Time always comes up short. We haven’t enough to do all the things we want to do. Our days are numbered, and our number is bound to come up sooner or later. Andrew Marvell is right: “Time’s winged chariot” hurries near regardless. And yet we want to break outby any means. We try to prolong […]

The subject of Tollhouses is certainly not new. This idea has been around since the 2nd century in the writings of Tertullian, Ignatius, and Origen and certainly by the majority of the Holy Fathers of the 3rd – 5th centuries. It is told that the blessed Theodora of Constantinople in the 10th century when she […]

Abbess Thaisia (+1915) was a spiritual mother to Holy Russia and spiritual daughter of St. John Kronstadt (+1909).  In the first of her Letters to a Beginner, she talks about “the first condition of our salvation”: Here is the word: Strive to love everyone!  The commandment is not difficult but is proper to our very nature…If […]

His Beatitude Patriarch Teoctist of blessed memory would often tell this story about the efficacy of prayer: There was once a young monk who complained that his prayers were never answered.  His abbot asked him to take a straw basket used in gardening to a nearby brook and return with water.  The monk did as he was […]