Thought we’d celebrate this year with Metropolitan Onufriy, his many brothers in Christ, and the faithful who love them. They’re making chrism! Christ is Risen!
More Beautiful Than a Faberge Egg! – Have a Blessed Pascha Everyone
April 14, 2023 by
Ones Who Fight Alone
Thought we’d celebrate this year with Metropolitan Onufriy, his many brothers in Christ, and the faithful who love them. They’re making chrism! Christ is Risen!
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The true meaning of the Resurrection is Christ is the Alpha and Omega. Christ prevailed over the evil one, and “He will prevail now also.”
Amen!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE1az7YDA5M
I think Rublev’s Trinity Ikon tells two stories, not just one.
There is a symbolical reading and there is a literal reading.
As I understand it, Christ sits at the right hand of God the Father.
Therefore, read symbolically, the central figure is God the Father.
Christ is on his right (our left), with the Spirit on his left (our right).
However, when read literally, the central figure depicts Christ.
He is accompanied by two angels and addressed as ‘God’ by Abraham.
Which reading you choose depends on which story you are telling.
Happy Pascha! Truly, Christ has risen.
Christ is Risen!
Truly He is Risen!
What was Jesus doing when He was first spotted after His resurrection?
Eating!
Nope!
Tell me!
I always heard he was eating a fish.
Gardening?
“…and supposing Him to be the gardener…”
Yeah! You got it. Mary Magdalene thought he was the gardener. Perhaps he was straightening up the garden after people traipsed through it.
Christ is risen!
Wasn’t He first seen by His disciple Mary who mistook Him for the gardener? If so, the answer seems to be standing outside His own tomb in the garden waiting for Mary to recognize Him. For some reason, this strikes me as joyfully humorous.
Walking in the garden.
Christ is Risen! A blessed Pascha to all.
You too, Sean!
Truly He is Risen!
Christ is Risen!
Christos Anesti!
Christus ist auferstanden!
Christus resurrexit!
Christ is risen!
At the Paschal Liturgy, I recalled that the Apostle Paul said that we now “see through a glass darkly.” As glorious as the Paschal Liturgy is, the Liturgy in the New Jerusalem will be immeasurably more glorious.
I’m getting old, and worn out by all the nonsense in this world. My body is crippled. I’m watching my country turn into a dumpster fire. I’m watching formerly (relatively) unaffected academic disciplines such as mathematics, chemistry, physics, and even engineering get infected by woke foolishness.
However, God has the last word. Every day, I increasingly look forward to the day when Christ will “put all His enemies under His feet.” (1 Corinthians 15:25). May God in His mercy grant me entry into the New Jerusalem and allow me to celebrate for eternity.
Well put. We’re all so tried. Pascha has offered a brief reprieve, but there are still so many problems. God is going to have to resolve all this because we can’t. It’s just too much.
On a positive note, I get to keep my gas stove! 3 judges on the 9th circuit panel unanimously overturned the ban.
If I may be so sarcastic, without reviewing the court’s opinion, I’ll conjecture that even the liberal Ninth Circuit realized that Joe Biden cannot possibly be serious about banning gas stoves after he directed our navy to blow up the NordStream pipelines and emit all of that foul-smelling methane gas into the earth’s atmosphere in the worst example of enviro-terrorism to date. O God, swiftly save us from this hypocritical regime!
Nothing is making any sense anymore. I feel like I’m living in a fun house at a carnival.
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
When I was a boy, my father would sometimes recite Rudyard Kipling’s “If” from memory when he had knocked back a couple of cocktails. All of these years later, I get the sense that Kipling had a grasp of the sort of mature dignity that we notice in some of our respected Orthodox elders.
The insanity of the world is already worse than we had expected it could get. All about us are losing their minds but they seem to be blaming it on us. And surely there’s much more to come. What fun!
Meanwhile, our little island parish has just had six people baptized – four of them adults – with more catechumens in the wings. And the myrrh-streaming icon of the Holy Theotokos of Iveron was overflowing on Pascha, as it/she is wont on that occasion. I touched the velvet frontal cloth on the icon’s tabernacle and smeared the myrrh on my empiricist’s hands. These things are only anecdotal evidence of God’s grace, I know. It would be encouraging to hear about recent baptisms and other victories in parishes for our mutual encouragement in the middle of this “fun house” experience.
My favorite poem of all time. I often recite parts of it to myself. I certainly did to my son and I’ve got to say, I raised a real man. I was very proud of him in that regard. I don’t know how many mothers can say that anymore when I watched what happened in Chicago this weekend and in Compton.
I wanted to scream, “Where are you parents. How do they feel about you looting and busting up places just because you can.” I have so little patience for such stupidity. They should
***
6 people! How wonderful!!!!
I’ve stood close to the Holy Theotokos of Iveron when she was streaming myrrh. What an incredible experience. There is life there and she is with us.
Nearly all of the rioters and looters that we have seen on the news were black, and the vast majority were young, black men. If the statistics are right, most of them were born out of wedlock and raised by their mothers without help from the father. Without the father in the home and actively engaged in raising his son, the mother can be overtaxed with a job and the rest of the family to take care of, so the boy has to look elsewhere for a male example to emulate. Sometimes he can find some semblance of direction from a grandfather, a pastor or a policeman. Too often he gets involved in a gang and the gang commits crimes. That’s where the local constabulary needs to step in, but the mayors, district attorneys and police chiefs of Chicago and Los Angeles don’t know how to get out in front of the problem. They are hampered by a spiteful ideology.
Where is Rudy Giuliani when you need him? He made New York City into a safe place to live and work. Giuliani proved that these metropolises can be tamed and their people can prosper. It only takes the political will of the people to elect and support municipal officers like him. Sometimes I shudder to think that the Democrat Party derives a cynical satisfaction from the downfall of our big cities, no matter how many of their own people suffer as a consequence of their corruption.
Upon closer inspection, I’ve noticed most of the “rioters” are male, well-fed, well-clothed (many wearing designer t-shirts/sweatshirts) and around military age. . . kind of like the people we’ve seen come across our borders who were sent hither and yond.
And these people are NOT obese. Areas of low opportunity and high hardship are dispersed predominantly over Chicago’s south, southwest, and west side neighborhoods. There is a 28.0% overweight or obesity rate in communities with very high opportunity, compared to 42.7% in areas of very low opportunity. https://www.chicago.gov/content/dam/city/depts/cdph/CDPH/Childhood%20Overweight%20Data%20Brief%2012.2020.pdf
They seemed to be organized in the sense that it’s hard to get a bunch of people to accomplish the same objective. – So there is a car, parked in the middle of the street with no driver, who left the door unlocked for rioters to destroy??? – Looks like it.
The role of the young women seems to be to run amuck and scream. The one with the gray extensions (long hair) and her girlfriend, also with long extensions (red then dark), are seen running around helter skelter more than once. It looked to me like the role of these young women was to add to the chaos.
The police don’t have helmets, let alone riot gear. They seem to be more interested in ushering the regular people (moms & daughters out shopping) away from the area as if they knew it was going to happen. I would have expected them to have on helmets, shields, and bulletproof vests if they really wanted to control anything.
I don’t trust these cities. This may be yet another attempt to convince us that we’re headed for a civil war.
I had a very controlling mother and I have an instinct when it comes to this sort of thing. I HATE being manipulated and I feel like that’s what happening. They want to feed our insecurities about difference segments of the population. I am not afraid of black people and for me this scenario is wearing thin.
Gail, would you post links to the clips you’re looking at? I’d like to take another look at the crimes in progress.
Of course! Here are a few.
https://www.foxnews.com/video/6325349171112
Unlocked Car Parked in Middle of Street to be Vandalized 1:34
Girls with Extensions 1:56 Again, running around screaming 1:57 Again 2:19/2:24
https://abc7chicago.com/chicago-violence-woman-attacked-in-teenage-riot-beat/13150528/
Crowd Organizing as They Go En Masse :27
Police No Riot Gear :37
Police No Helmets; Just Standing There Waiting for Something to Happen 1:06 & 1:08
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/illinois-state-senator-defends-chicago-teens-rioting-looting-mass-protest
Police Ushering Out Mom & Daughter :39
Gail, if I’m reading you right, you are implying that these youth are “wetbacks” fresh from the Mexican border who have been deposited in L.A. and Chicago and coopted by the civil authorities to act up and unnerve the general public. Am I way off base?
I doubt they were from Mexico. Many of them don’t look Hispanic. They came through the Mexican boarder but may have come from different countries. They were ferreted in with the migrants as a cover. These particular “migrants” are male, military age, well-fed, and dressed in western clothes. They we’re bussed to various places, probably to training centers. Like Antifa, I think they were sent to blue states to cause riots and scare people.
Listen to the response of the mayor elect: “In no way do I condone the destructive activity we saw in the Loop and lakefront this weekend. It is unacceptable and has no place in our city. However, it is not constructive to demonize youth who have otherwise been starved of opportunities in their own communities,” Johnson said in a statement on Sunday. –
Here are some pictures of the “migrants” I’m talking about:
https://apnews.com/article/florida-immigration-ron-desantis-charlie-baker-4fe96d293de4b189299a372b85c95add
https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2022/07/15/border-patrol-opens-new-processing-facility-in-eagle-pass-influx-of-migrants-continues/
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2022/12/16/el-paso-plans-to-bus-hundreds-of-migrants-to-dallas-and-other-cities-with-major-airports/
https://www.keranews.org/news/2022-08-17/a-political-statement-exploitation-a-free-ride-busing-migrants-to-the-east-coast-raises-concerns
https://apnews.com/article/texas-new-york-florida-united-states-661f3489e74847bee88740fec40fe17c
Lawrence, as you point out, single mother families without the support of fathers oftentimes results in gang-related social problems.
Interesting that you bring up Rudy Giuliani as a hero in taming New York City’s gang problem though. As I’m sure you’re aware, Giuliani was adamantly Pro-Choice in regards to abortion and also supported “gay marriage.” He even presided over the “wedding” of two of his male friends.
Joseph, minor correction: Giuliani is pro-abortion. Having said that, he did clean up the Big Apple and made it livable. I don’t know what abortion had to do with that one way or the other. I imagine unleashing the police to crack a few skulls did that trick.
Anyway, it’s a moot point now. Both NYC and Chiraq are going down the tubes, not to be revived any time soon.
Seriously all you people in Chicago, you voted for this! Why?
Joseph, as you must know, New York City has always been a hotbed of liberalism. Rudy Giuliani would hardly have stood a chance at getting elected mayor if he hadn’t ticked the right boxes for the leftists who lived and voted there. I don’t condone his positions on abortion and “gay marriage”; I simply praise his service to the city through his policies to bust petty criminals for minor crimes to keep them from committing major ones. Late in Michael Bloomberg’s tenure, I visited relatives in an apartment in Washington Heights (northern tip of Manhattan). One fine day I walked south through Spanish Harlem all the way down to Columbia University on the west side. Never was I concerned for my safety. I wouldn’t do that now.
After Bloomberg’s tenure, DeBlasio got elected and I knew immediately that the city would take a nosedive. And it did. So far, Eric Adams’ performance has also been a disappointment.
Here I quote Bill Donohue:
“Giuliani is the reason why the crime rate fell by more than 40 percent in the 1990s. It was due to more aggressive, yet fair-minded, police practices.
“Bill Bratton, who was the police commissioner for a period during that time, later co-wrote an article explaining what happened and accurately reported that ‘the decline in homicides and other violent crimes between 1990 and 2000 constitutes one of the great achievements in the history of urban America.’
“Progress against crime continued under Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. “Stop and frisk” tactics, allowing the police to act when they have reasonable suspicion, not only saved lives, but in 2012, the number of civilian complaints was the lowest it had been in the previous five years.
“All of these accomplishments were undone by Mayor Bill de Blasio, the Marxist millionaire who undermined the police while failing to deal seriously with violent crime.
“I work across the street from Penn Station. In his last few years in office, de Blasio allowed riots to take place with impunity, destroying one business after another. The area is a disaster. The storefronts are still boarded up and the crime element is as bad as ever.”
Rudy Giuliani cleaned up New York. That was good enough for me.
It is perverse that in Europe the left is agrarian and the right is urban, while in the USA is the reverse. Think of it as two funnels joined at the tips, as farmers first go to cities to immigrate to other cities, and finally settle in the back country.
Mr Lipper entertains us with what is essentially an ad hominem argument in the form of a non sequitur:
“Interesting that you bring up Rudy Giuliani as a hero in taming New York City’s gang problem though. As I’m sure you’re aware, Giuliani was adamantly Pro-Choice in regards to abortion and also supported ‘gay marriage’.”
In other words, anything Giuliani has done or said must be suspect because of a position he took on something else that is completely unrelated.
If Giuliani is to be judged, along with all his flaws, I suggest weighing him in the balance against the “Patriarch of Constantinople.”
blimbax, hold on, I’m not quite finished.
As we know, Michael Bloomberg then succeeded Giuliani, being elected as NYC mayor and also as a pro-abortion Republican, as well as eventually endorsing “gay marriage.” Both of these Republican mayors of NYC are still considered to have been highly effective during their tenure in office, with violent crime being brought to all time lows. Sure, it’s doubtful that being pro-abortion or pro-“gay marriage” had anything to do with their success in this, EXCEPT they probably never would have been elected as mayor in the first place without taking those positions.
Yet perhaps as with Giuliani and Bloomberg, a legal “right to abortion” may be considered by some as a voluntary and “practical” way to alleviate or tame the real-world problem of single mothers raising children without fathers. As Lawrence points out, the end result of single mother families is oftentimes those children being adopted by gangs and/or engaging in violent crime.
Indeed, the statistics of abortion by marital status overwhelmingly show that unmarried women have much higher rates of abortion. It’s like ten times higher:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/185325/number-of-legal-abortions-by-marital-status-in-the-us-since-1973/
So those who simply prioritize making abortion illegal may be ignoring that this would likely result in many more children born of single mothers and without fathers, and likely more children adopted by gangs and engaging in violent crimes.
Of course it’s a big mistake to champion abortion as a way to tame gang-related crime. Yet at the same time, I would also suggest that it’s a bigger mistake to prioritize the legal abolishment of abortion and ignore the higher priority of helping single women raise their families.
Personally, I don’t involve myself with voting and changing government laws. I believe there are better, more direct and concrete ways to help. Yet if we’re going to go the route of changing laws, then just to be consistently “Pro-Life”, I believe the first priority should be on helping these single women raise their families rather than only prioritizing laws that ban abortion. Unfortunately, it seems that banning abortion is typically the main and inconsistent priority of what I now refer to as the so-called Pro-Life movement.
Giuliani railed vehemently against the Serbs, thanks to Mohamed Sacirby being neighbors with Molinari. This is why nearly all the 2008 Romney delegates in Queens were Greeks. Giuliani’s ostensibly Greek cousin in law wanted her fellow Albanians to take an active role in the 1993 campaign, despite her having been the gym teacher at St Nicholas Flushing. Her homosexual son has served subsequent administrations well, as the entire family reverted to Democrat registration to support Hevesi for mayor in 2001. And the Irish policeman behind the Flushing Tea Party Patriots is implicated in helping Albanians burn down St Sava. The nominal leader of their Tea Party is a retired schoolteacher who complains “I don’t like to READ!” These are the core of Trump’s home town supporters.
Most people’s understanding of ad hominem is itself ad hominem because they really mean ad personam, which is a subset of ad hominem. Ad hominem depends on and refers to “common knowledge” (think all hominids), such as “everybody knows”. But it is ad personam which attacks comments because of their emitter.
“
Honest question: Is this a ‘belief’ or a concrete action involving your time, your talents, and your money?
Joseph: “…the end result of single mother families
is oftentimes those children being adopted by gangs
and/or engaging in violent crime.”
Indeed. But abortion is not the cure. Adopting policies to
encourage married two-parent (male/female) families is.
> I feel like I’m living in a fun house at a carnival.
It’s more like an abusement park.
That’s a good one. We’re always on the lookout for a good pun or word-twist 🙂
Христос воскресе! Christ is risen!
The quotes in this Guardian story are quite telling:
“Joy and tension as Kyiv marks Orthodox Easter without Moscow clergy”
An unnamed young man: “I just came here to look at this circus. They’ve taken it away from the true church. OK, it technically belongs to the state, but they never did anything to look after it…. Why are they checking people’s documents? They never did that before.”
Filip Trunov: “We’ve come here because it’s one of the biggest churches of Kyiv – and now it is a Ukrainian church. If we need churches at all, we need Ukrainian churches.” (emphasis added)
Like many of the rest who purport to be experts, they know nothing about the Church and are completely influenced by the MSM. The pictures they show of the “faithful’ are pitiful in terms of numbers. If they have EVER visited the Larva Caves they would know this.
The MSM of the Collective West are worse than stoopid, they’re useless.
Christ is Risen, everyone!
I’m sure no one has missed me during my recent absence from the Monomakhos comments section, but I thought it would be polite for me to drop by and greet you all one last time before I depart for good.
Just before Great Lent, I had a chat with my spiritual father and parish priest and both have requested that our bishop ordain me as a deacon and priest this coming summer. In light of that, I have decided to call it quits on commenting on blogs, especially with some of my more controversial opinions.
I have enjoyed my time here and thank George and Gail for their hospitality. I will continue reading, as this place is too much of a resource to totally abandon. I ask forgiveness of any one whom I have offended and ask for your prayers.
Have a wonderful Paschal season, Monomakhoi!
Yes, we did miss you. I was wondering why you were so quiet. Thank you for letting us know, my friend. I think you will make a wonderful deacon! We wish you all the best. AXIOS!
AXIOS! Thanks for letting us know!
AXIOS Basil!
The Lord go with you.
PS: My greetings to our mutual acquaintance.
Christ is risen!
Truly He is risen!
https://orthochristian.com/131516.html
Ah, the reason for all the angst and confusion is that it is a holy war between the sons of light and the sons of darkness. We live in a realm ruled by darkness at this point and so the devil is spinning constantly unable to change the trajectory of international events. These will certainly have a domestic effect as well. The world is deliberalizing and America, over time, will not be able to resist the changing tide. But the latter will take time and until then it is quite confusing and unnerving living in the den of the beast.
Patience is a virtue. God is working on it.
Larry Johnson had a good column on the situation with the UOC. He misses a few details but in general covers at least some of the injustice and the spiritual nature of the conflict.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/04/the-anti-god-subtext-to-the-war-in-ukraine/
Good article!
3 different medical systems … compared
https://twitter.com/MyLordBebo/status/1648781580482105345
O tempora! O mores!
[The times! The customs!]
Here’s an ‘iconic’ find…
Amid an unfolding civil war, unique Christian wall paintings have
been found in hidden chambers of an ancient Sudanese city
https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2023/04/26/amid-an-unfolding-civil-war-unique-christian-wall-paintings-have-been-found-in-hidden-chambers-of-an-ancient-sudanese-city?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB
Art found by chance in Old Dongola shows King David of Makuria
kissing the hand of Jesus, a remarkable example of Christian art
now threatened by unfolding violence in Sudan
“The scene of a king kissing Christ’s hand and embraced by archangel
Gabriel, a scene never before found in Christian iconography”
One slight problem – the archangel in question seems to be
Michael, if I read aright the name written above his head.
Nevertheless, the article offers an interesting insight
into the fate of a lost Christian Church in Africa.