December 18, 2008

Word from the Desert

Word from the Desert

The bread you do not use...

…is the bread of the hungry. The garment hanging in your wardrobe is the garment of the person who is naked. The shoes you do not wear are the shoes of the one who is barefoot. The money you keep locked away is the money of the poor. The acts of charity you do not perform are the injustices you commit.

St. Basil the Great
4th century

by wfd at3:15 AM


December 17, 2008

Orthodoxie

Orthodoxie

France 2: l'intronisation de Mgr Jean (Yazigi)

L'émission de télévision sur France 2 Orthodoxie, dimanche 21 décembre, de 9h30 à 10 heures, portera sur l'intronisation du métropolite Jean (Yazigi) à la tête de l'Archevêché grec-orthodoxe d'Antioche en Europe occidentale et centrale, laquelle s'est déroulée le 20 septembre dernier.

by Jivko Panev at11:18 PM under télévision


Un nouveau prêtre pour Montpellier

Dimanche 21 décembre, Mgr Gabriel de Comane ordonnera prêtre, dans la cathédrale Saint-Nicolas de Nice, le diacre Joseph Fouilleul. Il servira la communauté dédiée à sainte Hélène et à la sainte Croix à Montpellier. Le 24 décembre, il célèbrera les vigiles et la liturgie de la Nativité à Montpellier, à partir de 21 heures (chez Martine Brisson-Voisin, 8 rue Thérèse). Des agapes auront lieu sur place. Un local fixe pour les célébrations est prévu pour janvier prochain.
Pour tout renseignement: pascalmdb@orange.fr

by Jivko Panev at10:59 PM under vie des paroisses

Un calendrier julien

Sur le site du vicariat de Grande Bretagne et d'Irlande de l'Archevêché des paroisses russes en Europe occidental: ce calendrier julien "perpétuel" (qui ne comporte donc que les dates fixes) en anglais que l'on peut télécharger. Sur la même page: ce lien vers la paroisse de la Sainte Trinité (Patriarcat de Moscou aux États-Unis) dont le site comprend de nombreuses indications selon le calendrier julien, également en anglais.
En français: voir à partir de cette page ou de cette autre.

by Jivko Panev at10:41 PM under ressources

Magdalini

Magdalini

The Parenting Paradigm

After conversation with my husband about where to put posts on parenting (which question he said I answered myself), it has been decided that parenting rambling will go here rather than there.

Mostly, I'd like to have a place where I feel comfortable talking about our and my parenting choices, and being excited about learning new things about the developing little person we have in our family.

Today is the first time I have felt like a competent mommy. The past several days have been hectic (something outside the home in the morning, afternoon, and evening, almost every day since Friday), and today I didn't have to leave home at all. (I love staying at home, in my box of a house. I do have to make an effort to take walks outside, and be in sunshine, etc. For the record, Teddy and I took two little front-yard-only walks today.)

I do not know how related it is, but today was also the first day I tried to cut down on the pacifier use. I was confident in my decisions to put him down for his naps. I set the timer for five minutes and let him wail (taking notes on changes in tone to help me not go in to him). After the timer went off, I tried caressing his forehead to soothe him, but he kept fussing, so in went the paci, after which he was asleep if not right away then by the time the timer marked another five minutes. (I have a really bad sense of time.) Throughout the day, he didn't really cry at the changing table, and seemed to cry less at on my lap as I prepared to feed him.

I have been reading and listening to plenty of advice over the past three months. Reading includes several Montessori things (in books and online) and lots of parenting blogs. Advice has included my family (mother: he's too cold; sister: he's too hot; conclusion: he's just fine), parishioners of our home parish as well as other parishes (including one Greek lady who assured me that my next* will be a girl), and random people (what a sweet little girl!). And then there are all the people who give me advice, and, either just before or just afterwards, tell me I should go with my gut. Well, my gut is now educated, advised, driven by hormones, and has made compromises with my husband on how to deal with child-based challenges. So it's a very confused gut indeed, and I don't always know even what I want to do.

*We have postponed the actual discussion of having another child until all three of us have made it to September 2009.

We went to confession on Monday, and I raised the difficulty I had been having with receiving advice. I do know people mean well, but it's awfully hard to hear the same criticisms over and over without feeling rather resentful. For instance, having my baby in a sling: "He's always in there." "Isn't that bad for his spine?" "Isn't that bad for your back?" "He'll be growing out of that soon." And the first coffee hour, people kept putting cash right next to his face and hands. I'm a new mommy and I reserve the right to be germophobic. I put him in the sling because he likes it, I like it, and I remembered the Greek custom of "spitting"* to "keep away the evil eye"** and figured that if I kept him close to me, people would keep their distance a bit more than if he were in the stroller. (Ha! to the last part. Some do, but they don't cancel out the ones who don't.)

*One, in the service of baptism, you spit on the devil, not on the baby, and I really don't care for the association. Two, just because you mean to fake spit doesn't mean you are not actually spitting, and that's just gross. (I was "spat" on during pregnancy, and that's okay, but not on my baby with the immune system still being worked on, thankyouverymuch.)

**Once he's baptized, as pointed out by the abbess of the Annunciation Monastery, the evil eye can't hurt him. Also, I think the idea of the evil eye isn't worth bothering about.

So anyway, in confession Fr. Petros helped me focus on the fact that a priest's child is a child of the community, and everyone wants to have a share in loving him. (Selfish grumble: mine! mine!) So I will do my best to keep smiling and "thanking them for their contribution" as Fr. Petros put it. Also, I have the satisfaction of taking him home with me and doing mostly as I please with the boy.

For whatever reason, praise and questions are almost as annoying as criticism. Although I do like the praise much better, I am a little tired of being asked whether I am breastfeeding (yes) and told that I made the right choice (or: "Good for you!"). Perhaps it is the quantity, or the fact that breastfeeding seems more like a non-choice to me: I decided on it, my husband supports me, and by now it is working.

This post is already long, but I will try to keep posting as my brain and baby allow. I hope to answer the thought my husband had when he (a "veteran dad" of two months) brought our son to the Boot Camp for New Dads, "When did we turn into the hippie parents?"

by magda at7:40 PM under church, family, parenting


Glory to God for All Things

Glory to God for All Things

Fr. Stephen


      

by fatherstephen at7:03 PM under music, orthodox, religion (Comments)


Kevin Basil

Kevin Basil

The Triumphant Return

I have been thinking about what to blog since I returned to land three weeks ago. I am quite out of the habit of writing every day. For shame. But, to get the juices flowing, here’s my first outing: Read the Bible in a Month. I am not starting this full load of reading just yet. Perhaps I will tell you when I begin so my one reader can keep me honest.

by Basil at5:18 PM under general


Crunchy Con

Crunchy Con

Bad thrifty Germans! Bad!

The US Federal Reserve has committed itself to print as much money as it believes it needs to to keep the dragons at bay. Meanwhile, the Germans, who have been thrifty, see no reason why they should spend money they...

by Rod Dreher at3:59 PM under economics, federal reserve, germany (Comments)


Christmas books 2008

Reading that Gopnik essay made me realize that I hadn't read Boswell's "Life of Johnson," and how suddenly I really wanted to do so. (Did you know it's available for free download from Project Gutenberg? I've just downloaded it.) And...

by Rod Dreher at2:50 PM under books, christmas (Comments)

orrologion

orrologion

Righteous Priest Aaron

Other Old Testament saints celebrated on December 17 include: Righteous Benjamin; Righteous Deborah; St Ezra; Righteous Isaac; Righteous Jacob; St Judith; St Miriam; Prophet Nathan; Prophet Nehemiah; Righteous Noah; Righteous Rebecca; St. Sarah; Prophet Solomon; St Susanna; Prophet Daniel; and the Three Holy Youths (Ananias, Azarias and Misael). But, I thought this icon from the website of the

by orrologion at2:00 PM


Crunchy Con

Crunchy Con

Mr. Gopnik and Dr. Johnson

Can't tell you how much I enjoyed Adam Gopnik's essay about Samuel Johnson. Here's an excerpt: Johnson's political philosophy, a combination of authoritarian politics, charitable impulses, anti-imperialism, and Christian faith, was forged on the streets and in the garrets and...

by Rod Dreher at1:31 PM under adam gopnik, culture, samuel johnson, the new yorker (Comments)


Word from the Desert

Word from the Desert

Abba Poemen said...

…”Do not give your heart to that which does not satisfy your heart.”

by wfd at1:08 PM


Crunchy Con

Crunchy Con

Princess Caroline

I know I'm late weighing in on this, but let me say that Caroline Kennedy has no business being appointed to Hillary Clinton's Senate seat. She may have done somewhat respectable charitable work in the private sector, but if her...

by Rod Dreher at1:06 PM under caroline kennedy, democrats, sarah palin (Comments)


orrologion

orrologion

'You will not save the Church. The Church will save you.'

"Father Alexander [Schmemann] used to say to incoming students: 'You will not save the Church. The Church will save you.' He desired only that we understand the reality of union in Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit, through an authentic ascetical struggle." - Metropolitan Jonah (Paffhausen)

by orrologion at1:05 PM


"The reformer is always right about what is wrong... He is generally wrong about what is right."

by orrologion at1:04 PM

Crunchy Con

Crunchy Con

Obama disappoints at Agriculture

Comes news that Obama has picked ex-Iowa governor Tom Vilsack as his Agriculture Secretary. How depressingly conventional. Vilsack is Mr. Big Agribusiness, and his selection is a sign that Obama has no interest in changing the US food system. King...

by Rod Dreher at12:39 PM under agriculture, barack obama, democratic, democrats, food, tom vilsack (Comments)


Orthodoxie

Orthodoxie

Visite de Mgr Jean (Yazigi) à l’Institut de théologie orthodoxe Saint Serge à Paris

Mgr_jean_yazigi Hier, Mgr Jean (Yazigi), métropolite de l’Archevêché grec-orthodoxe d’Antioche d’Europe occidentale et centrale, a visité l’Institut de théologie orthodoxe Saint Serge à Paris. Mgr Gabriel, recteur de l’Institut, le père Nicolas Cernokrak, doyen de l’Institut, entourés des enseignants et des étudiants, ont accueilli Mgr Jean qui se rendait pour la première fois à l’Institut. A cette occasion, Mgr Jean a exprimé sa joie de visiter l’Institut « qui a tant fait et fait encore pour l’orthodoxie universelle en général, mais aussi pour le Patriarcat d’Antioche en particulier, car le patriarche actuel Ignace IV, Mgr Georges (Khodr), métropolite du Mont Liban, de même que de nombreux prêtres et fidèles y ont reçu leurs formations théologiques ». Après le déjeuner commun avec les étudiants, Mgr Jean a visité les locaux ainsi que l’église Saint Serge. Il s’est ensuite longuement entretenu avec le père Nicolas Cernokrak, le père Nicolas Ozoline, inspecteur de l’Institut, le père Jivko Panev, directeur-adjoint de la Formation théologique par correspondance et le professeur Joost Van Rossum, qui lui ont exposé les activités actuelles et les projets académiques en cours et à venir  de l’Institut. Mgr Jean, avant sa nomination en Europe occidentale, a été, à deux reprise, doyen de l’Institut de théologie orthodoxe de Balamand ainsi que professeur de liturgie et de chant byzantin au même institut. Il est auteur de nombreux livres et articles. Pour visualiser l’album de photographies de la visite de Mgr Jean, cliquez ICI !

by Jivko Panev at12:36 PM under antioche, comptes rendus, patriarcat antioche, saint serge


Exposition exceptionnelle d’œuvres d’art byzantin en provenance du Mont-Athos

Athos Du 9 avril au 5 juillet 2009 sera présentée au Petit Palais (Avenue Winston Churchill 75008 Paris) une exposition exceptionnelle d’œuvres d’art byzantin en provenance du Mont-Athos.
Cette exposition est conçue comme une rétrospective regroupant deux cents œuvres du IXe au XVIIIe siècle choisies parmi les collections de grands monastères grecs du Mont-Athos tels Vatopédi, Iviron, Xenophontos, Dionysiou ou Pantocrator ainsi que de Karyès, site de l’administration de la Sainte Montagne. Elles donnent à voir la vie et la production artistique de ce haut lieu spirituel dans ses différentes facettes, et témoignent en particulier des rapports qu’a entretenus la péninsule avec l’Empire byzantin.
La plupart de ces œuvres offrent la particularité de n’avoir jamais quitté le Mont-Athos, en dehors de celles qui furent présentées à Thessalonique lors d’une exposition en 1997.
L’exposition sera ouverte tous les jours, de 10h à 18h sauf les lundis et jours fériés. Nocturne le jeudi jusqu’à 20h.

by Jivko Panev at12:23 PM under exposition, mont athos, petit palais

orrologion

orrologion

Writings by the Missionary to Muslims

Yesterday, I posted a WORLD Magazine article, Coptic Priest Evangelizes Muslims on Al-Hayat, on Fr. Zakaria Botros of the Coptic Orthodox Church and his efforts to evangelize Muslims. More on Fr. Zakaria, including writings on Islam and Christianity, can be found here: http://www.fatherzakaria.net/books.htm

by orrologion at11:26 AM


"Nothing weighs something"

Light on the Dark Energy Mystery (BBC News) -- Astronomers have observed and analysed the effect of dark energy, the exotic form of energy thought to dominate the Universe, on galaxy clusters. Using Nasa's Chandra x-ray space telescope, researchers watched the growth of dozens of clusters. They say dark energy appears to be retarding the clusters' development. Dark energy is not well

by orrologion at11:11 AM