Материалы 12 апреля 2014 г.

30 марта / 12 апреля 2014 г. Лазарева суббота. Сретенский монастырь. Великая вечерня, утреня. Хор Сретенского монастыря. (MP3 файл. Продолжительность 2:36:49 мин. Размер 113 Mb)

Почему наука не сделала за последние 50 лет никаких существенных открытий в области космоса и причем здесь игумен синайской горы и написанная им «Лествица»?

Это чудо должно было убедить иудеев древности, что воскреснет Иисус Христос. А нас это чудо должно убедить, что будет и всеобщее воскресение из мертвых. (MP3 файл. Продолжительность 10:08 мин. Размер 7.4 Mb)

30 марта / 12 апреля 2014 года. Суббота 6-й седмицы Великого поста. Воскрешение праведного Лазаря. Сретенский монастырь. Божественная литургия. Хор Сретенской Духовной Семинарии. (MP3 файл. Продолжительность 1:13:09 мин. Размер 52.7 Mb)

According to the religious periodical, To Believe, the hawk will protect the pigeons that Pope Francis I releases up to the sky after his Sunday sermons.

The 35th mass baptism is to take place after the Easter celebrations.

For Orthodox Christians around the world, we celebrate these events as they happened not only in the past, but as they also happen today. We celebrate Christ as the king who enters our hearts, our own personal Jerusalem. But is Christ able to enter? Is there room in our hearts for Christ to rule as king?

“If my rifle took lives, does it mean that I, Mikhail Kalashnikov, aged 93, a peasant woman’s son, an Orthodox Christian in faith, is guilty of those people’s deaths, even if they were enemies?”

What we are seeing taking place in the eastern provinces of Ukraine shouldn’t be terribly surprising, after all—the erroneous, yet seductive phrase “one Ukrainian people” that has been uttered over and over again by American and European diplomats, was always a fiction.

The term orthodoxy, understood as “right belief” or “right worship,” carries immense weight. Determining orthodoxy draws lines between the Christian and the non-Christian, between the saved and the unsaved, between those we associate with and those we do not. Defining it is essential, but maintaining relationships in the process can be intensely difficult.

Nothing embitters a person so much as a lost, a disappointed hope; and that explains why people who could receive Him like that, who witnessed the raising of Lazarus, who saw Christ’s miracles and heard His teaching, admired every word, who were ready to become His disciples as long as He brought victory, broke away from Him, turned their backs on Him and a few days later shouted, “Crucify Him, crucify Him.”

Many men, when they see any of those who are pleasing to God suffering anything terrible, as, for instance, having fallen into sickness, or poverty, and any other the like, are offended, not knowing that to those especially dear to God it belongeth to endure these things; since Lazarus also was one of the friends of Christ, and was sick.

Although Christ knows that in a moment He will return His friend Lazarus to life, He weeps. These are tears of love, an indication of his sincere friendship for this man. And then the Lord raises him. He calls Lazarus His friend. Today’s feast compels us to wonder: how should friends of God live, what must they undergo?

Imagine what he felt. He was in Hades, and he heard the voice of God, all the way in Hades, and He brought him back in an instant, in a flash. He knew the power of God, and those around saw that power, as Jesus, with a loud voice said, "Lazarus, come forth." And the same voice calls us -- the same voice calls us to come forth. The same voice says, " I am the resurrection. If you believe in Me you will have eternal life." We must believe. We must understand. I tell you. We must also live according to the way Christ is, and then you will understand what it means to be a Christian.