faith & joy @scriptureandjoy - Tumblr Blog

You'd think people who follow a religion where one of the main tenets of faith is that literally the most righteous and perfect man possible got sentenced to execution by imperial occupation forces and died horribly after many hours of torture would be immune to the "good things happen to good people, if you're unhappy it's probably your own fault" kinda thinking, and yet

faithshaped

"The faithful Christian isn't someone who can be hit by a boulder and not a hair on their head is harmed. The faithful Christian is weak and fragile, just like anyone else. So it would be unreasonable to seek out tribulations, or God forbid, martyrdom; let the faithful Christian lead a quiet, virtuous life. But if the tribulations do come, if there is a choice to be made between the faithful and the comfortable, let us all choose to be faithful."

—part of the homily given by my priest today

dandelion-de-deus

ok. ok ;-;

dandelion-de-deus

Ohhhh so my spiritually scraped knees are being INTENTIONALLY soaked in saltwater. I see how it is

#this actually really helped me out #i've been going through a kind of wretchedness recently and after i saw this I sort of accepted it #stopped feeling guilty in the face of god and saw his work in it a bit more #and now i feel like i'm starting to come out of it naturally #not forcing myself to try and be better just letting myself get better slowly #i suppose #if that makes sense #anyway thank you lord for keeping me in my wretchedness when I needed it #and thank you op for sharing!

orthodoxadventure

Be watchful over your heart during your entire life, examine it, listen to it, and see what prevents its union with the most blessed God. Let this be for you the science of sciences, and with God's help you will easily see what estranges you from God and what draws you to Him, what unites you with Him. Your heart itself will tell you when it is united with Him, and when it is estranged from Him. The evil one, more than anything else, stands between our hearts and God; he separates us from God through various passions, desires of the flesh, and worldly pride.

Saint John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ

stkateri-deactivated20260526

“A man commiting numerous sins does not please the devil. Even a man committing great sins, and turning others against the Lord, doesn’t truly satisfy the devil, because he knows that God is a God of endless love and mercy. But when a man despairs and thinks God will not forgive him, when man chooses to hide his face from God, finally the devil rejoices.

-Saint Anthimus of Chios

calleido

proval lake, pyatigorsk, russia

theraccolta

Altar of the Virgin at the church of St Eloi, Bordeaux

orthodoxadventure

autumnsgambit

My beliefs about hell are different from many Christians. Because of this, I’m in the interesting position of being exempt from the age-old atheist criticism that “if you love God just so He doesn’t send you to hell, do you actually love Him?” and am also constantly realizing how many Christians are not exempt from it. You don’t pray because you like to? You don’t enjoy God’s presence? You want to wait until you die and *hopefully* go to heaven before you actually know Him? Why wait until then? Why not have a relationship with God because you simply want to? Your prayer life should not be transactional. You are doing yourself and God a disservice by treating it as such.

#100% agree with this

orthodoxadventure

When we pray for the living and the dead, commemorating them by name, we must pronounce these names with love, with the whole heart, as though we carried the people whom we commemorate in our souls, "just as a nursing mother cherishes her children" (1 Thess 2:7), remembering that they "are members of one another; for we are members of His body" (Eph 4:25; 5:30).

My Life in Christ by Saint John of Kronstadt

gayleviticus

slander augustine all you want but he went off with 'anyone who thinks he has understood the divine scriptures but cannot by his understanding build up his love of God and neighbour does not properly understand them'