Hey, excuse my red face... my scarf is on too tight.

[TomS]

So I read the saints writings and you say that they are out of context with our lives, but then I see how Orthodox, cradle and convert live, in real life and it is no help.

Those who lived for God are the ones that know what they are talking about. We are the ones who are messed up.

The Saints were not LIVING IN the world. They had withdrawn from the world and were able to focus 100% on their faith with little distractions.

Unless you wish to do the same (and you have told me that you cannot, or will not, join a convent) then you have to LEARN how to live the Faith IN THIS WORLD. You cannot learn this by reading the writings of those who did not live it.

[joasia]

TomS,

St. John of Krondstadt is to the contrary. He was a bishop and married. He has an amazing compilation of spiritual thoughts. I used to have a book about married saints. They lived their lives for God. But, this generation is alot weaker...I'm sure you will agree.

It is a comfort to read about their lives.

It seems like we don't even believe that we can accomplish what they did(which is possible). Because, of course, we are not saints. That is my dilemma...I feel too weak to accomplish something that was so simple to others, by God's Grace.

Isn't that what we are all struggling with? Maybe that is our bond, converts and cradle. But, I surely feel pathetic about my weakness, don't you?

In Christ,

Joanna

[TomS]

...They lived their lives for God. But, this generation is alot weaker...I'm sure you will agree.

No. I do not agree. There are Saints alive today. The difference is that todays Saints are living in an age where all their warts and shortcomings are documented. The Saints you refer to in the past had just as many warts and shortcomings - they just were not documented.

You sometimes remind me of the Greeks with their "Byzantium" fixation. It was not all glory and good then - but you would not know it from the way the Greeks talk about it.

[尼古拉前执事]

Some want to be changed by the times, some do not. As for modern books telling of modern times and how Orthodox Christians should live, here are some suggestions:

Youth of the Apocalypse: And the Last True Rebellion

Nihilism: The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age

Blessed John the Wonderworker: A Preliminary Account of the Life and Miracles of Archbishop John Maximovitch

Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future

[TomS]

Goodness! If none of the Orthodox saints ever lived (or do live) "in the world", then I had best take a razor blade and cut out many pages from the Prologue to Ochrid, from the Menaion, and from all of my assorted national calendars and books with lives of the saints. Gotta get those impostors off the lists!

Orthodox6

You probably should - cause a majority of them probably never existed. A majority of the Saints lives are like a fish story; The fish keeps getting bigger with each telling.

[Aristokles]

Goodness! If none of the Orthodox saints ever lived (or do live) "in the world", then I had best take a razor blade and cut out many pages from the Prologue to Ochrid, from the Menaion, and from all of my assorted national calendars and books with lives of the saints. Gotta get those impostors off the lists!

Orthodox6

You probably should - cause a majority of them probably never existed. A majority of the Saints lives are like a fish story; The fish keeps getting bigger with each telling.

Spoken like a good Protestant! What in the world were you smoking over in Greece, anyway?

[TomS]

Spoken like a good Protestant! What in the world were you smoking over in Greece, anyway?

I am not saying that all the saints did not exist. I am saying that their stories were added to to make them "over the top" in order to get the attention of uneducated peasants who believed in such things as the "evil eye" and other types of nonsense. I have no qualms that the Church did that back then. That is what needed was needed back then. Since these people could not read or write - you had to make the stories unforgettable.

Nowadays, that does not need to be done. Ever wonder why you don't hear these types of "over the top" stories about saints since the masses became educated? Read a book on the history of myth in cultures. It will explain how and why these things evolved as they did.

But everyone thinks that I am questioning the FAITH in the Christ just because I am applying reasoning to the stories of the saints.

It's simple common sense.