Do many prostrations; keep vigil at night as much as you can. And if a flame is lit in your heart with love towards God, if you seek hesychia and can no longer remain in the world because the prayer is igniting within you, then write to me and I shall tell you what to do. But if grace does not act like this and your zeal is limited to keeping the commandments of the Lord towards your neighbor, then be at peace as you are, and you will be fine. Do not seek anything more. My child, man’s life is full of sorrow because he is in exile. Do not seek perfect rest. Since our Christ bore His Cross, we shall bear ours, too. If we endure all afflictions, we shall receive grace from the Lord. Since man was created rational and gentle, he is corrected far better with love and gentleness than with anger and harshness. After much and thorough testing, I have also found that with goodness and love you can pacify many. And if someone is of good intentions, you can quickly make him comply and become an angel of God. So this is what I would say to you and to everyone: never seek to correct each other with anger, but only with humility and since love, because one temptation does not cat out another temptation. When you see anger ahead, forget about correcting for the moment. I have never seen anyone corrected through anger, but always through love; and then, he will even make sacrifices. Therefore, this is how you should act. Take yourself for example: how are you pacified - with curses or with love? If a righteous person falls even ten thousand times, he does not lose his courage, but he rises up once more and gathers his strength, and the Lord registers victories for him. However, He does not show him his victories, so that he will not think highly of himself. Rather, He makes him fully aware of his falls, so that he sees them, suffers, and is humbled…. Therefore, be brave and strong in the Lord, and don’t let your eagerness flag. Rather, keep seeking and crying out constantly, regardless of whether you receive anything or not. The Letters of Elder Joseph the Hesychast

Announcements

Birthdays: Josephine (7th); Xenia Sc. (7th); Ira Sc. (7th); Bryan Th. (9th); Jim E. (11th); Anthony M. (12th); Amelia Pr. (12th); Rebekah A. (12th). Anniversary: Cecil Namedays: Svetlana/Photina, Many Years!

Services This Week: Mideast of Pentecost Div. Liturgy: Weds. 8am Vespers: Weds. 6p.m.

Youth Meets Saturdays, after Gr. Vespers. Contact Eric Jewett: [email protected]

Moms: Tuesdays, 9:30a.m. Contact Margaret Combs for more information: [email protected]

Ladies Study - Thursdays, 9a.m. -

Men’s Study Group - Fridays, 6:30a.m. -

Do you seek grace from God? Instead of grace, he allows a temptation. Are you unable to withstand the battle and do you fall? Then you are not given any additional grace. Do you seek it again? Again temptation. Again defeat? Again deprivation. This happens our whole life. Therefore, you must emerge victorious. Endure the temptation till death. Do not be intimidated and do not be afraid of temptations. Even if you fall many times, arise. Don’t lose your composure. Don’t be discouraged. They are clouds and will pass. You do not see how many demons fall and turn their backs with every prayer you say. You only see how much you are wounded. But they are also thrashed; they also suffer. Every time we are patient, they flee with leaps and bounds, and every time we say the prayer, they are seriously injured. So at the time of battle, when you are firing shots and bullets, don’t expect them to throw marshmallows and chocolates.

“…a certain man who had an infirmity thirty-eight years.” Our nature is so injured by sinful poison that the abundance of God’s grace itself in a person can serve as the cause of his pride and destruction. St. Paul met neither honor, nor glory, nor unquestioning obedience when he preached Christ to the universe, but rather an angel of satan set his traps everywhere — resistance, humiliation, persecution, attacks, and death. The true servants of God accepted with submissiveness to God, with thankfulness, and glorifying God, all the sorrows that God’s Providence allowed to befall them. They accepted it willingly, as the Apostle Paul says, and were well-disposed towards their sorrows. They found them profitable, needful, necessary for themselves; they considered them to be correctly allowed, and beneficial. They united the yearning of their own will to the manifestation of God’s will; in the exact sense, they were well-disposed toward chastisement and correction sent to them from God. …There is a further reason for sorrows: the mercy of God toward feeble humans. By allowing sorrows to come upon sinners, God encourages them to come to their senses, to halt their uncontrollable longings, to remember eternity and their relationship to it, to remember God and their obligations to Him. Sorrows that are allowed to befall sinners serve as a sign that these sinners are not yet forgotten, not rejected by God… - St. Ignatius Brianchininov -

Holy Theophany Orthodox Church + 2770 N. Chestnut St. Colo. Springs, CO 80907 (719) 473-9238 Fr. Anthony Karbo Fr. Lawrence Gaudreau Dn. Panayiotis Tekosis Dn. Gregory Jewett [email protected]

Sunday of the Paralytic May 7th, 2017 Acts 9:32-42 John 5:1-15 “First and foremost you must ‘know thyself ’. That is, know who you really are in truth, and not what you imagine you are. With this knowledge you become the wisest man. With this kind of awareness, you reach humility and receive grace from the lord..” (Elder Joseph the Hseychast)