Sunday

**This week excerpts from St. Nikolai’s  Prologue

The Lord did not even spare His apostles from temptations. That is why He gave them grace! When Satan himself began to malign the Apostle Paul, Paul prayed to God that Satan would depart from him. To this the Lord replied: My grace is sufficient for thee! That is, if you need to withstand Satan, My grace is sufficient for your endurance. If you need to struggle against Satan, again My grace is sufficient for you. If you wish to defeat Satan, again My grace is sufficient for you. Grace is an all-inclusive weapon. Grace is stronger than all opposition, than all assaults, than all the powers of darkness. Grace is invincible and victorious. Brethren, that is why we should pray to the Lord to give us His All-powerful grace. Grace is God within us. Grace is the Kingdom of God within us. When the grace of God is within us, then day is within our souls. And day signifies light, knowledge and fearlessness. Brethren, here on earth we cannot implore a greater good from God than the grace of God. If we were to receive the entire universe as a gift, that gift would be less than the grace of God. O Most-abundant Lord, the inexhaustible source of omnipotent grace, sprinkle our hardened hearts with Thy grace, that we might weep before Thy most-great goodness and our horrendous ingratitude.

 

Prayer:
We adore Thee O Christ and we bless Thee for by Thy Holy Cross Thou hast redeemed the world.

Monday

Bodily health is undoubtedly a gift from God. But bodily health is by no means the greatest good of this world, as many people say and write about it. For whatever kind of bodily health it is, it is transitory; and that which is transitory cannot be called the greatest blessing for man. Unchanging values are more precious than transitory values, as eternity is more precious than time. Unchanging values enter into the framework of the health of the soul. Father John of Kronstadt writes: “Oh, I myself feel that, when I am completely healthy and when I do not exhaust myself by labor, then I am dying in the spirit; then the Kingdom of God is not within me; then my body controls me, and with my body, the devil.”

Prayer:
Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight O Lord my strength and my redeemer

 

Tuesday

With his prophetic gift, the Apostle Paul prophesied about the riches of grace which, throughout the ages, would be poured out on the generations of mankind. We who live nearly twenty centuries after the time of the Apostle can attest to that which the Apostle prophesied in ages past. Just as beehives are filled with valuable and honey-bearing bees, so all the centuries from Christ until today are replete with grace-filled men, virgins and women. Oh, how abundantly the richness of the grace of God manifested itself on countless souls who at first were sinful and later became holy!

Oh, how abundantly the richness of the grace of God manifested itself on men and women who were at first weak and fearful and then heroically confessed Christ the Lord and joyfully suffered for Him! Oh, how abundantly the richness of the grace of God manifested itself through the centuries on the simple and illiterate who became truly wise men and spiritual generals of the faithful armies of Christ! Brethren, just think how much more hidden holiness, unrevealed sacrifices, unrecorded heroism, unsung virtues lay hidden in the depths of twenty centuries of Christianity! When all of that is made known, everything from past centuries and those yet to come till the end of time, then angels and men will be astonished before the unspeakable riches of the grace of God. Then the Apostle Paul himself will have to cry out: “Even though I was an apostle, nevertheless, my word was too weak to express all the immeasurable richness of the grace of God which, out of love for man, has appeared in the world!”

 

Prayer:
O Lord come to my assistance, O Lord make haste to help me.

 

Wednesday

Only a proud man is always prepared to equate Christ with other great men. However, it is obvious at first glance that great men are one thing and the Lord Christ another, just as creation is one thing and the Creator another. Christ is not only great but He is the Creator and Source and Inspirer of everything truly great in the history of mankind. While in exile and misery on the island of St. Helena, Napoleon, a man of transient greatness, uttered these words: “Alexander, Caesar, Hannibal, Louis XIV, with all their genius, are nothing. They have conquered the world and were unable to gain one friend. And behold, Christ calls and instantly entire generations are united in a bond closer and stronger than the bond of blood. Christ ignites the fire of love which consumes all egoism and surpasses any kind of love whatever.”

Prayer:

Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.
Thursday

It is God’s will that the human race multiply. The means by which this is accomplished have been devised by God’s artistry. It is God’s mystery how man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife. To leave your parents does not mean to abandon your parents but rather to become parents yourselves. When children become parents, they are no longer only children, they are also companions of their parents. When wedded sons learn of the mystery and pain of childbirth, they then respect their parents even more. The marital union can never free a man  from having respect for and obedience toward his parents. The original commandment of God to honor one’s parents must be fulfilled. But, according to the natural cycle of things, a man leaves his parents and becomes a parent himself; he becomes a founder of a new future while his parents depart, having completed their role in the world. However, the “leaving” of one’s parents does not consist in this alone. By a certain incomprehensible mystery, man clings to his wife and detaches himself from his parents. St. Theodoretus writes: “Christ Himself left his Father on high and united Himself to the Church.” My brethren, matrimony is a great and miraculous mystery, one of the greatest mysteries of God’s plan. A pure and honorable marriage overflows with sublimity. A pure and honorable marriage, in the fear of God, is a vessel of the grace of the Holy Spirit. Whoever disdains marriage disdains the Spirit of God. Whoever defiles marriage with impurity blasphemes against the Spirit of God. Whoever abstains from marriage for the sake of the Kingdom of God must, in a different manner, prepare himself as a vessel of the Holy Spirit and must make himself fruitful in the spiritual realm in order not to be cut down as the barren fig tree.

 

Prayer:
Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Hosts, the whole earth is filled with Thy Glory.

Friday

Oh, how great was the fearlessness of the holy men and holy women! When we read about their lives, both shame and pride are awakened involuntarily in us: shame that we have lagged so far behind them, and pride that they are of our Christian race. Neither sickness, nor prison, nor exile, nor suffering, nor humiliation, nor the sword, nor the abyss, nor fire, nor the gallows were able to shake the exalted peace of their souls, firmly attached to Christ, the Helmsman of the universe and of human history. When Emperor Julian apostatized from the Faith and began  to lay waste Christianity throughout the entire empire, St. Athanasius the Great quietly spoke of him to the faithful: “It is a small cloud; it will pass!” (Nibicula est, transibit). And indeed, that dark cloud quickly passed, and Christianity lowered its roots even deeper and spread its branches all the more throughout the world. The impotent rage of Julian against Christ passed after several years with Julian’s cry in his death-rattle: “O Nazarene, Thou hast conquered!” O sons of God, why should we be afraid of anything, when God our Father fears nothing?

Prayer:

Christ with me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me, Christ in me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.
(St. Patrick’s Breastplate prayer excerpt)
Saturday

Great is the mystery when a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife. The Apostle himself, who was raised to the third heaven and who saw many mysteries of heaven, calls the physical union of men and women in marriage on earth “a great mystery.” It is the mystery of love and life, and only the mystery of Christ’s union with His Church is greater. Christ is called the Bridegroom, and the Church is called the Bride. Christ loves His Church so much that, because of her, He left His Heavenly Father—remaining with Him, of course, in unity of essence and divinity—and descended to earth and bound Himself to His Church. He suffered for her so that, by His Blood, He might cleanse her from every sin and defilement, and make her worthy to be called His Bride. With His love He warms the Church, with His blood He feeds the Church, and by His Holy Spirit He causes the Church to live and sanctifies and adorns her. What a husband is to a wife, so Christ is to the Church. Man is the head of woman and Christ is the Head of the Church.  A woman obeys her husband, and the Church obeys Christ. A husband loves his wife as he loves his own body, and Christ loves the Church as His own Body. A husband loves his wife as he loves himself, and a wife reveres her husband; so also Christ loves the Church as His own self, and the Church reveres Christ. Since no one hates his own flesh but rather warms and nourishes it, so also Christ warms and feeds the Church as His own Body. Every individual human soul is the bride of Christ the Bridegroom, and the assembly of all the faithful is the bride of Christ the Bridegroom. The relationship of a believing man toward Christ is the relationship of the entire Church toward Christ. Christ is the Head of that great Body which is called the Church, and which is in part visible and in part invisible. O my brethren, this is a great mystery! It is revealed to us according to the measure of our love for Christ and of our fear of Christ’s judgment.

 

Prayer:

O Come let us worship and fall down before Christ, O Son of God, Who didst rise from the dead, save us who chant unto Thee, Alleluia.