Sayings of Mother Gavrilia (+1992)

Fresco of Mother Gavrilia in the Church of
the Nativity of the Mother of God
Saint John the Baptist Monastery
 Douma - Lebanon

   - Any Place may become a place of Resurrection, if the Humility of Christ becomes the way of our life.

   - Orthodox spirituality is knowledge acquired through the cross rather than through learning.

   - Man wants his freedom. Why? So that he may be a slave to his own passions.

   - True inner progress begins only when a person stops reading anything but the Gospel. It is only then that he unites with God through the Jesus Prayer, and can hear God’s Will.

   - Never ask: “Why has this happened to me?”, and when you see someone suffering from gangrene or cancer or blindness, never say: “Why has this happened to him?”. Instead pray God to grant you the vision of the other shore… Then, like the angels you will be able to see everything in God’s plan… EVERYTHING.

   - If you are to live only for yourself, it would have been better if you had not been born.

   - If you do not like somebody, think that you see Christ in that person. Then you would not even dare to utter a word of criticism.

   - When we need help, God will send someone to us for we are all fellow-travelers.

   - The voice of God is Silence.

The Miracle of Our Lady Theotokos in Kassiopi

From the Greek Synaxarion of the Orthodox Church,
Published by Bishop Mattheos Laggis, 5th Edition , Athens, 1994
Translated to English

MAY 8
On this day we celebrate the memory of the awesome miracle of our Most Holy Lady Theotokos and Ever-Virgin MARIAM which was effected through Her at Kassiopi* Holy Icon upon the unjustly blinded Stephanos and wondrously restored**.

Her child today a woman shows forth seeing,
Whom she did not see previously seeing.
On the 8th of May the eyes of a blind man
The Mother of God did restore.

Our Lady Theotokos in Kassiopi

            This awesome miracle of our Most Holy Lady Theotokos took place under the rule of Simonos Lionos Baïlos as Governor of the island of Kerkyra/ Corfu in Greece, in the year 1530. At that time a young man named Stephanos was returning from the capital to his village having accomplished his affairs. On the way he met other travelers with whom he walked along. When they were at a distance from the town, they came across some young men, who were returning from the mill carrying flour. Stephanos’ fellow travelers, being wicked and disposed to evil, said to one another: “What is there to prevent us from taking their flour and dividing it amongst ourselves? No one can see us”.

            Stephanos however, being a just man, immediately on hearing this, tried through many warnings, as much as he could, to obstruct them, saying that the plan which they were devising is a beastly deed, and if they execute it, they will not escape just punishment as thieves and evil-doers. They however, as an asp, closing their ears, did not pay heed to the advice, but instead even tried to incite Stephanos to collaborate with them in the robbery. He, by no means, accepted to consent. They, having beaten the young men, grabbed the flour from them and ran to their homes carrying the flour, rejoicing. The young men, when they returned to their homes empty-handed and in tears, recounted to their relatives what befell them. The relatives, having searched diligently learned who the thieves were and reported to the Governor the events.

Remembrance of One's Last Day

   The first of the Fathers of the desert, “St. Antony the Great”, says: “We must keep ever in our mind what we should be concentrating on if we in this given day were not to live to its end.” St. John Climacus writes, “Remember your last day and you would never sin.” And again he enjoins us to remember always our death. “St. Isaac the Syrian” said: “Always carry in your heart, man, the remem­brance of your departure from this life.” And all the saints personally always did the same and enjoined on others, who also were eager for salvation, to be attentive to this. And not only the saints but also the wise, secular philosophers agree that the remembrance of one's death is very important for moral perfection. But how can we, who are bound to our passions and so weak, learn to keep this: thought ever present?

   St. Isaac taught: “For perfection and integration the remembrance of our death and judgment is a gift and a supernatural grace from God.” Our inconsistency, our distractions, cause a great impediment. We plainly forget to recall death, judgment, hell, and eternal happiness. We often think of these; sometimes we converse with others about death. But deep within our heart we cannot seem to deepen this thought and remain rooted in its reality. But even with our good will and unceasing efforts, only with God's help and our work and in time can we make progress in this matter.

Christ is Risen! Indeed, He is Risen!

Resurrection Fresco - Holy Trinity Church
Saint John the Baptist Monastery - Douma

Have we received the Holy Spirit?*

   Christ is Risen! It is such a joy to be with you today. Holy Week, the celebration of which we have just completed, is surely the most beautiful time in the entire ecclesiastical year. Who could deny the splendor and magnificence of our feasts?. They are God's own feasts, and make our hearts rejoice in Jesus Christ. Although Holy Week has now come and gone, the hymns of the Passion continue to resound within our ears, mingling with the cries of our heart, which we offer up to the Risen Lord.

   Each of us, to a greater or lesser extent, celebrated those feasts and took something from them. What did we take?. To this question, each of us will have a different answer, because even though the Church is a unity, it is a unity of distinct personalities. It is an assembly of persons, each one of them whole and complete, standing before God, and not an anonymous, undifferentiated mass. Thus it is entirely possible for all of us to be gathered together in church, to be standing next to each other and chanting in unison, but for each of us to get something different out of the experience. And what each of us receives is known only to that person, only to the spirit of the man, which is in him, as well as to God the Spirit, Who searches the depths of our own spirit (cf. 1 Cor 2.10-11).

Christ on Golgotha!.

Saint Nikolai Velimirovitch

   The Gospel on God Among the Criminals…

   Christ on Golgotha! The Saviour on the Cross!. The Righteous One in tor­ment! The Lover of Mankind killed by men! Let him who has a conscience be ashamed! Let him who has a heart weep! Let him who has a mind understand!

   With what can we compare this event - mysterious a infinity, hard as earth and terrible as hell? Of millions of happenings every day throughout the universe, that our eyes can see and our ears hear, with what event can we compare this unmentionable act of wickedness on Golgotha? With a lamb among ravening wolves? Or an innocent child in the jaws of a snake-like king? Or a mother surrounded by insane sons and daughters? Or with a skil­ful man's fall into a machine that he had himself assembled, to be cut to pieces by the machine's wheels? With Abel, whom his brother killed? But then the greater sinner killed the lesser, while here wicked men fall on the sinless. With Joseph, whose brothers sold him in Egypt? But that was a sin against their brother, not against a benefactor, while here the sin is against the Benefactor. With righteous Job, whose flesh Satan turned to corruption and a stench, a meal for worms? But then Satan rose up against God's crea­ture, while here the creature rises up against the Creator. With wondrous David, against whom his son Absalom raised a rebellion? But that was a small punishment for David's great sin, while here the innocent One, the Most Righteous, suffers so terribly!

The Fifth Sunday of Lent Sunday of St Mary of Egypt

   It is not possible to establish with any certainty what part history and what part legend play in the traditions that relate to “St Mary of Egypt”. One may as well simply admit the fact that the Church wished to make her, as we sing during matins: “a pattern of repentance”. She is a symbol of conversion, of contrition, and of austerity. On this last Sunday of Lent, she expresses the last and most urgent call that the Church addresses to us before the sacred days of the Passion and the Resurrection.

   The epistle read at the liturgy (Heb. 9. 11-14) compares the ministry of Christ to that of the High Priest of the Jews. Once, each year, he entered into the Tabernacle, but Christ “entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us”. The High Priest purified and sanctified the faithful by sprinkling them with the blood and ashes of sacrificed animals. “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”.

Selected quotes from the Ladder of Divine Ascent

Saint John Climacus

Fresco in the Holy Trinity Church at
Saint John the Baptist Monastery

- It is better to grieve our parents than the Lord. For He has created and saved us, but they have often ruined their loved ones and delivered them up to their doom.
- Repentance is the renewal of baptism. Repentance is a contract with God for a second life.
- A penitent is a buyer of humility.
- Before our fall, the demons say that God is a friend of man; but after the fall, that He is inexorable.
- Some inquire and wonder: “why, when remembrance of death is so beneficial for us, has God hidden from us the knowledge of the hour of death?” – Not knowing that in this way God wonderfully accomplishes our salvation.
- Do not wish to assure everyone in word of your love for them, but rather ask God to show them your love without words.
- The beginning of freedom from anger is silence of the lips when the heart is agitated; the middle is silence of the thoughts when there is a mere disturbance of soul; and the end is an imperturbable calm under the breadth of unclean winds.
- As with the appearance of light, darkness retreats, so at the fragrance of humility, all anger and bitterness vanishes.