07 November 2014

Needing to Know the Lives of the Saints

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With thanks to St. Tikhon's Monastery, Bookstore, and Press, I share with you, dear reader, a fine quote from St. Justin Popovich of the Serbian Orthodox Church:


"In [the Lives of the Saints] it is clearly and obviously demonstrated:

"There is no spiritual death from which one cannot be resurrected by the Divine power of the risen and ascended Lord Christ; there is no torment, there is no misfortune, there is no misery, there is no suffering which the Lord will not change either gradually or all at once into quiet, compunctionate joy because of faith in Him.

"And again there are countless soul-stirring examples of how a sinner becomes a righteous man in the Lives of the Saints: how a thief, a fornicator, a drunkard, a sensualist, a murderer, an adulterer becomes a holy man-there are many, many examples of this in the Lives of the Saints; how a selfish, egoistical, unbelieving, atheistic, proud, avaricious, lustful, evil, wicked, depraved, angry, spiteful, quarrelsome, malicious, envious, malevolent, boastful, vainglorious, unmerciful, gluttonous man becomes a man of God — there many, many examples of this in the Lives of the Saints."

Saint Justin Popovich
of Chelije
1894 - 1979


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