loves not only saints but all people, without exception, including sinners, people in hell, and even the devil. And He desires to save and heal every one of them. He wants to heal them all, but He cannot, because they do not all want to be healed. We know this—that God is love and that He desires to heal everyone and loves everyone—because it has been verified and continues to be verified by the experiences of those who have attained to theosis, in which God is seen and they have seen God.

Nevertheless, God cannot heal everyone, because He does not violate the human will. God holds man in high regard and loves him. He cannot, however, heal someone by force. He heals only those who want to be healed and who request that He heal them. Normally, someone who is physically ill, or even mentally ill, goes to the doctor on his own accord and not by force in order to get well—that is, if he is still thinking rationally. The same thing happens in the Orthodox therapeutic course of treatment. We must go to the Church freely on our own accord, without being forced or pressured. We must go to competent people who have reached illumination, are experienced, and possess the curative method of the Orthodox tradition. And then we must be obedient to them in order to find healing.”

Protospresbyter John S. Romanides, “Patristic Theology,” trans. by Hieromonk Alexis (Dalles, OR: Uncut Mountain Press, 2008), 33.

Selection from St. John Chrysostom (on discernment of priest and free will of person), “On the Priesthood”:

“For Christians above all men are forbidden to correct the stumblings of sinners by force. When secular judges convict wrong-doers under the law, they show that their authority is complete and compel men, whether they will or no, to submit to their methods. But in the case we are considering it is necessary to make a man better not by force but by persuasions. We neither have authority granted us by law to restrain sinners, nor, if it were, should we know how to use it, since God gives the crown to those who are kept from evil, not by fore, but by choice.

For this reason, a lot of tact is needed, so that the sick may be persuaded of their own accord to submit to treatment of the priest, and not only that, but be grateful to them for their cure. If a man struggles when he is bound (for he may still choose to do so), he makes his suffers worse. And if he ignores the words which cut like steel, he adds a second wound through his contempt, and the intention to heal becomes the occasion of a more serious disease. For the man does not exist who can by compulsion cure someone else against his will.

What, then, should you do? If you behave too leniently to one who needs deep surgery, and do not make a deep incision in one who requires it, you mutilate yet miss the cancer. But if you make the needed incision without mercy, often the patient, in despair at his sufferings, throws all aside at once, medicine and bandage alike, and promptly throws himself over a cliff, ‘breaking the yoke and bursting the bond.’”

“So, the shepherd needs great wisdom and a thousand eyes, to examine the soul’s condition from every angle. As there are plenty of people who are puffed up into arrogance and then fall into heedlessness of their own salvation because they cannot stand bitter medicines; so there are others who, because they do not pay a proportionate penalty for their sins, are misled into negligence and become far worse, and are led on to commit greater sins. The priest, therefore, must not overlook any of these considerations, but examine them all with care and apply all his remedies appropriately, for fear his care should be in vain.”

St. John Chrysostom, Six Books on the Priesthood, trans. by Graham Neville (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1964), 56-58.

84. Unity in the Body; More than a Colony

85. Mosaic Icon: Order Your Life Well

86. The Lunar Lamp

87. Is Your Heart Wax or Clay?

88. The Sacred Canons

The Therapeutic Purpose of Canons

In Ecumenical Council, the Church not only expressed the dogma of the Church, but formulated canons to guide the Church. The canons are not laws, but rules applied with leniency (economia) or strickness (akrivia), depending on the situation. When a canon is relevant to an individual situation, it is applied therapeutically as medicine for the healing of the soul according with pastoral discretion. Canon CII of the Quinisext Council (Council of Trullo), AD 692, expresses the therapeutic purpose of the Holy Canons and how the bishop should use them:

“It behoves those who have received from God the power to loose and bind, to consider the quality of the sin and the readiness of the sinner for conversion, and to apply medicine suitable for the disease, lest if he is injudicious in each of these respects he should fail in regard to the healing of the sick man. For the disease of sin is not simple, but various and multiform, and it germinates many mischievous offshoots, from which much evil is diffused, and it proceeds further until it is checked by the power of the physician. Wherefore he who professes the science of spiritual medicine ought first of all to consider the disposition of him who has sinned, and to see whether he tends to health or (on the contrary) provokes to himself disease by his own behaviour, and to look how he can care for his manner of life during the interval. And if he does not resist the physician, and if the ulcer of the soul is increased by the application of the imposed medicaments, then let him mete out mercy to him according as he is worthy of it. For the whole account is between God and him to whom the pastoral rule has been delivered, to lead back the wandering sheep and to cure that which is wounded by the serpent; and that he may neither cast them down into the precipices of despair, nor loosen the bridle towards dissolution or contempt of life; but in some way or other, either by means of sternness and astringency, or by greater softness and mild medicines, to resist this sickness and exert himself for the healing of the ulcer, now examining the fruits of his repentance and wisely managing the man who is called to higher illumination. For we ought to know two things, to wit, the things which belong to strictness and those which belong to custom, and to follow the traditional form in the case of those who are not fitted for the highest things, as holy Basil teaches us.”

Note: The Quinisext Council, primarily concerned with approving canons, is regarded as part of the Sixth Ecumenical Council.

Canon CII, “The Canons of the Council of Trullo,” The Seven Ecumenical Councils, NPNF, second series, vol. 14. The text is available here: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214.txt

89. Giving Cheerfully

Selections from Ss. Barsanuphius and John, Letters from the Desert:

“623. Question. What should someone do to become accustomed to giving alms, if from the beginning one does not enjoy giving at all?

Response by John

That person should remind oneself how God will reward those who give, and begin with small things, always advising oneself that one who gives little will receive little, on who gives much will also receive much, according to the words: ‘the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly; and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully’ (2 Cor 9.6). And, from the little, the thought is gradually moved to desire the bountiful, and therefore always progresses toward perfection. Such a person can reach perfect measures, in order to render oneself naked of all early things and become one in spirit with the heavenly things.”

“626. Question. If I would like to give alms, but my thought has doubts about giving what should I do?

Response by John

Examine yourself, and if you find that you are doing this out of stinginess, then give something even beyond what you should have given, for example an additional small amount, and you will receive God’s mercy.”

Ss. Barsanuphius and John, Letters from the Desert, (Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 2003), 167-168.

90. Learn the Lessons of Creation