C.S. Lewis: The Long Terrible Story of Man

By C.S. Lewis

What Satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they could "be like gods" - could set up on their own as if they had created themselves - be their own masters - invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history - money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery - the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.

The reason why it can never succeed is this. God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That's why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.

That is the key to history. Terrific energy is expended – civilizations are built up – excellent institutions devised; but each time something goes wrong. Some fatal flaw always brings the selfish and cruel people to the top and it all slides back into misery and ruin. In fact, the machine conks. It seems to start up all right and run a few yards, and then it breaks down. They are trying to run it on the wrong juice. That is what Satan has done to us humans.

From Mere Christianity ("The Shocking Alternative").

Thanks to :

http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/search/label/C.S.%20Lewis

 

 

 

Abbot Tryphon - LOVING OUR DETRACTORS

All-Merciful Saviour Orthodox Christian Monastery

LOVING OUR DETRACTORS
When We are the Occasion for
Another Person's Disdain
Because we are all brothers and sisters, we are responsible for the way we impact others. Often we are entirely innocent, yet by our very existence we become a source of great irritation and anxiety for other people. The only way we can change that is by loving them, and praying for them.
We don't offer our prayers that they see their errors in not appreciating us, and loving us, but that they may see that their hatred for us is bad for their soul. We pray that they be relieved of the burden of resenting us, or anyone.
...

If someone is awkward and socially blocked, their pain can be great, so we pray that they be relieved of their pain, not that they change their minds about us, or love and accept us, but that they find the inner peace that dispels their resentment for anyone.
Avoiding people who dislike us does not prosper our soul, for in avoiding people, or ignoring them because they dislike is, is not the way Christ would have us act. We love these people, and we pray for them, not to change their attitude about us, but that they find peace by seeing that their resentment is destroying their soul.

Love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon

posted:

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Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit: Then and Now - Joseph Torres

Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit: Then and Now

Apr 6

Posted by Joseph Torres

Ever wondered about the “unpardonable sin”? Many believe this particular sin is so heinous once committed a person is forever cut off from the possibility of redemption.
This is enough to strike fear into the heart of any Christian.
Is this sin that big of a deal? Yes. But the real question is whether the sin in question is a one-time action.  After all, sin isn’t merely an act, but also a condition.
The passage in which Christ mentions the sin is unique in one way, and not unique in another. The unique sense is found when we think through the historical circumstance which triggered Christ’s mention of this sin. Here’s the passage:

And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.” And he called them to him and said to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house.
“Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”—for they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.” (Mark 3:22-30, with parallels in Matt. 12:31-32, and Lk. 12:10)

The act in question that draws Christ’s strong language is unique. Jesus, the  Messianic King had appeared on the scene and was inaugurating the promised kingdom of God through the power of the promised end-time endowment of the Spirit. The Jewish leaders were watching the climactic moment of redemptive history and attributed it to the power of Satan. It was the equivalent of equating the work of the Holy Spirit, through the actions of God’s royal son, with witchcraft.  This specific sin is unique because the King isn’t on the earth any longer. We couldn’t commit it if we wanted to.
But the underlying condition that lead the Jewish leaders to make such a rash and damming judgment persists to our day as well. The problem wasn’t a single act, it was a spiritual condition that they (culpably) suffered from. They were witnessing the signs of the in-breaking of the “age to come” in front of their faces and suppressed it, choosing instead to blind themselves to the truth rather than “see.” This is a persistent hardness of heart that is hostile to the Holy Spirit’s convicting ministry to the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment (Jn. 16:8). They loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. This kind of condition is irredeemable and unforgivable because it puts the person outside of the sphere in which forgiveness can he obtained. As N. T. Wright has put it,

To say such a thing ['This is the work of the devil.'] was to paint oneself into a corner from which there was no escape. Once define the battle for your liberation as the work of the enemy, and you will never be free. (N.T. Wright, Jesus And The Victory Of God, 454)

Where there is no repentance, and only hostility to God’s singular provision for redemption (“blasphemy”) there is no forgiveness. And there is no do-over, there is neither forgiveness now nor in the eternal statement, “they are guilty of an eternal sin.”


Thanks to source:

http://apolojet.wordpress.com/2012/04/06/blasphemy-against-the-holy-spirit-then-and-now/
 

Quote by N.T. Wright

To say such a thing ['This is the work of the devil.'] was to paint oneself into a corner from which there was no escape. Once define the battle for your liberation as the work of the enemy, and you will never be free.


(N.T. Wright, Jesus And The Victory Of God, 454)


Sources:


around the 1hr 37min mark
http://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/aftoday/making_sense_of_the_difficult_sayings_of_jesus

http://apolojet.wordpress.com/2012/04/06/blasphemy-against-the-holy-spirit-then-and-now/

Quote by Saint Justin Popovitch

"The Church is ecumenical, catholic, God-human, ageless, and it is therefore a blasphemy — an unpardonable blasphemy against Christ and against the Holy Spirit — to turn the Church into a national institution, to narrow her down to petty, transient, time-bound aspirations and ways of doing things. Her purpose is beyond nationality, ecumenical, all-embracing: to unite all men in Christ, all without exception to nation or race or social strata".

 

posted on facebook:

 

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Abbot Tryphon - Angels Unawares

Angels Unawares

While sitting in a sidewalk cafe with my friend, Archpriest Basil Rhodes, having a cup of coffee and a bite to eat, we noticed a homeless man stop behind me. The man was staring at our food, so Father Basil asked him if he was hungry. He answered with an enthusiastic "yes", and when Father asked what he'd like to eat, he said "eggs and sausage". Father Basil told him they didn't have such a breakfast here, but gave him five dollars to buy it somewhere else.

...The whole time this conversation was taking place with this homeless man, another man, around thirty years of age, was standing nearby, listening to every word. As the homeless man walked away, the younger man walked up and confronted us with the question, "how could you give money to a junky? You are not doing him any good by giving him money. Aren't you men of God?"

I responded by saying that it was not our place to judge anyone, to which he replied, in a confrontational manner, "he's just going to buy drugs with that money. You don't seem to be very intuitive". I told him I'd worked with the homeless before, and that the man was hungry and deserving of our charity. The man said "cheers" and dismissively walked away.

A woman seated at a nearby table called over with the words, "good response". She then came over to our table, knelt down beside me, and with tears in her eyes, identified herself as a social worker, and told us she'd been going through a particularly difficult time, and that the interaction she'd just witnessed had helped her immensely.

I then told this woman the story of the time I was walking with an elderly bishop of the Russian Church, and how I had spotted a filthy homeless man walking towards us. This man's hair was disheveled, filthy with years of dirt, and was wearing torn clothing. He had no soles on his shoes, so with each step we could see the bottom of his feet. Instinctively, I took the elbow of the bishop, and attempted to get him to cross in the middle of the street. The bishop asked why, and I said, "Look at the crazy man coming towards us". The bishop told me we were not crossing, but would continue.

When directly in front of the the man, the bishop stopped, reached out, taking the man's filthy right hand into his own, and placed a twenty dollar bill into the man's hand, covering the bill with the man's left hand. At that moment the man looked up into our eyes, saying nothing. But looking back were the bluest, clearest eyes I had ever seen. They were not the eyes of a homeless man, nor the eyes of a deranged man, eyes filled with wisdom and holiness.

As we walked away, I remarked about the man's eyes, to which the bishop responded by saying, "We just encountered an angel unaware, and we were being tested," recalling the words of Scripture, "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares" (Hebrews 13:2).

After the social worker left, a man seated at a nearby table remarked, "that was a remarkable story, and you made my wife cry". This other couple had witnessed the whole of these encounters.

A moment later, the young man who'd judged us so harshly after the original encounter, returned. He came up, asked forgiveness for having judged us, and said he'd "just seen the homeless man buying yogurt and fruit" with the money we'd given him. I stood up, gave the young man a hug, and we all parted ways.

With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon

 

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Abbot Tryphon - The Unpardonable Blasphemy of

THE SIN OF NATIONALISM
The Unpardonable Blasphemy of
turning the Church into a National Institution

With the fall of communism, some nations with a history of Orthodoxy would seek to establish the Orthodox Church as a State Church, something that history tells us can be a big mistake. When the Bolsheviks defeated Imperial Russia, the former government's close ties with the Church led to the wholesale murder of countless bishops, priests, monastics, and faithful, all seen as ...an inseparable part of the government. The institution of the Church was seen as so closely tied to the former government, the new government sought to completely destroy the Church.

When we behold the Church in the light of how the Church sees herself, we realize as Christians, our true nation is not the country of our birth, but the Church herself. We Orthodox Christians belong to Christ and His Church. Our true nation is therefore the Church.

Whether we are Americans, Russians, Greeks, or Norwegians, by birth, our second birth in baptism has made us members of the nation of Orthodoxy. I am an American by my first birth, but in baptism my nation is Orthodoxy, and I am of one nation with all Orthodox Christians throughout the world.

This unity of Faith is based on a personal relationship with Christ, Who is the head of His Church. Our true nationality is not based on political ideology, be it democratic, socialist, or monarchical, but on our common baptism that has united us to Christ, and to each other as the Body of Christ, the Church.

Saint Justin Popovitch wrote, "The Church is ecumenical, catholic, God-human, ageless, and it is therefore a blasphemy — an unpardonable blasphemy against Christ and against the Holy Spirit — to turn the Church into a national institution, to narrow her down to petty, transient, time-bound aspirations and ways of doing things. Her purpose is beyond nationality, ecumenical, all-embracing: to unite all men in Christ, all without exception to nation or race or social strata".

With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon

 

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