St. Simeon Skete, Taylorsville Kentucky USA

With St. Simeon, the God receiver, as our patron, the skete seeks to practice the ideals found in our Rule, The Thousand Day Nazareth. In simplicity and poverty, the skete embraces the struggle of inner life through the practice of the Prayer Rope.

See our website at www.nazarethhouseap.org

Donations should be addressed to: Nazareth House Apostolate, 185 Captains Cove Drive, Taylorsville, Kentucky 40071.

Important Notice: All writings, posts, graphics & photographs in this blog are the copyrighted property of (unless otherwise indicated) Nazareth House Media, a division of Nazareth House Apostolate and cannot be copied, printed or used without written permission from NHA Media, Taylorsville, KY.

Thursday, August 19, 2021

Pray, Pray Always

 "On this earthly pilgrimage—which for many has become a lonely road--we must walk in faith, keeping in our hearts the love of God above all things.

If you don’t know the faith, learn it. If you have forgotten it, find someone who knows it...get out the Bible and read, study and inwardly digest it.
Don’t be caught up in endless pointless polemics about who is more catholic (or proper or spiritual or devoted or more right) than whom. It’s the grand strategy of the devil to pit us against each other. He can do that easily if we don’t know what we’re doing, where we’re going, or why we claim the name Christian.
"We are hearing about and experiencing censorship in one manner or another these days -- Remember- No-one or Nothing can censor our prayers except our own sins. Pray, Pray always." - NHA (Remnant)





Tuesday, January 12, 2021

Faith is a gift of God

 

O LORD, we beseech thee mercifully to receive the prayers of thy people who call upon thee; and grant that they may both perceive and know what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfil the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.




Good Morning

 Faith is a gift of God. Only he can bestow it, and it is a gift that he passionately desires to give us. However, he can only give it to us if we ask for it. When we ask for faith, we are turning our face towards his face, and he can look into our heart. He loves to see us facing him, but we for some reason try to avoid this. Even while begging him for favors, we close the eyes of our soul, so as to avoid looking at him. 

Yet he is always looking at us, with deep love. It is faith that allows us to enter peacefully into the dark night each of us faces at one time or another. Faith walks simply, like a child, between the darkness of human life and the hope of what is to come, “for eye has not seen, nor ear heard what God reserves for those who love him.” Faith is a kind of folly, a folly of God himself. Faith breaks through barriers. When our face is turned to God in faith, our eyes meet his, and each day becomes more luminous. 



The veil between God and us becomes thinner and thinner, until it seems we can almost reach out and touch him.  “For I am certain of this: neither death nor life, no angel, no prince, nothing that exists, nothing still to come, not any power, or height or depth, nor any created thing, can ever come between us and the love of God made visible in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38–39 -(God in the Nitty-Gritty Life) 

Monday, January 11, 2021

“Down through the centuries and generations it has been seen that in suffering there is concealed a particular power that draws a person interiorly close to Christ, a special grace. To this grace many saints ... owe their profound conversion. A result of such a conversion is not only that the individual discovers the salvific meaning of suffering but above all that he becomes a completely new person. He discovers a new dimension, as it were, of his entire life and vocation ...”- John Paul II 




"The Jesus Prayer is understood best, when it is considered in connection with the Eucharist, where we are permitted to join our self-surrender to Christ's perfect act of Love: Bringing before Thee Thine of Thine own, From all and for all (Liturgy of St.John Chrysostom) In this self-offering within the consecration, we are part of Christ, even before we receive Him in communion. Both self-oblation and communion are things which happen in eternity as well as in time. In the Eucharist, it is self-evident that Christ is all that we have and and all that we are. He is, one might say, the most perfect expression of the whole of our being as we desire it to be. Our thoughts, our will, all the words we could ever find to express ourselves are Himself. Thus, in the Eucharist, as far as we offer ourselves, we are wholly simple, there we attain oneness. The practice of the Jesus Prayer, in which we allow Christ Himself to be our prayer, is the abiding in this simplicity and oneness." - Mother Maria