“Being bountiful and full of love, God awaits with great patience the repentance of every sinner, and he celebrates the return of the sinner with celestial rejoicing… when one sees this generosity and patience [one may] make such generosity an excuse for indifference, adding sin to sin, offense to offense, laziness to laziness.… And fall into such transgression he is not able to recover himself.”               St. Makarios of Egypt “There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” Luke 15:7 Psalm 32 Lord, bless us, if it may be,    in all our innocent endeavors. If it may not, give us strength       to encounter what is to come,    that we be brave in peril,       constant in tribulation,       and in all changes of fortune, and ...

Prayer for the Day: Through every minute of this day, through every day of all this week, through every week of all this year, through all the years of all this life,       be with me, Lord! So shall the days and weeks    and years be threaded       on a golden cord. And all draw on with sweet accord    unto your fullness, Lord, that so, when time is past,    by grace I may at last,       be with you, Lord.                              John Oxenham Psalm of the Day: # 31 “Even if you are not what you should be, you should not despair. It is bad enough you have sinned; why do you wrong God by regarding him in your ignorance as powerless? Is he, who for your sake created the great universe...

“If from the start we had wanted to keep the commandments and to remain as we were when baptized, we would not have fallen into so many sins of have needed the trials and tribulations of repentance. If we fail to repent, inevitably we will depart… into agelong punishment, more by our own free choice than against our will. Yet God did not create us for wrath but for salvation.”         -St. Peter of Damaskos For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.                                  1 Thessalonians 5:9 Let no riches make me ever forget myself, no poverty make me to forget you; let no hope or fear, no pleasure or pain, no accident without, no weakness within, hinder or discompose my duty, or turn me from the ways of your comman...

“We will not be condemned in the age to be because we have sinned, since we were given a mutable and unstable nature. But we will be pun-ished if, after sinning, we did not repent… for we have been given the power [and the time] to repent…. Not that God is angry with us: he is angry with evil. [God] is beyond passion and vengefulness….”                       -St. Theognostos The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.               Psalm 103:8 Psalm of the Day: # 31 Lord God, let us keep your Scripture    in mind and meditate on them       day and night, persevering       in prayer, always on watch. We beg you, Lord, to give us    real knowledge of what we read ...

“The moon as it waxes and wanes illustrates our condition: sometimes we do what is right, sometimes we sin and then through repentance return to a holy life. The… one who sins is not destroyed, just as the size of the moon does not diminish, but only its light. Through repentance we regain our true splendor, just as the moon after the period of waning clothes itself once more in its full light.”                  -St. John of Karpathos Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrecttion and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live.”                                John 11:25 Psalm of the Day: #37 O Lord, let me not henceforth desire    health or life except to spend them       for you, with you and...