{"id":5410,"date":"2017-05-22T21:18:21","date_gmt":"2017-05-22T11:18:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/?p=5410"},"modified":"2017-05-23T16:42:09","modified_gmt":"2017-05-23T06:42:09","slug":"how-to-not-spiritually-wither-away-in-the-holy-50","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/how-to-not-spiritually-wither-away-in-the-holy-50\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Not Spiritually Wither Away in the Holy 50"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>How to Not Spiritually Wither Away in the Holy 50<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">By:\u00a0<strong>Bishoy Sharobim<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It is written in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.holynewmartyrs.org\/leontymikhailovskoe.html\">life<\/a> of an enigmatic miracle-working Russian monk who lived in the time of Soviet Russia: &#8220;Once on Easter night the guards ordered Fr. Leonty to renounce God. He declined.\u00a0Then they tied him to a rope and head first dipped him into a toilet bowl&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>After a while they took him back out again and yelled \u2018Do you renounce Him now?\u2019 and his answer was \u2018Christ is Arisen!\u2019. They dipped him into the bowl again, took him back out, but he repeated\u2013 \u2018Christ is arisen, people!\u2019 They tortured him, yet they couldn\u2019t make the father renounce God&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-5413 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Picture1-1-226x300.png\" alt=\"Picture1\" width=\"226\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Picture1-1-226x300.png 226w, http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Picture1-1.png 593w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 226px) 85vw, 226px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I believe this story contains an important message for us in the holy 50.<\/p>\n<p>Some may wonder what are we supposed to do in these times? How are we supposed to stay spiritual without fasting, without that struggling atmosphere the Lent provided us?\u00a0In passion week, we passionately shout our &#8220;thok te ti goms&#8221;, we attend church services for hours on end and we fast the hardest we possibly can for the year. But then Holy 50 comes, and now what do we do?<\/p>\n<p>Well, whatever it is, let me tell you that I am certain the holy 50 is not an opportunity to become lax. Maybe in your case that means you have not prayed from the agpia since Passion week. Or maybe you might be like my friend who on the first Friday following Easter, confessed to me that he hadn&#8217;t read his bible since.<\/p>\n<p>What I believe we can learn from the life of Fr Leonty is that we must continue to struggle spiritually in this holy 50 period and give no place to the devil of laziness. \u00a0We must imitate his faithfulness to Christ and his readiness to suffer and struggle for Him, regardless of the time and circumstances. We must keep in mind that although the church does not require that its faithful fast this period, she certainly did not offer this period as one of sinful spiritual sloth.<\/p>\n<h3><strong><u>3 Tips to Stay Spiritual<\/u><\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>To help encourage your continued spiritual struggle in this period, I offer here 3 tips&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Maintain your prayer rule:<\/strong> keep praying daily using the agpia. Never stop struggling in prayer. On the day you fail to pray sufficiently, consider yourself to have been dead.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Listen to the resurrection\u00a0hymns:<\/strong>the Coptic church&#8217;s most joyous hymns are undoubtedly heard in the Holy 50. If this period goes by and you don&#8217;t listen daily to these treasurable\u00a0hymns, you will seriously experience a huge loss.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Read the lives of the saints:<\/strong> this is one of the greatest sources of joy in the spiritual life. Who can possibly read the lives of these wonderful human beings and not be lifted up on high with exalted spiritual joyous\u00a0feelings?\u00a0 The saints are those who\u00a0undoubtedly\u00a0experienced the power of the resurrection. As Fr Vasile Tudora <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pravmir.com\/witnessing-light-happens-resurrection\/\">said<\/a>, &#8220;&#8230;the saints &#8230; did not limit themselves to be observers, to be spectators, to watch the \u201cshow\u201d of Resurrection; they decided to play an active role in it.&#8221;\u00a0 The links to the saints&#8217; lives in this post and your church bookshop are a good place to start.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So during this period, when you are in the toilet recall the\u00a0sufferings\u00a0of this holy confessor who never shirked from his\u00a0spiritual\u00a0duties and was never found faithless to the Lord Christ. Remember also the great <a href=\"http:\/\/www.holy-transfiguration.org\/library_en\/saints_seraphim.html\">St Seraphim of Sarov<\/a>, who through his unceasing spiritual struggle, was able to greet everyone with the\u00a0resurrection\u00a0joy using the words &#8220;My joy, my joy. Christ is risen&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Never forget how blessed we are to be born Orthodox. Ekhristos Anesti!<\/p>\n<p>Discussion: What do you do to benefit from the Holy 50?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How to Not Spiritually Wither Away in the Holy 50 By:\u00a0Bishoy Sharobim It is written in the life of an enigmatic miracle-working Russian monk who lived in the time of Soviet Russia: &#8220;Once on Easter night the guards ordered Fr. Leonty to renounce God. He declined.\u00a0Then they tied him to a rope and head first &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/how-to-not-spiritually-wither-away-in-the-holy-50\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;How to Not Spiritually Wither Away in the Holy 50&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5412,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5410"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5417,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5410\/revisions\/5417"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}