Holiday holiday for a Christian

A collection of publicly accessible spiritual and edifying stories and reflections, arranged in relation to the Gospel Sunday and holiday readings of the whole year. 1) A guide for the pastor-preacher during non-liturgical interviews with the people. 2) Spiritual and edifying reading for every Christian on Sundays and holidays. Compiled by priest Master of Theology Grigory Dyachenko. We had the following motivations for publishing this book: Firstly, such a collection has not yet been published that would contain stories and articles of a publicly accessible nature, arranged according to the Gospel readings on Sundays and holidays throughout the year, and would serve as a pedagogical aid in the hands of the pastor-preacher when conducting outside of liturgical interviews on the subject of the Gospel readings or the entire Gospel history. Reading after or during a conversation a short story, which, due to its vividness and clarity, would be accessible to ordinary listeners and would help them better remember the proposed explanation, as well as serve as some rest and variety after a tiring strain of attention, is a technique whose benefits hardly need to be said much. Suffice it to say that it is recommended by the Holy Synod, practiced by the majority of pastor-preachers and met with extreme sympathy by listeners who eagerly listen to such stories. It is very inconvenient to look for a suitable story or article every time, often given the poverty of the rural parish library and the lack of sufficient time, for a pastor burdened with teaching the law in a parish school, and often correcting demands in a scattered parish, and church writing, and running his own household. That is why we think that our present book, which meets this need, will not be superfluous. This is especially true since, with a fairly significant number of collections of spiritual and edifying stories, not a single one has been published so far, adapted to the Gospel readings, both Sunday and holiday, and, moreover, throughout the year. This collection of stories and articles is the first experience of this kind. Secondly, we are convinced that such a collection of spiritually edifying stories and articles, embracing and clarifying not just some, but all the most important dogmatic and moral truths, clearly teaching a person his duties to God, neighbors and himself, showing in a living and accessible presentation the strength and greatness of the Christian faith, the beauty and power of Christian love for people - for enemies and friends - and to everything around us, the saving power of Christian hope, which gives strength to the spirit to endure all the hardships of life, to patiently bear the cross sent by the wise and all-good Providence of God, not to despair and not to be faint-hearted in anticipation of eternal, Heavenly blessings in the future life - that such a collection will be timely and useful for simple, literate people, as a means of distracting them from the unclean and unworthy a Christian of pleasures during the days of holiday rest, the rational implementation of which is taken care of by the government, the clergy, and all good people who are zealous for the religious and moral development of the people, as a guarantee of their prosperity. We tried, if possible, not to include articles of a gloomy nature in the proposed collection. Exceptions, very rare, were allowed when it was necessary to indicate God’s formidable admonition to the violators of His St. law. For every Sunday and holiday, we have given so many stories and articles full of edification and lively interest that reading them may well occupy the holiday leisure of a Christian and give him high spiritual pleasure and undoubted benefit. Such an activity of reading during the holidays will be quite a “holiday rest” for a Christian. In conclusion, we consider it our duty to say that this collection of spiritually edifying stories and reflections can be useful for pastors not only when conducting non-liturgical conversations on Gospel history, as we mentioned above, but also in explaining the catechism of the Orthodox Church and in general, in our opinion, when conducting conversations and teachings of all kinds, for any edification coming from the church pulpit should not be abstract reasoning, little accessible to the understanding of ordinary listeners, but should excite to virtue by pointing to the examples of St. There are quite a sufficient number of people of God (See the definition of the Holy Synod in the Church Gazette for 1890, No. 26), and similar examples taken not only from the life of ancient Christians, but also from the life of the Orthodox Russian people, living examples of whose Christian piety spent their lives in the same conditions in which their listeners live. This last circumstance should, it seems to us, give our book the character of special edification, persuasiveness and lively interest. May the Lord help that the seeds of Christian faith and piety contained in this book will fall on good hearts and bear abundant fruit to the glory of God! Priest Grigory Dyachenko. 1900 February 1st day. You might be interested in: