Teachings on the Spiritual Life - 5 different books- Multiple book discounts

1. Every Sigh Can Be a Prayer

Every Sigh Can Be a Prayer is a compilation of teachings on the spiritual life by the Romanian elder Fr. Arsenie Papacioc. A confessor, man of prayer, and preacher of the Faith who lived up to our times, Fr. Arsenie well understood the trials and complexities of contemporary life. His answer to our weakness and instability is a positive asceticism, based on a “state of awareness of God’s continuous presence.” Fr. Arsenie calls us to a life of watchfulness, of continuous attention: “We must be grateful or present in a state of awareness. That’s why I say that every moment is a taste of eternity and every sigh can be a prayer. This provides much greater benefit than many prayers or prostrations done mechanically.”

Few people live life as fully as did Fr. Arsenie. Before his entry into monasticism at the age of thirty-two, he had been an athlete, artist, chemist, mayor, soldier, and political prisoner. Leaving behind all his worldly success, Fr. Arsenie dedicated himself to Christ as a monk and priest for over sixty years. He spent a total of fourteen years in the infamous Romanian prisons, being arrested over forty times in his life. Prison was a spiritual academy for him, a place where he learned of the intricacies and depths of man’s soul, of the intrigues of the demons, and of God’s presence in the intense suffering he experienced. After his release from prison, he spent a decade in various parishes and monasteries around Romania, bringing people back to the Church and feeding the faithful with his God-inspired wisdom. This book gathers his teachings—the fruits of a long life of prayer, watchfulness, and suffering for Christ—from interviews, talks, and letters. His words are a vigorous call, waking us from our sleep, to a deep engagement in all that we do in our life in Christ.

176 pages, paperback, illustrated.

2. On the Providence of God by St. John Chrysostom

Saint John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople (ca. 347–407), is revered as the Church’s greatest homilist and interpreter of Holy Scripture. The present treatise, On the Providence of God, was his last work, written at the very end of his life, when he was in exile in the mountains of Armenia. He wrote this work to encourage his faithful flock in Constantinople and elsewhere, who were in distress due to his unjust banishment and the political intrigue and persecutions surrounding it. It is believed that he sent it to his spiritual daughter St. Olympias along with his last letter to her, asking her to “keep constantly coming back to it” as a source of spiritual strength amidst her own persecution.

In reading On the Providence of God, one marvels at how powerfully the author was able to affirm God’s goodness and love amidst the uncertain and ignominious circumstances in which he then found himself. Again and again, St. John exhorted his beleaguered flock to patiently wait for the outcome of events, as had the righteous ones in the Old and New Testaments. He brought forth as examples Job, Abraham, Joseph, King David, the Three Holy Youths, John the Baptist, Protomartyr Stephen, and many others, all of whom exhibited unwavering faith when, on the face of things, it looked as if all were lost.

St. John’s meditations on God’s loving care for the world were the fruit of his entire life, which he had lived in devotion to His Master Christ—and especially of his final years, when that devotion, more than ever before, had been sorely put to the test. It was with such faith and serene trust in his Lord that he came to the end of his earthly life in exile, and that he uttered his now-famous final words, “Glory be to God for all things!”

158 pages, paperback, illustrated

3. The Love of God
The Life and Teachings of St. Gabriel of the Seven Lakes Monastery

Saint Gabriel, schema-archimandrite of the Seven Lakes Monastery near Kazan (†1915), was one of the last great spiritual guides to grace Russia before the Revolution. In his early monastic life he was a disciple of the great Elder Ambrose of Optina Monastery, and drank deeply of the living water there. His life thereafter was filled with trials, labors, and illness, all of which refined his soul and formed him into a superb guide to those around him.

The biography of St. Gabriel was written soon after his repose by one of his close disciples, Archimandrite Symeon Kholmogorov, in an engaging and moving style. This biography bears witness to the elder’s unceasing and ardent prayer, his spiritual experiences, wondrous visions, and clairvoyance, as well as the Divine healings wrought through his prayers. Having single-mindedly sought after the highest good of love for God and man from his youth, he was granted a profound revelation of God’s love for the world, seen in His redemption of the human race. This revelation filled him with overwhelming gratitude to the Lord, especially as he contemplated Christ’s earthly life. Thus was opened to him that which he longed for: the experience of love for God with his entire being.

“I recognized that I was deeply sinful,” he wrote, “but at the same time a fiery hope in the saving love and mercy of the Lord truly uplifted my spirit. Tears of contrition poured forth from my eyes. And what my heart experienced at that time, I cannot describe. I felt no need of food. I was burdened when others visited me. I was blissful, wounded by love for the Lord. I was willing to remain even eternally alone and suffer, if only I could be with the Lord and be filled with love for Him.”

This love for God, which informed the elder’s entire life, filled him at the same time with an overflowing love for others. As one who knew him wrote: “Elder Gabriel showed utter childlike simplicity, all-forgiving love, and unchanging meekness. Love — in all of its pure and holy emanations in man — was not his property and did not come from him. It was a gift of God. This gift of grace-filled love was poured out abundantly by the Holy Spirit upon Fr. Gabriel, and that is why all who were near him felt so good, joyful, and comfortable.”

In his emphasis on God’s love for man, and on man’s grateful response to it by loving God and neighbor, St. Gabriel reminds one of holy Athonite elders of more recent times, St. Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia (†1991) and St. Paisios of Mount Athos (†1994), both of whom have been glorified by the Church in the last few years.

This new, greatly expanded book on St. Gabriel contains the elder’s Life — first published in English as One of the Ancients — and, for the first time in English translation, his complete writings and letters to spiritual children, as well as an Akathist hymn. It also features a biography of the author, who suffered martyrdom at the hands of the Communists in 1937.

424 pages, paperback, illustrated.

4. We Shall See Him as He Is by Saint Archimandrite Sophrony Sakharov

“Now at the close of my life I have decided to talk to my brethren of things I would not have ventured to utter earlier, counting it unseemly.…”

Thus wrote Archimandrite Sophrony, then ninety-two years old, in We Shall See Him as He Is, his spiritual autobiography. In this book Fr. Sophrony, one of the most beloved orthodox Christian elders of our times, revealed to the world his own experience of union with God, and the path to that union. drawing near to God with intense love and longing accompanied by struggle, self-emptying and searing repentance, Fr. Sophrony was granted to participate in the life of God Himself through His uncreated Energies. Like orthodox saints throughout the centuries, he experienced God’s grace as an ineffable, uncreated Light. It was in this Light that Christ was transfigured on Mount Tabor before His Apostles, and it is in this Light that we shall see Him as He is (I John 3:2).

Born into a Russian orthodox family in Moscow in 1896, Archimandrite Sophrony embarked on a successful career as a painter in Paris. There he delved into Eastern religions for a time, before repenting bitterly of this and returning to the faith of his childhood. After a brief period of theological study in Paris, he left for the ancient orthodox monastic republic of Mount Athos in Greece, where he spent fifteen years in a monastery and a further seven as a hermit “in the desert.” on Mount Athos he became the spiritual son of a simple monk of holy life, Elder Silouan. It was under the guidance of Elder Silouan that Fr. Sophrony experienced divine illumination, knowing God intimately as Personal Absolute—as the one Who revealed Himself to the Prophet Moses as “I AM” and Who became incarnate as man in Jesus Christ. In 1959, Fr. Sophrony founded the Monastic Community of St. John the Baptist in Essex, England, which has since become a major orthodox spiritual center for all of Western Europe. His books on the life and teaching of his elder, Fr. Silouan—published most recently in a single volume, as Saint Silouan the Athonite—led to the canonization of Elder Silouan by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of the orthodox Church in 1988. Elder Sophrony reposed in 1993, at the age of ninety-seven.

By special arrangement with the St. John the Baptist Monastery in Essex, England, the St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood has now published the first American edition of Archimandrite Sophrony’s classic work, We Shall See Him as He Is.

248 pages, paperback

5. Beginnings of a Life of Prayer by Archimandrite Irenei

The beginnings of prayer arise from the longing of the heart to know God, to rest in Him Who showed His love upon the precious Cross, to abide in the fullness of communion with Him. In the present book—a primer on prayer—Archimandrite Irenei first prepares the ground by helping us to count the cost (Luke 14:28) of our lives as Christians, to take stock of the spiritual struggle we must undertake if we are to ascend toward God in prayer. Then, based on a sober appraisal of our lowly condition and of the worldly and demonic influences that assail us, he helps us to adorn our inward beings as temples of prayer.

With an eye ever on the practical application of Orthodox Christian teaching to the spiritual life, the author raises our minds and hearts to a greater awareness of the holiness and majesty of God, and at the same time of the potential for us—unworthy though we be—to enter into intimate communion with Him. This awareness inspires us to explore with the author the depths of prayer, and to strive more fervently toward eternal life in Christ—the end for which we have been created.

Archimandrite Irenei (M. C. Steenberg) received his doctorate in Theology from the University of Oxford. He has served as Professor of Theology and Head of Theology & Religious Studies at Leeds Trinity and All Saints College, England, and as the Principal of the St. John of San Francisco Orthodox Academy in San Francisco, California. He is currently the priest of the St. Tikhon of Zadonsk Church in San Francisco (where St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco lived during his last years), as well as the Director of the Saints Cyril and Athanasius Institute for Orthodox Studies. His books include Irenaeus on Creation: The Cosmic Christ and the Saga of Redemption and Of God and Man: Theology and Anthropology from Irenaeus to Athanasius. He is the creator of www.monachos.net, an online compendium of Orthodox patristic theology.

Softcover, 128 pages, $12 US ISBN-13: 978-1-887904-29-2