Syriac Orthodox Metropolitan Visits UAE Parish

An auxiliary to Patriarch Moran Mor Ignatios Zakka I (Iwas) of Antioch, Metropolitan Mor Dionysios (Yuhanon), has made a pastoral visit to the Syriac Orthodox Church of St. Zacchaeus in Sharjah, UAE, to celebrate the Lord's Ascension with the young parish, which was established 5 years ago. More (in Arabic) here.

Photo of the Day: Ascension in Bucharest

Patriarch Daniel (Ciobotea) of the Romanian Orthodox Church celebrating the festal Divine Liturgy for the Ascension in Bucharest's patriarchal Cathedral of St. Demetrius the New. More pictures can be found here.

Ascension of the Lord

Glory to Jesus Christ! Слава Иисусу Христу! Having spent 40 days with His disciples, today the Lord ascends into heaven to complete the deification and glorification of our flesh through His enthronement at the right hand of God the Father.

As St. John Chrysostom wrote, "We who seemed unworthy of the earth, are now raised to heaven. We who were unworthy of earthly dominion have been raised to the kingdom on high, have ascended higher than heaven, have come to occupy the King's throne, and the same nature from which the Angels guarded Paradise, stopped not until it ascended to the throne of the Lord."

More on today's feast can be found here. I hope and pray that you have a blessed and joyous feast wherever you are today! "God is with us!"

Elder Paisius the Athonite on Faith

"I remember an elderly monk at Esphigmenou Monastery on Mount Athos who was so simple that he thought "Ascension" was the name of a woman saint. He prayed to her on his prayer rope, "Saint of God, intercede for us!" Once, he had to feed a sick brother in the infirmary and had nothing to offer him. He immediately went down the stairs, opened a window overlooking the sea, stretched his arms out and said, "Ascension, my Saint, give me a little fish for the brother!" And right away, as if by miracle, a big fish jumped out of the sea and into his hands. The others who saw him were astonished, but he simply looked at them smiling, as if he were saying, 'What's so strange about what you've just seen?' And then look at us. We may know everything about the life and martyrdom of the Saints, or about when and how the Ascension took place, and yet we cannot even catch a tiny little fish! These are the strange and paradoxical things of the spiritual life, which the reasoning of those intellectuals that are centered on themselves and not on God cannot explain..."

I'm indebted to another's blog for this excerpt from Elder Paisius' Spiritual Counsels.