Undusted Texts

  A Hodigitria Icon, an icon of She Who Guides, from the National Museum of Art in Bucharest, Romania "And see if a lawless way is in me, and guide me in the way everlasting."--Ps 138:24 The way of the Lord is an everlasting way, for He is everlasting, and if we hope in Him, we too shall become everlasting, for we shall have no end to joy.  If we trust in the Lord, an eternal Heaven awaits us, the eternal liturgy where men of all tribes and tongues and races and nations will praise the Lord unceasingly.  The way to this eternal liturgical rest is what we ask from the Lord in this psalm. We ask Him to lead us in the way everlasting (בְּדֶרֶךְ עוֹלָם), a way proportional in length to his everlasting mercy and loving-kindness, "for to eternity is His mercy" (כִּי לְעוֹלָם חַסְדּוֹ).  His mercy is to the ages (εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα τὸ ἔλεος αὐτοῦ), and so He leads us on the way of the ages (ἐν ὀδῷ αἰωνίᾳ).  Thus His mercy accompanies us along our way, our way whi...

  "There is no other virtue that is either higher or more necessary than sacred Prayer, because all the other virtues--I mean fasting, vigils, sleeping on the ground, ascesis, chastity, almsgiving, and all the rest--even though they are ways of imitating God, even though they cannot be taken away from us and constitute the immortal ornaments of the soul--do not united man with God, but only render man fit to be united.  Sacred Prayer, and it alone, unites.  It alone joins man with God and God with man, and makes the two one spirit." Nikodemos (Nicodemus) the Hagiorite (of the Holy Mountain) (1749-1809), a Greek Orthodox saint, wrote the above passage on the necessity of Prayer.  This view of the necessity of Prayer led to what is probably Nikodemos' most famous work: the Philokalia .  The Philokalia is a collection of texts by saints and other holy writers from the origins of Christianity until around the 15th century, compiled by Nikodemos an...