Holy Archangel Michael Serbian Orthodox Church Homebush in Homebush, New South Wales, Australia | Community organisation

Holy Archangel Michael Serbian Orthodox Church Homebush

Locality: Homebush, New South Wales, Australia

Phone: +61 2 9764 2075

Address: 38 Wentworth Road 2140 Homebush, NSW, Australia

Website: http://www.stmichaelshomebush.org.au

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25.01.2022 Sinners are destroyed in two ways: either, like the Sodomites, the men themselves are punished for their sins, or, like the Ninevites, the men’s sins are destroyed by repentance. -- Saint Augustine of Hippo

23.01.2022 We must learn to ease the burden of thoughts that bears down upon us. As soon as we feel burdened, we must turn to the Lord and give our worries over to Him, as well as the worries and cares of our loved ones. The Lord looks into our hearts and when we turn to Him from the heart, He immediately consoles us. -- Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica

23.01.2022 A reflection offered by a monk: St. Demetrios was ordered to persecute Christians but did not listen to the Emperor. Every day we are enticed to lesser temptations that test our resolve. So often do we hear: sleep a little longer, eat and drink a little bit more, go to the service late, follow this or that thought wherever it leads, excuse yourself from your prayer rule due to tiredness, do not sacrifice yourself for others do we obey? If we are not conscientious of the little ways in which we need to put to death the desires of the flesh and give life to the Spirit, how will we overcome when the greater trials come, when we are asked to give blood to attain the spirit?

22.01.2022 Be close to each other as one single soul, wholly devoted to the Lord. -- St Elizabeth, Grand Duchess and New Martyr

22.01.2022 Silence greatly helps in spiritual life. It is good for one to practice silence for about an hour a day: to test himself, to acknowledge his passions and to fight in order to cut them off and purify his heart. It is very good if there is a quiet room in the house which gives him the feeling of a monastic cell. There, in secret, he is able to do his spiritual maintenance, to study, and to pray. A little spiritual study done before prayer helps greatly. The soul warms up and the mind is transported to the spiritual realm. That’s why, when a person has many distractions during the day, he should rejoice if he has ten minutes for prayer, or even two minutes to read something, so as to drive away distractions. -- St. Paisios the Athonite

20.01.2022 I am convinced that between a saint and those who pray to him a close connection is formed, and often many of the saint’s qualities, if you have a close spiritual connection with him, appear in you also. Pray to the saint whose name you bear, and they will help you. Turn to them in times of sorrow and sickness; in difficult circumstances and in moments of joy: 'St. ____, my protector, pray to God for me, a sinner!' Pray to them and they will hear your prayer! They are your ...advocate before God, the advocate of all those who bear their name. They bring our prayer before God and intercedes for us. At the end of life, when we depart for the other world, our patron saint will be standing next to us. If we venerated them and prayed to them, they will stand next to our guardian angel to protect us from satan’s accusations. This is because at the personal judgement the devil pulls out all our sins, even those we don’t remember, exhibits them for everyone to see, and throws them on the scales. And we must have an advocate to defend us, who will make all our good deeds known. Therefore I ask you to remember the saints whose names you bear, and pray that they would protect you, protect your families, your nation, and all people." -- Fr. George Calciu, of Blessed Memory.

19.01.2022 The Logos came down out of love for us. Let us not keep Him down permanently, but let us go up with Him to the Father, leaving the earth and earthly thing behind, lest He say to us what He said to the Jews because of their stubbornness: "I go where you cannot come". -- St. Maximos the Confessor

19.01.2022 ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ May the memory of our beloved Metropolitan Amphilohios be eternal!

16.01.2022 I sometimes think we give too much importance to our outward attitude of prayer. We expect too much emotionally of ourselves, much more than God is asking for. God is only asking us to remember Him at all times, in good and bad periods to offer Him this moment of our time--this moment, not the following one. The present is what He asks; not in great gestures of surrender, but in a continual natural stream even as we breathe. The great moments will then be vouchsafed us by D...ivine grace when we are reaching for them, when prayer quickens into a life of its own and carries us with it to unexpected heights, and above all peace and joys. Prayer carries us--not we, our prayer. -- Mother Alexandra, of blessed memory, who began life as Princess Ileana of Romania.

15.01.2022 God loves us very much; He has us in mind in each and every moment and He protects us. We should know this and not be afraid of anything. -- St. Porphyrios

15.01.2022 Yesterday we marked 31 years since the repose of Elder Epiphanios of Athens, a man chosen by God. We share with you a few stories from his life and his teachings: Elder Epiphanios loved the poor. His dad owned several fields and thieves were often caught stealing the harvest. As a young man he became responsible for the fields, and once a thief was caught. When Fr. Epiphanios heard the thief’s story, not only did he not punish the thief, but he told those holding him that thi...s man had endured far more than his family, and decided that from then on they would set aside a portion of their fields for the thief every harvest, to take care of himself and his family. He didn’t want the man to have to look for other fields to steal from. He now had his own land to work, harvest, and sell. He served his entire ministry in a little chapel in downtown Athens dedicated to the Three Holy Hierarchs, and refused to receive a single penny in payment. He made a deal with God that he would keep his pockets empty through charity if He would keep his pockets full. He ended up building churches and a beautiful monastery, helping students go through university, and taking care of the poor. He was a machine of almsgiving because he stayed true to his promise to God. He had a very serious personal Typicon. He woke up and prayed and served the services from 4-9, studied from 9-12, and then opened his confessional from 12-5 or 6, nonstop every day. After Vespers he went to the hospitals and visited the sick, and then he went to bed. That was the basic cycle of his life: prayer, study, confession, services, hospital, sleep. He was once asked if he ever saw a vision, and he said, Oh, my child, no, nor do I ever wish to see one. The only thing I want to see are my sins. He was also asked if he’d seen miracles. Miracles? Nothing but. The greatest miracle which I have seen is that God came down to earth to save me, the most sinful of people. He was many times seen burdened by his labour of love, pastoring, and someone said to him, Elder I see that today you are distressed, and he answered to him, And what day am I not? The problems of the Church and of my spiritual children are my own. My heart only has entrances. It has no exists. My worst hell is to realize that I have saddened a beloved person. Elder Epiphanios Theodoropoulos - what a gift from God in His great love to us!

15.01.2022 About Satan, by Elder Arsenie (Papacioc) of Romania To the devil we don’t need to give explanations! We cannot talk about the devil without speaking about God. In God’s creation the devil is tolerated.... Do you believe that the devil is free? No! He’s the most bound for he is not in Christ So do not be afraid of him. He is tolerated, not a power. It is a great mistake to enter into conversation with the devil. We ought to converse only with God. If you want to drive him away, say: Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me, and speak to God. The power of His Name will rid you of him. It suits the devil to enter into a dialogue for it means that you acknowledge him. Thus through prayer we ignore him. If we first address the issue of hell, then we ignore heaven! Walking on a wrong pathsinning means hell. Pride is a devilish state, an absolutely diabolical one. No other passion brings man closer to the devil’s resemblance than does pride. If you do not listen to those whom God has appointed for you, it is easily understood that you would rather obey Satan. Lucifer fell hopelessly. The greatest fall, and with only two words: I am Indirectly, the devil confesses God through temptations. There is no relationship between good and evil. Our Saviour says, Give Me your whole heart! But the devil says, I only need one of your fingers. But through it, soon he’ll take over your whole being. The whole you. Sin brings humility. So it is understood that the devil plays an indirect role in our salvation for he reveals our infirmities, and by this helps us to grow. If he would realisee how much help he is to our salvation he would trouble us less

12.01.2022 Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, Please offer your prayers and supplications for Metropolitan Amphilohios. He is a spiritual child of St Justin Popovic, whose relics we have in our Church. Metropolitan Amphilohios is a person whom our Lord chose as an Apostle, one set apart to labour and to suffer. He has laboured in bringing ungodly people to God and in forming Christ in the spiritually infant. He has suffered under ungodly regimes of communism, and ideologies alike. ...He fought a tremendous fight to keep the true faith against all the winds and storms of this world and has produced a huge number of monastics and clergy while doing so. The seeds of his spiritual labours have produced strong harvest and will flourish in years to come. At the moment he is fighting for his life, so let's honour this true Apostle of Christ with our prayers. May God grant Him healing and may His will be done. Amen. In the first photo, he is holding a hand of late Patriarch Paul, who we consider to be a saint. In the second he is with Saint Basil of Ostrog.

12.01.2022 Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol on Christ’s Nativity and Mans Judgement of Himself. "A Christian is he who imitates the life of Christ according to the strength of his human abilities, and covers what he cannot fulfil with repentance and humilitythe virtues of spiritual work. Whenever the holy fathers were perplexed or tempted, they set themselves before the life of Jesus Christ, condemning themselves. When Elder Ephraim of Katounakia returned from Jerusalem, we were wai...ting for him to tell us his impression of Golgotha, of the place of the Crucifixion. How surprised we were when he told us that he was very moved by the cave in Bethlehem. When he beheld this meek, humble cave, which so touched him, he said to himself: Before visiting the Bethlehem cave, living on Mt. Athos in the rocky, inaccessible Katounakia desert, in a modest cell that could barely fit even the most necessary things, I had the thought that I was something. Now, having seen the place where God Himself, Jesus Christ was born, I feel all of my nothingness, for I see how God humbled Himself, being born in such a small cavea pen for animals, where barely any place could be found for Him. Christ, born in a den, persecuted and despised by all, thereby accomplished the greatest event in the history of mankind; His Incarnation took place in absolute silence, in humility and obscurity, and of all mankind, but a few Persian magi and simple shepherds were informed of the coming of God Himself into the world. Oh the extreme poverty and humility! If we truly want a correct view of ourselves and a true judgement of our conscience, then every time that life starts to torment us with worldly desires and demands, we must place ourselves before this humble Bethlehem cave, before the event of the Incarnation, and reflect upon what we are doing and whether our life and our deeds correspond to the life of Christ and what He did for us, becoming incarnate. We can thus judge our entire life. Wheresoever we do not have the strength to imitate Him, let us cover with repentance and humility."

12.01.2022 Innocence is greater than genius. -- St. Amphilochios of Patmos

11.01.2022 She bore Him, that we may adore Him. Let us be enfolded in this union of love. Christ is Born! May She be Magnified! Blessed feast of the Mother of Our Lord!

09.01.2022 When a man is born, the whole world rejoices, and only he cries. But he should live so that, when he dies, the whole world cries, and only he rejoices. -- Patriarch Pavle of Serbia, commemorating 11 years since his blessed repose.

09.01.2022 You may think that your voice did not reach the saints, our Panagia or Christ. On the contrary, even before you cried out, they rushed to your aid. -- St. Joseph the Hesychast. Who is so great a God as our God? A blessed weekend to all.

07.01.2022 Do not hate the sinner; for we are all laden with guilt. If for the sake of God you are moved to oppose him, weep over him. Why do you hate him? Hate his sins and pray for him, that you may imitate Christ Who was not wroth with sinners, but interceded for them. Do you not see how He wept over Jerusalem? We are mocked by the devil in many instances, so why should we hate the man who is mocked by him who mocks us also? Why, O man, do you hate the sinner? Could it be because he is not so righteous as you? But where is your righteousness when you have no love? Why do you not shed tears over him? But you persecute him. In ignorance some, who are considered to be discerning men, are moved to anger against the deeds of sinners. -- St. Isaac the Syrian

06.01.2022 However many and however great and burdensome your sins may be, with God there is greater mercy. Just as His majesty is, so likewise is His mercy. -- St. Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow

05.01.2022 Images of the actual cell of St. Ambrose of Optina, whom we commemorate this day. May we all have his blessing and may we profit from his wise and edifying spiritual instruction! "Given that every virtue isn’t acquired in just a day and it takes a lot of effort and hard work to finally master it, it is even more rightfully said of love, which is the beginning and the end of all virtues. It calls for a lot of time, effort, hard work, and prayer but first of all, learning to love requires deep humility before God and people."

03.01.2022 When I was young, I wanted to change the world. I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation. When I found I couldn't change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn't change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family. Now, as an old man, I realise the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realise that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world. ~ Unknown Orthodox Monk, 1100 AD

02.01.2022 Today we honour an especially beloved saint of our Holy Church, St. Gabriel of Georgia. For the first time ever, an English-speaking documentary will soon be released which shares his life through the testimonies of those who personally knew him. The trailer has become available for viewing and we are happy to share that we were able to share in its production. Hope you enjoy it! We will share the full documentary when it is released. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JZHiaOY6pw