Website on the Holy Mountain

Site on the Holy Mountain

This site has a good deal of excellent information on the Holy Mountain.

The Wisdom of Solomon

Love justice, ye rulers of the earth; set your mind upon the Lord, as is your duty, and seek him in simplicity of heart; for he is found by those who trust him without question, and makes himself known to those who never doubt him.

Dishonest thinking cuts men off from God, and if fools will take liberties with his power, he shows them up for what they are.

Wisdom will not enter a shifty soul, nor make her home in a body that is mortgaged to sin.

This holy spirit of discipline will have nothing to do with falsehood; she cannot stay in the presence of unreason, and will throw up her case at the approach of injustice.

Wisdom is spirit devoted to man's good, and she will not hold a blasphemer blameless for his words, because God is a witness of his inmost being, who sees clear into his heart and hears every word he says.

For the spirit of the Lord fills the whole earth, and that which holds all things together is well aware of what men say. Hence no man can utter injustice and not be found out, nor will justice overlook him when she passes sentence.

The devices of a godless man will be brought to account, and a report of his words will come before the Lord as proof of his iniquity; no muttered syllable escapes that vigilant ear.

Beware, then, of futile grumbling, and avoid all bitter words; for even a secret whisper will not go unheeded, and a lying tongue is a man's destruction.

Do not stray from the path of life and so court death; do not draw disaster on yourselves by your own actions. For God did not make death, and takes no pleasure in the destruction of any living thing; he created all things that they might have being.

The creative forces of the world make for life; there is no deadly poison in them.

Death is not king on earth, for justice is immortal; but godless men by their words and deeds have asked death for his company. Thinking him their friend, they have made a pact with him because they are fit members of his party; and so they have wasted away.

Christ the Stone

Christ is the Stone, the glorious Stone, the uncut Stone, rejected by the builders who were too blind to see his Ineffable Glory, so they cast him away.

He is the Stone laid in Zion, the Cornerstone of the Eternal and Imperishable Kingdom of God.

Hypocrisy according to St Maximos

Hypocrisy is the pretense of friendship, or hatred hidden in the form of friendship, or enmity operating under the guise of affection, or envy simulating the character of love, or a style of life adorned with the fiction but not the reality of virtue, or the pretense of righteousness maintained in external appearance, or deceit with the outer form of truth. Hypocrisy is the trade of those who emulate the serpent with their twistings and twinings.

St Maximos the Confessor
Third Century on Love

Text 67

Do Not Hate!

If we detect any trace of hatred in our hearts against any man whatsoever for committing any faults, we are utterly estranged from love for God, since love for God absolutely precludes us from hating any man.

June 16/29

OUR HOLY AND WONDERWORKING FATHER TIKHON, BISHOP OF AMATHIS IN CYPRUS
AND ST COLMAN MC ROI, ABBOT

Troparion of St Tikhon, Tone 3

God called thee to the sacred priesthood / as a worthy servant of the Holy Trinity. / Thou didst shine with the grace of godliness / and strengthen the Church by many miracles. / O righteous Tikhon, pray to Christ our God to grant us His great mercy.

Troparion of St Colman Mc Roi, Tone 6

Disciple of St Columcille, / thou didst return to his native land and found a monastery at Dublin. / As thou now standest before Christ with the Angels, / pray, O Colman, that those who hymn thee may obtain His great mercy.

Kontakion of St Tikhon, Tone 3

Thou wast resplendent in asceticism, O beloved of God, / and didst receive power from the Holy Spirit / to destroy idolatry, put demons to flight, / to save souls and to heal the sick. / We honour thee, O blessed Tikhon.

The Mystery of the Incarnation

The great mystery of the Incarnation remains a mystery eternally.

Not only is what is not yet seen greater then what has been revealed--for it is revealed merely to the extent that those saved by it can grasp it--but also what is revealed still remains entirely hidden and is by no means known as it really is.

What I have said should not appear paradoxical. For God is beyond being and transcends all beyond-beingness; and so, when He wished to come down to the level of being, He became being in a manner which transcends being.

Thus, too, although transcending man, yet out of love for man He truly became man by taking on the substance of men; but the manner in which He became man always remains unrevealed, for He was made man in a way which transcends man.

St Maximos the Confessor