SATAN IS REAL - READ THIS

Reading these and other similar testimonies, many are perplexed. How, they think, can we reconcile more acute senses of the soul with the impossibility for it to repent? The fact is that repentance is more than a mere feeling. Remorse is possible after death, as Blessed Theophylact writes in the above commentary—but it will be fruitless for those who did not repent in their lifetimes. The Venerable Ephraim the Syrian says the same: “There are tears of repentance, when the soul desires eternal good things, and they are very sweet and beneficial. And there are tears of remorse, where (according to the Savior’s word) there is weeping and gnashing of teeth (Mt.8:12), and these tears are bitter and useless, because they are altogether fruitless.”1 The fact is that repentance is not only the awareness of your sins, but also the desire and opportunity to change, to be cleansed from them, to be spiritually transformed. Transformation is possible only by the movement of the human will and the work of grace, and “the time and place for the action of grace is here alone”, as the Holy Fathers wrote. St. John of Kronstadt said: “A terrible truth. Impenitent sinners after their death lose every possibility of changing for good, and therefore remain unalterably given up to everlasting torments (for sin cannot but torment). <…> Who does not know how difficult it is, without God’s special grace, for a sinner to turn from the way of sin that is so dear to him into the path of virtue?... But for the grace of God, what sinner would have returned to God? For it is the nature of sin to darken our souls, to bind us hand and foot. But the time and place for the action of grace is here alone: after death there remain only the prayers of the Church, and these prayers can be efficacious for penitent sinners alone—that is, only for those who have developed in their souls the capability of receiving God’s mercy or of benefiting by the prayers of the Church—that is, the light of the good works which they have taken with them out of this life.”2 Blessed Theophylact of Ochrid wrote: “The sinner is in darkness even in this life, as he has fallen away from the Sun of Righteousness. But as there is still hope of conversion, this is not yet the ‘outer’ darkness. But when he has died and an examination has been made of the things he has done, then the outer darkness in its turn receives him. For there is no longer any hope of conversion, but he undergoes a complete deprivation of the good things of God. While he is here in this life he enjoys to some degree the good things of God, I mean, the tangible things of creation, and he believes that he is in some manner a servant of God, living out his life in God’s house, which is this creation, being fed by Him and provided with the necessities of life. But then he will be altogether cut off from God, having no share at all in the good things of God. This is that darkness which is called ‘outer’ by comparison to the darkness here, which is not ‘outer’, because the sinner is not yet completely cut off from this time onward.”3 Reflecting on the same subject, St. Theophan the Recluse, wrote: “Now or tomorrow death will come, and it will end all that is ours, and will in itself be imprinted on our destinies forever, for there is no repentance after death. We will stand before the Judgment seat in that state death finds us.”4 “The law of life is such that as soon as someone plants the seed of repentance here, even at his last gasp, he will not perish. This seed will grow and bear fruit—eternal salvation. And if someone does not plant the seed of repentance here and passes over with the spirit of unrepentant persistence in sins, then he will remain there forever with the same spirit and reap forever the fruit of it according to its kind—God’s eternal rejection.”5 As we can see from these words, a salvific change after death is possible only for those who, according to St. John of Kronstadt, “have developed in their souls the capability of receiving God’s mercy—the light of the good works which they have taken with them out of this life.” All Orthodox Christians who died in repentance have hope of salvation from hell, even if they did not have time to bring the fruits of repentance sufficient for cleansing their souls and therefore did not attain Paradise: the prayers of the living can help them. Their painful state can be changed. Their “seed of repentance”, albeit small, can bring the fruit of eternal life through the prayers of the Church. The Epistle of the Patriarchs of the Eastern Catholic Church on the Orthodox Faith (1723) reads: “The souls of people who fell into mortal sins and did not despair at death, but once again before being separated from the real life of those who repented, only who did not manage to bear any fruits of repentance (which are: prayers, tears, contrition, consolation of the poor and expression in actions of love for God and neighbors that the entire Catholic Church from the very beginning recognizes God-pleasing and useful), the souls of such people descend into hell and suffer punishment for the sins they have committed, without depriving, however, of relief from them. They receive relief by infinite goodness through the prayers of the Priests and the beneficence performed for the dead; and especially by the power of the bloodless Sacrifice, which, in particular, the clergyman brings for each Christian about his relatives, in general, for all, the Catholic and Apostolic Church brings daily.”6 That is, it is not that the love of God turns away from the sinner after death, but the soul itself changes after death, and if there is no “light of the good works” or “seed of repentance” in it, it will not be able to receive God’s help and be transformed by repentance. The Holy Fathers unanimously write about this. I will give just a few examples. St. Anthony the Great: “What do crying and sobbing mean, if not the boundlessness of cruel and terrible torments? and what is depicted by gnashing of teeth, if not the greatest regret for the sins committed? Then—and this will surely happen—we will begin to resent ourselves, to repent with gnashing teeth, when repentance will not take place, when there will be no benefit from it, when the time given for repentance will have passed.”7 St. Gregory of Nyssa: “After death no one will have a chance to heal the disease inflicted by sin by the memory of God, because confession has power on earth, but it does not exist in hell.”8 St. John Damascene states in his book, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith: “You must know that the fall for the angels is the same as death for people. For after they fall they have no repentance, just as humans have no repentance after death.” Why does this happen? The fact is that the personality cannot change after death. Entering eternity beyond the grave, the soul begins to live according to the law of eternity. St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov) teaches that after death a person begins a different way of existence, passing from a temporary life into eternity, immutability: “Death is a great sacrament. It is the birth of a person from this earthly, temporal life into eternity.”9 The things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal (2 Cor. 4:18), the Holy Scriptures say about what awaits everybody after this temporary life. The attribute of eternity is the qualitative immutability of phenomena. The qualitative state of the soul acquired during life on earth cannot change after passing into eternity. Therefore, after the death of the body the soul can only change within the limits of the quality that it acquired in earthly life: either to grow in virtue or degrade in sin. He who in his lifetime acquired a penitent spirit and striving for goodness will be perfected in goodness by the grace of God; and he who had no repentance in his soul, but wholeheartedly served his passions, will fall more and more into the abyss of evil. Archbishop Luke (Voino-Yasenetsky) speaks about this in a brief yet very profound phrase: “The life of the brain and the heart and the combined, miraculously coordinated life of all the bodily organs are required only for the formation of the spirit and cease when its formation is completed or its direction has been fully determined10.” The Australian surgeon Pyotr Kalinowsky explained the deep meanings of these words of St. Luke: “These words of Archbishop Luke speak about the most important thing—what gives a person life on earth. Archbishop Luke, having spoken about the purpose of our life on earth, proceeds, saying that after the death of the body in the immortal human soul eternal life and endless development in the direction of good or evil continue. “The most terrible thing about these words of the archbishop is that at the moment of death of the body all further development of the soul in the direction of good or evil has already been determined. In the afterlife, two paths lay before the soul—towards the light or away from it, and after the death of the body the soul can no longer choose its path. The path was determined by human life on earth. <…> However, the sinner’s dark soul, which remains dark even after the death of the body, can no longer change. “This is what the Lord Jesus Christ Himself says: My Father is the Husbandman. Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, He purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit (Jn. 15:1-2). “For a person who realizes that his life on earth is only a part of his life and that in the afterlife he will continue the development begun here, his entire temporary existence acquires a special meaning.”11 St. John Damascene writes about this attribute of eternity: “Further, everlasting life and everlasting punishment prove that the age to come is unending. For time will not be counted by days and nights even after the resurrection, but there will rather be one day with no evening, wherein the Sun of Justice will shine brightly on the just, but for the sinful there will be night, profound and limitless. In what way then will the period of one thousand years be counted which, according to Origen, is required for the complete restoration?”12 St. Theophan the Recluse explains the immutability of the personality in eternity as well: “You forget that there will be eternity, not time; therefore, everything there will be eternal, not temporary. You count the torments for hundreds, thousands and millions of years, whereas there the first minute will begin, and there will be no end to it, because there will be a never-ending minute. The counting will not go any further, but it will be in the first minute, and it will remain like that.”13 Monk Mitrofan explains this phenomenon based on the Word of God: “Today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise (Lk. 23:43), Jesus Christ said to the penitent thief. It means that every soul upon separation from its body will be either in Heaven or in hell. When? Today, the Lord Jesus Christ said. “How do we understand the word ‘today’? How can it be reconciled with the teaching of the Church about the third, the ninth and the fortieth days? There are days, nights and years on earth, but eternity is either light or dark. Thus, the word ‘today’ means time after death—eternity. The third, the ninth and the fortieth days are on earth, but there are no days in the afterlife. There is only ‘today’ and there is no other day. “The sacrament of death is the door through which the soul, having separated from its body, enters eternity.”14 St. Luke (Voino-Yasenetsky) writes about this as well: “The eternal bliss of the righteous and the eternal punishment of the sinners must be understood in such a way that the immortal spirit of the former, enlightened and powerfully strengthened after liberation from the body, receives the opportunity for unlimited development in the direction of goodness and Divine love, in permanent communion with God and all the bodiless powers. And the dark spirit of evildoers and those who fight against God in permanent communication with the devil and his angels will be tormented forever by being alienated from God, Whose holiness they will finally know, and by the unbearable poison that evil and hatred are fraught with, infinitely increasing in incessant communication with the center and source of evil—satan.

MANY PEOPLE OF VARIOUS AGENTS WILL SEEK TO CONTOL US.

Today is the commemoration of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, who suffered and received crowns of martyrdom from the godless satanic authorities, which to this day [this sermon was delivered before the fall of communism in Russia.—Ed.], with the explicit support of the so-called “free world,” oppress our Russian people. A characteristic feature of most of our New Martyrs is that their persecutors did not and do not torture them directly and openly for Christ.

If this or that persecuted person had not been a Christian, if he had not shown fortitude and courage in loyalty to Christ, there would have been no accusations. If he had renounced God and worshipped the idol of Marx and Lenin, then the accusation would have immediately disappeared. One mighty aspiration to God, in love for the Orthodox Fatherland, was the life of our Martyr Sovereign and His August Family in captivity. Our archpastors, pastors, many, many warriors, scientists, and toilers of the earth, burned with fiery zeal for God and the Orthodox Fatherland. Millions of our New Martyrs, who suffered terrible torments, courageously confessed their faith in Christ and fidelity to Him. In our evil time, the diabolical forces fighting against God do not dare to directly demand that modern martyrs renounce Christ. Christians are being charged with crimes of which they are not guilty. Thus, the persecutors maintain a favorable appearance—the martyr suffers, allegedly, not for Christ. But it is clear to the sufferer and to his accusers that it is enough for him, the martyr, to show by word or hint that he is ready, even in the most plausible form, to renounce his faith, to renounce his courageous fortitude in it, and he will be acquitted or exempted from persecution. What is required of us, dear brothers and sisters, in these evil times? One thing is required of us: Faithfulness! Faithfulness to Christ through faithfulness to our New Martyrs as our mentors. The Apostle Paul says: “Remember your instructors and imitate their way of life” (cf. Heb. 13:7). Whoever renounces the New Martyrs and Confessors, regardless of where he lives—in enslaved Russia or at liberty abroad—gives himself into the hands of the theomachists! Don’t forget that! In enslaved Russia, all those who confessed their loyalty to Patriarch Tikhon the Confessor, who did not hide their loyalty or even sympathy for the Martyr Tsar Nicholas II as God's Anointed Christian Tsar, and His August Family, suffered and still suffer for Christ. Renunciation of loyalty to them was tantamount to renunciation of Christ. All the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia reveal to us an example and a way by which the machinations of the enemies of Christ and the enemies of our Orthodox Fatherland are defeated. All of them are now standing before the throne of God, offering prayers for their, and our, earthly Fatherland. Every Orthodox family should now take care to have a book in their home that tells the story of the Russian New Martyrs. In every Orthodox family, parents should familiarize their children with the description of their lives and sufferings. In our evil times, it is necessary to return to the ancient custom of reading the lives of saints in the family and, above all, the lives of our near and dear New Martyrs of Russia. Amen. Bishop Mitrophan (Znosko-Borovsky) Translation by Igumen Seraphim (Bell) Azbyka.ru 2/4/2024

IF THERE IS NO CHURCH ... IS THERE A CITY?

God and the City: An Essay in Political Metaphysics by d. c. schindler st. augustine's press, 215 pages, $20 D. C. Schindler’s recent God and the City is a dense, brilliant essay on “political metaphysics.” In fewer than two hundred small pages organized into three chapters, Schindler covers an astonishing range of topics. His title captures the focus of the book. Schindler is interested in God and the city. God is present and active in all human activity, especially political activity. Politics cannot but be spiritual and religious because, as Aristotle said, politics is the “architectonic practical science . . . essentially concerned with the highest good to the highest degree.” By using “city,” Schindler locates his reflections in the tradition of classical, patristic, and medieval political thought. “City” has both a literal and metaphorical sense. Literally, “a city is a compact, regulated gathering of human beings for the purpose of living together in a beneficial way,” a particular “realization of civilization.” More broadly and symbolically, “city” refers to “a way of life or a collective disposition toward reality in general.” I’ll focus on one thread in Schindler’s third chapter, provocatively entitled, “The Glory of God is the City Fully Alive,” a political riff on Irenaeus’s “the glory of God is man fully alive.” There Schindler explores the analogy between the relation of the soul to the body and the relation of church to city. This pairing isn’t merely convenient or epistemological but ontological, so “organic” that a distortion of one relation will inevitably “tend to disorder the rest.” Schindler’s analysis of Aquinas’s understanding of the soul and body is subtle and complex. For Thomas, the soul isn’t an extrinsic form of the body; rather, the soul gives itself to the body, and this self-gift is the foundation of the body’s very existence. The soul isn’t a spark that jolts an already-shaped body to life. Without a forming, animating soul, the body is not a body at all, neither alive nor a unified thing, but a mere pile of organs and limbs. While it doesn’t create the body (God does), the soul gives the body its bodiliness. Because God is the life of the soul, the soul mediates God to the body. Thus, the soul is not, as we typically believe, nested within the body. The reality is the opposite: The soul contains the body and pervades it, energizing all the body’s functions, even the most visceral. Digestion isn’t “a purely physical movement of matter,” but a transfiguring of material food “into the higher-level form of the human being.” Digestion is “a spiritual activity,” even while being physical. Yet—and this is crucial—this doesn’t nullify or diminish the body, or turn it into a mere organ or extension of the soul. Precisely because the soul constitutes the body as a body, the soul constitutes the body’s difference from the soul. In giving itself to the body, the soul gives the body to itself, as a distinct reality with its own integrity. Consider how the Father gives himself to the Son and so gives Sonship to the Son, as a Person distinct from the Father; or how the Son gives himself to humanity and so gives his humanity its very existence; or how the Creator gives himself to creation and so gives creation its own autonomy. Transpose this into the political sphere, with the soul standing for the church and the body for the city. To think the church adds a “spiritual” dimension to an existing polity that is purely earthly and natural is to assume a modern, Cartesian understanding of the soul-body relation. Rather, as the body exists only by the soul’s self-gift, so the city “can exist as a city, as a reality in the world, only insofar as it is gathered around the unity of a comprehensive common good [that is] fundamentally spiritual.” Ancient cities were religious organizations, and in Christian thought, the church provides that comprehensive civic good. The church pervades and contains the city, and by giving herself to the city, the church constitutes the city as a city. The body’s functions are bodily, but they occur only because the body is alive by virtue of the soul. So too, the city is spiritual even in its most mundane civic activities, like garbage removal. When the city denies its spiritual reality, it suffers a fundamental derangement. A city cannot be rightly ordered without the church any more than a body can function without the soul. Indeed, echoing Augustine’s shocking claim that Rome was never fully a Republic, Schindler insists a city isn’t a city at all without the church.

Any effort to privatize, marginalize, or de-center the church is thus a fundamental assault on the city’s own health and existence. By displacing the church from her role as civic “soul,” modernity suicidally un-cities the city. As God is the life of the soul and the life the soul mediates to the body, so “God is the life of the life of the city.” When God is excluded, the city becomes soulless, and will search desperately for an ersatz soul to order and enliven it, often settling for lifeless bureaucratic or technological substitutes. In the end, a city without the church is “diabolical,” riven by fissures. A churchless city is vampiric, sucking life from its zombie citizens. This doesn’t entail “theocracy” or “integralism.” Integralism treats soul and body, church and city, as extrinsic to one another, locked in competition for supremacy. In this picture, the church strives to triumph over the city, rather than granting the city its distinctive civic reality. Though the church doesn’t govern the city directly, “the city can rule itself . . . only in the light of the spiritual dimensions introduced, as it were, by the church.” Because the church mediates God’s presence to the city, it draws the city into its own liturgical life and gives the city its “own, distinctive relation to God.” Through the church, the city reaches its full glory, because “The glory of God is the city fully alive

AVOID THE IDEA THAT NO ONE WILL HELP YOU.

Dear Family of Mary! Denis and I have been reading a biography of Padre Pio. And yesterday we came across this extraordinary advice that Padre Pio wrote to one of his spiritual daughters, Anita Rodote, in 1915. As I read Padre Pio's words I was just filled with joy and elation! At last I was able to understand the immense gift each one of us receives at conception! We are given our very own Guardian Angel for life!! I want to share the advice Padre Pio gave to Anita. I am sure it will ignite the same joy in your hearts. Padre Pio wrote: "Have great devotion...to this good angel. How consoling it is to know that near us is a spirit who, from cradle to the tomb, does not leave us even for an instant, not even when we dare to sin. And this heavenly spirit guides us and protects us as a friend, a brother. But it is extremely consoling to know that this angel prays without ceasing for us; offers to God all our good actions, our thoughts, our desires, if they are pure. Do not forget this invisible companion, always present, always ready to listen to us and even more, ready to console us...Always keep him present to your mind's eye. Often remember the presence of this angel. Thank him, pray to him, keep him good company. Open yourself up to him and confide your suffering to him. Have a constant fear of offending the purity of his gaze...Turn to him in times of supreme anxiety and you will experience beneficial help. Never say that you are alone in sustaining the battle against our enemies. Never say you have nobody to whom you can open up and confide. You would do this heavenly messenger a grace wrong." Padre Pio to Anita Rodote - (From Padre Pio, The True Story. C Bernard Ruffin. Our Sunday Visitor, 2018. P. 357) After I read these words, I immediately went into prayer! I asked my Guardian Angel to forgive me for not understanding who he is or how very much I owe him for being with me all these years. I spent some time just repenting, and then asked if I could know his name. I think I was given the answer, and it is wonderful! Now I am spending my day, in the presence of my dear friend from Heaven, and I feel so different, so happy, so blessed, so secure and so humbled!! It is wonderful. Our Lady speaks a lot to us about Heaven. I haven't found yet any reference to our guardian angels in her messages. But she does talk about Heaven being with us. In this message below, she tells us that "Heaven is with you and is fighting for peace in your hearts..." I believe this is a reference to our Guardian Angels!! Here is the whole message: December 25, 2016 "Dear children! With great joy, today I am carrying my Son Jesus to you, for Him to give you His peace. Open your hearts, little children, and be joyful that you can receive it. Heaven is with you and is fighting for peace in your hearts, in the families and in the world; and you, little children, help with your prayers for it to be so. I bless you with my Son Jesus and call you not to lose hope; and for your gaze and heart to always be directed towards Heaven and eternity. In this way, you will be open to God and to His plans. Thank you for having responded to my call." By acknowledging our Guardian Angel, and spending our day with him, we will realize that Heaven is with us, and fighting for peace in our hearts. And with our Angel, our gaze and heart will always be directed towards Heaven and eternity. We are so blessed!!! In Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Cathy Nolan