Wonderful … Thank you Fr. John!

Some of my best children are those who, cut off from an active life, learn to use the weapon of ceaseless prayer.
Everything has been sent to you by Me, for the perfection of your soul.

Go and serve the Lord!

… God has given us a window of opportunity. We have a very short time in history where we as Orthodox can operate freely in the world and even have some decent infrastructure. Every sacrament, every baptism, every chrismation, every confession, every communion, every wedding, every ordination, every unction that we Orthodox clergy can do now is a victory. We only have a short time. A race against time is on, we have to sow now in order to gather in the harvest later.

Then the time of new persecutions will come. Then the Church will have buildings but the Faith will be superficial. There will only be externals, only golden domes, as the saints have prophesied. Monasticism will dry up. Parishes will turn into community associations with luxurious carpets and pews, not a single woman will cover her head or be modestly dressed, confessions will be ‘by appointment only’ (i.e. no confessions at all), the Lives of the Saints will be unknown. This process of spiritual decline has already been under way for years in the modernist jurisdictions in the USA.

Then the end will come. What will we answer at the Last Judgement, if we are asked why we did not use this window of opportunity that we now have? – Fr. Andrew Phillips