I have just finished reading Fr Seraphim Rose, His Life and Works.
It was an inspirational book in many ways, and I have now ordered his book "The Soul after Death" for my next read.
I have also taken out a subscription to the periodical he founded, "The Orthodox Word", so I will have *plenty* of spiritual reading to keep me occupied :-)
I am managing rather better at keeping my Bible reading up to date with the help of "The Bible and the Holy Fathers" book and this absolutely wonderful website
http://cs-people.bu.edu/butta1/menologia/today.html
which can be set to Old or New Calendar dates, which provides the readings and troparia/Kontakia of the day, as well as the daily hymns to the Theotokos. If you want to follow the daily practice of reading the Psalms, they even provide the Psalms for each of the Hours......
I don`t know about the rest of you, but I often find it a real challenge just to manage to pray the morning and evening prayers every day, let alone the Hours. Some days I wonder how I can always find time to do "worldly " things, yet find it so hard to make time for the important spiritual things......
The nice thing about Orthodoxy is that you never get chance to become too complacent. There is no chance of resting on your laurels, thinking that because you go to Vigil and Liturgy, and read morning and evening prayers and read your Bible, that you have somehow "done enough".
There is always **so** much more you can be doing in terms of prayer and holiness.
And of course, we have the Saints as examples to strive towards in our daily lives too.
Several years ago, a rock group called Catatonia was very popular, and one of their songs contained the immortal line "Every day, when I wake up, I thank the Lord I`m Welsh".
Well, I thank God every day for the privilege and blessing of being Orthodox :-)
3 comments:
What a WONDERFUL page! It's been a while since I'd seen it: I didn't know that he had done so much with it! It's quite a resource.
I don't know if you are of the Byzantine or Slavic tradition, but I use this page as my home page:
http://www.goarch.org/en/Chapel/OnlineChapel.html
I find it very useful in keeping my self on target (and it's very beautiful!)
I also know that they plan to do a Slavic Trad page as well as allow for Old and New Calendars to be used, but this hsn't yet happened.
It is excellent, isn`t it ?
I also have the goarch site bookmarked and visit often.
We are so fortunate to have resources like this :-)
It wasn`t like this in 19th century Russia .......(I just love Fr Vassily from the Onion Dome)
Just a precautionary warning: The Soul After Death is definitely not a "light" read! I found it to be incredibly compelling; indeed, I was literally reading it while walking around the house, unable to put it down until absolutely forced to do so by either circumstances or fatigue. However, where I can normally dash through some books, I had to crawl through this book -- it is just packed with meaning. So, enjoy -- but plan on giving yourself some extra time to "read, learn, mark, and inwardly digest" this incredible book.
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