A talk from 1981 that rings fresh today

I happened to be going through some archived papers and came across the transcript of a talk given by Hieromonk Seraphim Rose titled “Signs of the End Times.” The transcript was made available by Orthodox America some time back.  I took the time to re-read it, fresh, through the eyes of recent history and found it inspirational, confirming and revealing as to where we find ourselves today. 

The transcript of the talk is found at this link:  http://www.roca.org/OA/134/134b.htm

The questions and answers that followed the talk do not appear there, but if enough people have interest, I will make them available. 

Solid reading for our day and age.  Memory eternal, Fr. Seraphim! 

Icon by the hand of Fr. Luke Dingman

Be Thou exalted, O God, above the heavens...

The Ascension of Our Lord

God is ascended with jubilee, and the Lord with the sound of a trumpet.
Psalm 46:6

    

On the feast of the Ascension of our Lord we celebrate the fulfillment of the prophecy of King David, which is used as the Prokimenon of the day. What does it mean for Orthodox Christians? It is not only Jesus Christ Who has ascended; for He has raised human nature itself to the heavens. We too shall rise from the dead and, if we are judged worthy, will rise with our regenerated, spiritual body to heaven, where, as the Blessed Augustine says, “all the people of God shall be made equal to the angels.”

But the thought of this promise reminds us also of our responsibility. The risen Lord is no longer with us in the flesh, but only through His invisible Holy Spirit. The interim between the First and Second Coming of Christ is for us a time of witness and testimony of Him Whom we worship without seeing. The Lord, just before His Ascension, commanded His disciples: Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature (St. Mark 16:15); and He told them, Ye shall be my witnesses … unto the uttermost part of the earth (Acts 1:8).

Christ has been with us for forty days, and we have rightly feasted; we must now, being filled with the Holy Spirit of God, strive to spread His Gospel and be His witnesses before the world. For everything that we do, or fail to do, we shall be judged by Him Who shall return to earth in the same way He ascended to Heaven. With such a sobering thought in mind, how can we not be zealous to make His truth known, so that all may join in the joyous cry of this feast, Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens, and Thy glory over all the earth (Psalm 107:6 LXX, 108:5 Hebrew text).

From The Heavenly Realm, St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 1983

Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose)
21 / 05 / 2015
Source:  http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/79457.htm

On the life of grace

Wherever you are in your spiritual life, you are to begin right there to take part in the life of the Church, to offer struggles to God, to love each other, to become aware of the people around you, to see that you are responsible for them, for being at least kind and cheerful, trying to do good deeds. You are to be aware of the unhappiness of others, to cheer them up and help them out.  All of these things promote the life of grace in the Church.  +Fr. Seraphim Rose of blessed memory