When were times easy?

Today, we often hear that we are living in difficult times. We can’t argue with that. However, there is another question: When were times easy? Can we say that it was easy for our grandfathers to rebuild the country, almost completely destroyed by war? Was it easy for our great-grandfathers to survive the civil war after the 1917 revolution, Stalin's repressions and famine? Was it easy for those who had lived before them? No, in fact there are no easy times. It is hard to all and always. The problem lies in us.

This means that not the time or even the problem which we face takes the most important place in our life, but how exactly we treat this.

Today, a piece of bread on the table (and nothing else), says that people who have this piece are on a poverty line – they do not have money for meat, butter, caviar, etc. But let us remember that not so long ago this same piece of bread was considered as a great treasure, as a sign of prosperity.

What has happened, what has changed between now and then? Only our perception. It's simple – we forgot to thank God for what we have. And we are not talking about "today" and "yesterday", but about our life in general. The fact is that’s when we lose a thing, we begin to appreciate it. Moreover, it concerns peoples as well.

Now I'm not trying to justify what is happening and to reassure those who do not have a piece of bread on the table. I'm just trying to say that grumbling and indignation have never been creative forces. Only love and gratitude create.
In this regard, we would recall a good parable. Once a man complained, "My goodness, how hard I feel!" To which the Lord answered him: "You do not know what is hard. I’ll show you."

And another man said, "Oh, Lord, how easy and good I feel!" To which the Lord answered him, "You do not know what is easy and good. I'll show you."

Exactly the same happens to us: the more we resent and complain, the worse and harder we live. After all, according to the Holy Fathers, a prayer of a grumbling man does not come to God. So let us all do so that our prayer will always be effective. The only means for that is gratitude. Thank God for everything!

Why do we turn to the saints if God hears us directly?

Prayer to the saints is a plea for a hand in the darkness, when we ourselves can no longer rise toward God.

Excel spreadsheet of holiness and why it always fails

We secretly keep track of our spiritual victories. And when the table is reset to zero by a fall, we cry not about God, but about the lost status of being a good Christian.

The secret source of living water and soul’s deliverance from earthly bondage

Man endlessly consumes the earth in order to sustain the body’s survival. Christ’s conversation at the well reveals to us the bitter truth about worldly vanity and points to the only path toward true immortality.

Who do we give the first fifteen minutes of the morning to?

Saint John of Kronstadt described morning doomscrolling so accurately, as if he held a smartphone in his hands. Let's visit him in Kronstadt to ask: what are we doing wrong?

When God is silent: what are we doing wrong?

We are used to every button producing a response. But when we pray for the deepest, most urgent request of our lives, we are met with silence. Lewis described it so precisely that it can hardly be said better.

Fr Seraphim Rose: From Emptiness to Truth

The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia has blessed preparations for the glorification of the American hieromonk who passed through unbelief, Eastern philosophy, and spiritual crisis to become one of the most widely read Orthodox authors of the twentieth century.