Join the celebration with the beloved Sister Vassa of "Coffee with Sister Vassa" as we mark a milestone on our podcast journey. In a heartwarming commemoration, we navigate the entwined paths of the saints and our own faith journeys, discovering how these venerated figures from the past continue to shape our contemporary spiritual lives. As we laugh and muse together, Sister Vassa imparts her engaging wisdom on making saintly narratives resonate with the modern believer, turning historical icons into relatable companions for anyone seeking to follow in Christ's footsteps.
Our conversation takes a contemplative turn, delving into the humanity of these exemplary individuals and the rich lessons drawn from their devotion and perseverance. We humorously confront the trials of aspiring to holiness in a secular world and share insights on weaving the essence of these holy lives into the fabric of our daily routines. As these stories unfold, we're reminded of the original influencers who still beckon us closer to the divine, inviting listeners to imbibe the wisdom of the saints and let their legacies inspire our steps toward a life in Christ.
Thank you for journeying w/ the Saints with us!
Join the celebration with the beloved Sister Vassa of "Coffee with Sister Vassa" as we mark a milestone on our podcast journey. In a heartwarming commemoration, we navigate the entwined paths of the saints and our own faith journeys, discovering how these venerated figures from the past continue to shape our contemporary spiritual lives. As we laugh and muse together, Sister Vassa imparts her engaging wisdom on making saintly narratives resonate with the modern believer, turning historical icons into relatable companions for anyone seeking to follow in Christ's footsteps.
Our conversation takes a contemplative turn, delving into the humanity of these exemplary individuals and the rich lessons drawn from their devotion and perseverance. We humorously confront the trials of aspiring to holiness in a secular world and share insights on weaving the essence of these holy lives into the fabric of our daily routines. As these stories unfold, we're reminded of the original influencers who still beckon us closer to the divine, inviting listeners to imbibe the wisdom of the saints and let their legacies inspire our steps toward a life in Christ.
Thank you for journeying w/ the Saints with us!
When you wake up and you're not feeling it, so to say that you're in the God's zone, so to say, you know, if you feel like uh, scramble right into the light of God's grace, we have all the instruments to do it.
Speaker 2:Hi, my name is Jeremy. Hi, I'm Nick. We are cloud of witnesses Thinking like the saints, because we are very, very excited to have with us today a very special guest. We have joining us from across the ocean, as they say. Sister Vasa is joining us today from her own channel. Coffee with Sister Vasa. Sister Vasa, thank you so much for joining us today, this morning.
Speaker 3:Yes, thank you for joining.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks for having me over, Nick and Jeremy. It's great to collaborate with you guys.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. We're very, very excited. We're blessed that you've taken some time out of your very busy schedule. We, as you know, produce a podcast called Cloud of Witnesses Journey with the Saints, wherein we tell live action, you know, radio drama style retellings of the lives of the saints, and we're coming up about on our year anniversary here. So we're pretty excited because we're still kind of new to this. Sister Vasa Right, congratulations, congratulations.
Speaker 2:Thank you, thank you very much, glory be to God and we the Miracle of Ministry. Thank you, it's been a labor of love, as I'm sure you know yourself, and we'll get into that. We'll get into discussing your ministry as well. We came across your channel and you know you obviously have a rich history in orthodoxy, which I'm not going to tell for you, but we'll hear that from you at some point. But you have done a series on the lives of the saints and so it kind of seemed like a natural jumping off point, because I think it's fair to say that the saints are important to all of us, and so having a discussion about the saints and their impact on our lives and maybe bringing the stories of the saints to life on the internet and to the attention of other people, what that's like and where that leads us, how's that sound Right?
Speaker 1:Right, but I love to talk about that type of thing.
Speaker 3:Some of your earlier videos were on the lives of the saints Right. You had a whole series at one point, but I don't think you really continued with it, or have you?
Speaker 1:I have an audio podcast for several years since then. That was for three and a half years, five days a week. That was every five days a week. That was a lot of discussion of the saint of the day, both of the older calendar and of the new calendar saint. I would choose one of each because my subscribers come from both calendars sometimes from no calendar, and so I would review the life and try to glean the meanings for our practical, everyday cross-carrying journey from each life, which is the type of thing that you do as well. So I would try to add some historical details so that people are rooted in a sense of this was yes, most of the time it's from a different period of history, very different, very far removed from our reality, or so it would seem. But I would try to, first of all through the historical details. So where is this place now? It's not called anymore Caesarea, it's called something else today. This used to be what was known as Asia Minor. Now it's modern Turkey. It's next to the modern day village of this.
Speaker 1:The ruins of this village are where the saint lived are next to this place so that people feel like, okay, there's a concrete place and time on this earth where the saint also had his or her feet on the ground and was doing this or that so that people were late.
Speaker 1:But then there are certain things that repeat as far as the calling to every Christian to follow Christ, and I think that our challenge sometimes is to make these figures of church history less obscure and to show why we celebrate them. What does it even mean to celebrate? Yeah, because the word celebrate means to gather, to honor that's a Latin term celebrare. And celebrity is literally one who gathers people. That's fascinating.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so as to be honored.
Speaker 1:So the saints are like our celebrities In a good sense. Yeah, celebrity culture gets a lot of bad press, but we celebrate, we celebrate and these people have that gathering function.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's amazing. I love that. They're like the true prototype to the celebrity. Right Like that's the real calling of the celebrity.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Celebrities as they should be, yeah.
Speaker 1:The true prototype is Christ himself. Absolutely, they have little zakaos climbing up in a tree because this celebrity is coming through town and he can't get through the crowd to just get a look at the celebrity Because you know, people just have an attraction to celebrities before they even know what they're about. Like everybody wants to see them. So I think maybe, yeah. Anyway, everybody knows that Christ is a prototype of the saints. Sort of no, but that's very well said, sister Vasa.
Speaker 2:what I'm struck by just immediately is how interesting it is when you're explaining kind of your process for how you would bring to life the life of the saint of that day, or, as you said, whether it was old calendar, new calendar.
Speaker 1:It's very similar to the exact methodology we were doing or we do.
Speaker 2:Even though ours, of course, is more of a producing a play, if you will, creating a script and all of that. We have to do those same things. We have to set this historical setting, we have to give some context so that our audience is not completely who we're talking about, and none of this makes any sense.
Speaker 3:That's very interesting. If I may, it's all to the point of making it relevant for our audience. That's kind of our ultimate goal, and hope is that it reaches our audience and actually inspires them to understand these saints, which in some ways are obscured by history, by different media, in the sense that books are kind of outdated these days.
Speaker 1:Right, I guess the sort of language somehow right in which their relevance is related, because in our church services that's what the church services are doing. They're connecting the plight and the calling, the vocation of the saint with us by having us involved. The iconography is making the saint present to us physically because, it's pointing to the reality of the saint. We're not worshipping paint and wood in the icons, but we are venerating right, the Holy Spirit, the vessel of whom the saint is and was in their earthly life, in his or her earthly life.
Speaker 1:But then we also do this thing that we pray for the intercessions of the saints. So we have a connection with them, which does not always sit that easy, with those of our brothers and sisters who converted from a Protestant tradition where they think that this is some kind of not that they think this, but the reasons for a prohibition of praying to the saints in Protestantism is the idea that this would be an attempt to communicate with the dead. That was prohibited in the Old Testament. It's very important to realize if you're not from a Protestant background and you might be coming into Orthodoxy, say from Roman Catholicism, and you don't have sensitivities to this kind of thing of praying to the saints. We ask for their prayers, but we do have the expression to pray to the saints.
Speaker 1:It doesn't mean that we see, we do distinguish between the worship due to God alone, that is, there are Greek terms for this that are different. What kind of father? Yes, the Latria and proskinesis. You know there's, there are differences. So Latria is due only to God. But because that's a Greek term, you just lose a lot of people right there when you use it.
Speaker 1:But we venerate the saints, but we worship God. And now, the difference being that God is the source of grace but the saints are vessels of grace. We are called to be temples of the Holy Spirit, and His grace is is that the, those are the divine energies of God that rub off on us in the communion with Him, because God is not in a. You know, god is not an idea or an abstraction, he is the one who is. So, this personal reality, Christ is a person.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, it means that, just like the company we keep here rubs off on us and influence influences us, If you know, if we would hang around with somebody that's always say, depressed, always complaining, always I don't know always doing something, that's not very healthy, right, it would also rub off on us.
Speaker 1:And when we keep the company of the saints, of God himself and what is known as the communion of the saints, that is the church, because the church is both visible and invisible, and there are many in the church whom we can no longer see in in the same terms as we see one another. But we can have communion with them and we can celebrate them and we can direct our praise and our well veneration not worship at them and thank them for being both examples to us, for being those who intercede for us, those who give us nudges, you know, of encouragement. And they also, because they are vessels of God's grace and don't cease to be that in the being alive and well, right now, you know, in the afterlife. Because of this, they also rub off on us in a good way. But they're not sources, they are vessels.
Speaker 2:You know, such an important point yeah sister Vasa it's you know, one of the things that comes to mind is because it's such an important point, especially the fact that we're having this conversation right now on the internet. As you know I'm sure there are so many at least we see it in our local parish there's a large number of people who are coming to Orthodoxy, who are discovering Orthodoxy through the internet, through YouTube, really as a major driver of a lot of this, and so these topics that you were talking about.
Speaker 2:You know, because I myself come from a Protestant background. Most of my family, my parents, are still Protestants, etc. And they very much still struggle. They struggle with the fact that I have this right here, right, this icon and that whole issue of worshiping the you know or even venerating you know, wood and paint, etc. These are concepts, they're still very difficult for them, and you mentioned that prohibition on praying to the dead and I loved how you were putting it. They're not dead, right? That's kind of the starting point. Right, the saints are not dead, they are alive in the presence of God and that connection, as you said is, is so important and so Powerful and, sister Vasa, it's why we called our podcast what what is called? We took it, as you know, from Hebrews, chapter 12, after those beautiful passages describing the Old Testament saints, the saints who are faithful, and so we want to just constantly remind people we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses and so thank you so much for putting that so well.
Speaker 1:That's a great, that's a great title for your podcast. I like that very much.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I was thinking also, in addition to these helpful things that you've reminded us of Jeremy, that the thing about the dead Before the coming of Christ and before its overcoming, of death, in his walking through death, going all the way down into our hell, and then overcoming all that because death could not hold him and he emerges In new life, in his resurrection, the thing that changes about the dead in the new era of post resurrection. And then it's not the end of the story, of course, because we still had to wait. We had to wait until, well, christ still had unfinished business with his disciples and he was appearing to them throughout the 40 days. We don't know all that he taught them at that time, but he was definitely breaking bread with them, showing them the ropes also of doing the Eucharist, and we have a lot of evidence that maybe he only showed up to them, well, primarily on Sundays, except for that minor.
Speaker 1:Thursday when he showed up and and did his ascension. But this, this is one of the theories why the Sunday Eucharist was the earliest practice.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's right the Lord's day is the day of the Lord's supper.
Speaker 1:That's why it's called the Lord's day, kideakia in Greek and other languages. Anyway, what I wanted to say is that the dead before Christ Harrowed hell and shocked hell by going down there and now finally could see who that really is. Because the devil wasn't sure who Jesus Christ was, jesus of Nazareth. He tried to test him in the wilderness and see what this guy is made of. You know, he could feel that this is somebody different from the rest, but he wasn't given to know who this is. But he, according to the fathers, the devil realized is who this is. It's none other than the Lord of hosts that it comes down into hell in his soul and this creates havoc. It creates all hell breaks loose in hell. Yeah, all heaven breaks loose.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly so.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I guess that would be more correct to say it was funnier and this little thing that I was trying to be funny about. But um, so what I want to say is this that when the gates of paradise are opened by Christ himself being the pioneer of our faith and Overcoming the rift that was between God and humanity, right the curtain in the temple is torn asunder, which symbolized that rift between God and humanity. Here's what happens the dead are no longer limited to a realm of darkness. We don't know how the architecture of that all looks in the invisible world it's. We only know snippets of this. You know we're not given to know all of how this works, because it's not, it's not the same as our time and space. But we do know that there was no communication the dead in the old testament, before the coming of christ, because that was communicating with that realm of darkness, because the, the realm of light was closed.
Speaker 3:You understand. That's why there really was a strict prohibition of trying to in any way communicate.
Speaker 1:So when we pray for the intercessions of the saints, we are praying for the intercessions of those that the church has expressed, an assurance that they are in the realm of light. That they are in God's kingdom and we are given the dignifying Well authority to pray for the repose of those that we don't know about, that the church has not Canonized in the sense that the church has expressed an assurance that these people are in the kingdom of heaven. You know this is a tricky topic.
Speaker 1:But I want to say that there is a difference in the way the church approaches, praying for the intercessions of saints and communicating with them, and this is an important point for those who come from a Protestant background, like if they ask what has changed. Well, that's what changed, that there is no longer that Rift and it's not just the realm of darkness where people were supposed to wait it out. The righteous people, right, yeah, wait waited out until Christ. As the author of Hebrews said, he wanted everybody together to be gathered up in Christ, and there was a time to wait because he comes into our time. These are not mysteries that somehow, you know, outside of time and space, played out in eternity. No, they had to wait because there was a time when, in the fulfillment of time, god the Father willed it so to send his only begotten Son, and that was at that time in Judea, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:At that exact time. So, anyway, we want to experience and also be able to share this beautiful tradition of saints of having them in our lives, having their example. So there's an ethical aspect to this to see their lives, journeys. It's very healthy for us to see that these weren't perfect people. So what is a saint? Is a saint some kind of a superhuman? When we say, oh, she's a saint, there's one thing that nobody ever says about one of us here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're talking about me. How did you know? How did you know?
Speaker 1:So I did say she, so I think, but I want to. I want to say that that we have often a misguided understanding not everybody, of course, but some people do have a misguided understanding of saints as being somehow fundamentally or essentially different from us. But that's not true. The word saint Agios, in the masculine form in Greek, simply means dedicated.
Speaker 1:It means dedicated, and just like Sanctus means dedicated. So what it means is that the saint has been manifested as one who remained regardless of the ups and downs, not always being perfect Like. Let's take the holy apostles, the one celebrated today as we're recording this on the older calendar, andrew, the first called I know you guys have done already, you know a podcast about this.
Speaker 2:Very recently.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, so wait a second. I lost my train of thought.
Speaker 2:I was going to say you were saying how the saints fall the saints. The saints are not perfect, they struggle.
Speaker 1:Right. So they struggle. I was thinking more about Andrew's brother, the Peter, who, very famously, it's not hidden from us either in the lives of the saints or in the Holy Scripture we see that they were not perfect human beings. They made mistakes. They even, like Peter, thrice, at such a very most difficult moment for our Lord, denied him thrice Right. And so none of this is hidden from us. There's no conspiracy to make them seem like they're not human or superhuman Right, excuse me. The dedication that remains in the saints life to the purpose of following Christ remains. This fight there, being distracted or falling into sin. They, they, continue to be dedicated. That's why St Paul would address the early Christian communities as saints collectively, because they're all. We are dedicated through Holy baptism and we become saints in that sense. There is, of course, the sense of the canonized saints later on in church history. This develops that you put it like a title in front of their names Saint.
Speaker 2:Capital S, capital S, Saint yeah.
Speaker 1:We should also note that dedication. Oh, one second. We're going to cut this part out because I have a low battery.
Speaker 2:Oh no problem.
Speaker 1:This is, it's OK.
Speaker 3:Very highly unprofessional. It's my life in a nutshell.
Speaker 1:So all right, so we're going to cut that part out.
Speaker 2:That's good.
Speaker 1:Even though we enjoy an action packed episode.
Speaker 2:Hey, maybe we'll leave it in. Maybe we'll leave it in, who knows?
Speaker 1:Oh, so what are we talking about now? You were talking about the sanctity of the saints.
Speaker 1:OK, so I'm talking about I understand the level of this etymology or semiology of the word, you know, sanctus or Agios as being the setting apart of. However, I think that the actual Sainthood, in the sense of people being saints by virtue of holy baptism or by the action of the church in holy baptism, I think that we shouldn't exaggerate the setting apart, why? Because we are not removed from this world. We are sent into the world as church. There are those vocations that are radically separate, also physically, from the world. But that is a question of specific vocations.
Speaker 1:You know there were even within monasticism. There are those who would be urban monastics in the cities, like Constantinople had vibrant monasteries right in the thick of the politics and the, you know the goings on, very near the Byzantine imperial court. And figures like Gregory Pala Mas even though he's known for, you know, silent or you know has a ghastly prayer spent most of his life in the thick of the politics and tricks and in major cities. He was not a desert dweller most of his life. There were periods in his life, you know, on Athos and so forth, but mostly he was very much involved in city life.
Speaker 1:So I just want to underline that we are not of this world as those dedicated to God in so far as we're, in the general sense, saints in the general sense, not in the, you know, canonized by the church, saints, but in holy baptism we are not given, let's say, separation from or protection from, like being, you know, locked in a closet somewhere and not challenged to carry the message, to be his witnesses to you know, through thick and thin, to stand up straight, or see, we say in the Greek, or see and stand a right. It's a liturgical invitation that the deacon says every now and then let us stand a right. Right Proci is the Slavonic term and in English it's often translated as let us stand a right.
Speaker 1:So, or though docs shares a root with that word. So docs means upright, upright faith and upright mindset. Opinion also expectation what you expect? What's your general attitude towards the future?
Speaker 1:It's not that we're going to hell in a handbasket and doom and gloom and dread, nope what. We wake up in the morning, scrambled into God's presence because we might be groggy, we might not yet be, you know, awake to God, but the traditions of the church for morning prayer help us to wake up to God and stand a right. You see, when we're not standing all right. It also means upright worship, upright glorification. Orthodox right.
Speaker 1:We, when we're in a bad place and when we're overcome, say either with grief, with fear, not always for good reasons, right? Sometimes it has nothing to do with us and we have been victims of some kind of grievous situation, right? Nonetheless, when we are unable to deal with this, we might want to be quite the opposite of upright. We want to get in the fetal position, maybe, and you know, right under our desks or something.
Speaker 1:So that kind of feeling of being kicked in the gut, sometimes right, but also sometimes for our own, because of our own sin. The Orthodox journey and the journey of the saints is that which shows us what we're called to. We're called to let God by His grace right so in the Holy Spirit, by the will of the Father and in communion with our Lord, jesus. Christ, like the trying, god straightens us out. We let God straighten us out, make us upright, and we see that the saints would get kicks in the gut here and there. Did Peter let's return to St Peter, the brother of Andrew right he, when he fell, you could say, or lapsed, did he hide? When Christ reappeared, the risen Lord appears on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.
Speaker 1:Everybody remembers this and it's business as usual for the disciples because, despite the fact that they heard from the women that the tomb was empty and so forth, they thought that these were idle tales and we don't know the exact chronology of events, because these are eyewitness testimonies in the four gospels and it's not a conspiracy. So nobody went and fixed it up so that they all have the same story. Because human eyewitnesses, because it's a true, if it's a true story. What they are testifying to will always have different testimonies a little bit, even when nobody is intending on lying. It's just different memories.
Speaker 1:We don't know exactly what the chronology of events is, but we know that soon after his resurrection, the disciples are fishing again, peter's in the boat and the risen Lord appears. What does Peter do? This is very interesting. Does he cower, hiding from the Lord, like Adam did with Eve in the bushes after they fell? Remember Adam and Eve in the garden? Remember those two toddlers, because they were still toddlers. This is why they don't even know how to play hide and seek. They're trying to hide from God. God says.
Speaker 3:Adam, where are?
Speaker 1:you? Now, the first rule of hide and seek is, if you're it and you're saying where are you, if you're hiding, you definitely aren't supposed to respond, but Adam is a toddler.
Speaker 1:Adam's a toddler, so he responds to God and Eve. Now Eve's the smart one because she's the girl and she's like you, idiot. You know what I'm saying. You could just see what's happening there. But that whole situation of trying to hide from God and the fig leaves and they're covering up their nakedness, we see the opposite thing happen with the fallen Peter. Now is a different era.
Speaker 1:Peter has had several years approximately three years according to tradition of walking, talking, also performing miracles, because the greats went into the apostles to banish the evil spirits and so forth. He already see in his only begotten son, God sends us this intimate communion with already a different way and a more how do you say a closer intimacy with him through his son. So Peter's not afraid. In fact it says in the Gospel that he was a gymenos or naked. He does throw on his upper garment because it's hot sun. I guess they were in dress when they were fishing but he's the first to jump into the water and go greet Christ.
Speaker 1:But it's not the cowering in the bushes. You see, this is also orthodoxy, because we don't need to cower in the bushes even when we have sin. You see, the example of Peter. It's so important for us to know that this was not a perfect man, but this was one who had so grown to love the one who first loved us. We were first loved by him. We don't need to be self loathing humans or hide from God, you know, because we are not perfect. We are to follow, regardless of our ups and downs, we are to continue to be dedicated. And you know, we fall, we brush, we get up, we brush ourselves off, we repent, which means we have a change of mind, a change of focus. The Church helps us do that with various instruments of repentance, with the various beautiful prayers, the sacrament of confession and so forth. And we are time and again reconciled and we have the prayers of the saints. There are various saints of various walks of life that some of them are most famous for their grave sins.
Speaker 3:Including Saint Paul, saint Mary of Egypt.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, yeah, very many, mary of Egypt gets the most press, but we have the Moses the black. Yeah, Penitent thief on the cross. Also, this model of last minute. You know, last minute repentance is never too late. All right, anyway, I rambled on a little bit.
Speaker 3:Oh, I had a question. So, first off, I love what you're saying and I think it's particularly relevant to people today when even in Christian circles there's I'll just call it a heresy, the heresy of total depravity total depravity right.
Speaker 3:And it's good to see that there are flaws, but that to see the glorification that these saints end their life with, right To see that. Basically, all I'm trying to say is that what you're saying is so good because there's so much, whether it's, you know, woke culture and canceled culture, or even in Christian circles, like I said, this total depravity, this the value of the human person is Most is best Portrayed through the saints and ultimately, through Christ. So I just love to hear what you're saying.
Speaker 1:I continue to talk about the saints at the. I have a Monday morning coffee podcast. It's on patreon, if anybody knows about patreon. It's a platform for content creators and I always open up my content there to non-subscribers and subscribers alike. But every Monday morning it's called Monday morning coffee. There's an audio podcast and I review and select Maybe someone of the saints for the week, because I have different.
Speaker 1:I've changed sort of the, the speed and type of things that I do. I'm writing a book on rediscovering orthodoxy to review some of the basic concepts, like orthodoxy itself and what is a saint and what is Just very basic things that I think sometimes Need to be rediscovered. You know very the very basic things like what is the purpose of all of it? What is like? Do we forget? Like there are concepts that we talk a lot about, like theosis is a very Fashionable term that I actually in my childhood just so happens that that wasn't the most popular term like now. It's like Jesus, prayer and theosis are these Topics that everybody just can't get enough of. But there are those other Classic and very basic purposes or goals you could say daily goals of our Cross-carrying journey. What are the goals if you tell people who are completely new to the faith, or even people that are completely like Just cradle orthodox, don't really think about it, but they start to develop an interest in it, either because of old age or whatever, or, you know, something happened in their lives and or they had children and they want to, so it's learned something about their faith. People might be surprised at the goals of all of this that never get any Press and they might be overwhelmed by you telling them here's the purpose, it's so you become God. You know what I mean the idea that to begin with, that is to either discourage the person altogether, because that's just like beginning from the end.
Speaker 1:How about talking about that at the end of Matthew 11? Christ said come to me all you who you know, labor, labor and our heavy lady, and I will bring you rest, because he promises rest and peace to our souls. You know why? Because the restlessness, the inability to rest, even at night, the fact that people, even on vacation, just can't seem to tune out this constant connectivity, the thing that is so overwhelming to people, leading many people to depression, to the dread of the day, because it's just too much. We don't even know why exactly. Sometimes we wake up with the feeling of subtle anxiety about the whole business. This is not the the fundamental attitude when we're Doing.
Speaker 1:Putting in the bit of work, because joy takes work. Putting in the work of nourishing that peace Through nourishing our faith, faith and God, trust in God, like any Relationship, takes work. That means every day to re-embrace, like I said in the beginning, like when you wake up and you're not feeling it, so to say that you're in the God's own, so to say, you know, if you feel like Uh, scramble right into the light of God's grace, we have all the instruments to do it. If somebody's interested, this is very practical. It's not about whether this is my book or not, but if you're looking for a very Brief, this is a very short and painless kind of little book. That that is about praying every day, praying in time to sprinkle a little bit of prayer according to traditional hours, but without Abandoning what you're doing, without being some kind of an ascetic on a holy mountain top, going home all day. You know, that was a little bit of a joke. I know that we don't. Yeah, yeah, you're supposed to laugh at my jokes.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, I got it.
Speaker 1:I know you wanted to say All right, we're gonna cut that out to our audience at home. We're gonna cut out.
Speaker 2:I got it. No, I think our audience right now is cracking up, and that's the good thing. Yeah, sister, if you could allow me to quickly, because you touched on such an important point when you were talking about that being Sanctified and set apart. But yet, as you so well pointed out, we're not set apart because we're still in this world, especially, you know, those of us myself speaking for myself. I'm not a monastic, I'm in the world. I have to go to work today.
Speaker 3:You know I've got to go to the gas station and, you know, put guests on my car and interact with lots of people and because of that it is a challenge.
Speaker 2:It can be challenging to stay oriented, to stand or right, as you are saying. And that's the beauty of the saints, isn't it? Because they help? They can help if we utilize them. They can help orient us and get us pointed yet again To, to our Lord, god and Savior.
Speaker 1:Yes, indeed, and we all live. You know, I happen to be a monastic who lives in the world, in the middle of a capital city, in Austria. I live in the very first district, in the center of Vienna, austria, the capital city. It's very noisy. It's noisy from very early in the morning and people hear that on my podcast. When they're emptying the recycle bins in the morning with all these bottles going Like really early, they do it at 430 sometimes. Which laws against that? There's drunk people that are singing because the pubs close really early in the morning and the drunk people come out the the ones that were there until they're putting the chairs up on the tables or whatever. They do it at the end of it.
Speaker 1:And I think this is a. It's very invigorating, I think, and dignifying for us to be entrusted by God as we are and, in the real world, to be his witnesses to you know, to be trusted by him. Even in the garden of Eden, god did not make the garden so insulated that a serpent could not infiltrate it, because he trusted the human beings to be, to be, to become capable of dealing with with both good and evil, you know, and it wasn't the end of the world when they fell. Because God lovingly works with what they chose. So they choose to grasp before their time, when they're too little, as do our tweens sometimes they want to know about good and evil too early and this hurts them. It brings them pain and death. Well, I mean death like a spiritual death.
Speaker 1:Too much information, you know, like having sex too early, in the wrong kinds of ways, not according to God's will. This too much information causes suffering. It brings suffering into the world. But what does God do? God doesn't just you know, god doesn't just forget about the whole project and say this batch didn't work out. A little bit like what happened before the flood. You know, if at first you don't succeed, god he didn't say to himself let's put out another batch, right, yeah, he lovingly makes them. He works with their chosen path because they attempt to make clothing that's the first attempt at well, technology technology, human beings make something for themselves for the first time in clothing.
Speaker 1:That's very interesting phenomenon. Actually, this whole business of properly dressing us because we become my friends and I think a lot of people relate to this sin makes us uncomfortable in our own skin. When you become uncomfortable in your own skin, there is something off. So what does God do? He, at the end of Genesis 3, lovingly makes us decent clothing, first out of animal skins, right, and he said, because God took a look at the clothing that they wanted to make, he did a big baseball. No child of mine is going out dressed that way. He makes them skins. But this whole business of dressing us, the project, is an ongoing one. Until who is it that we put on Eventually? What was God? Yes, all those who are baptized in Christ are closed in Christ.
Speaker 1:So he emerges from the tomb clothed in Ephephepia, which translated Christ is the King, the Lord is King. He is clothed in majesty. It says, in beauty. So, beauty that we are called to by gradually, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, on our journey right, becoming comfortable in our own skin, we see the saints doing something along the same way of carrying the cross, that they are becoming more like the Lord and more able to recognize the beauty to which they were called from the beginning.
Speaker 1:And we start to recognize the touch of God and we actually rediscover the beauty that's always been there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love that so well said.
Speaker 1:So we're called to a lot of these wonderful things, but it's through clearing our vision, our perspective, the Orthodox or the upright perspective on things On a daily basis. We need to work a little bit on it. If I'm starting to be like just a grouch from the early morning, thinking that somebody didn't do for me, this person didn't respond to me, this person has rejected me, if I'm seeing everything very negatively and not seeing my blessings, I want to exercise some gratitude muscles For my perspective, for me to be capable of seeing the light, of seeing God's presence again. Again, it's not about praying a lot, it's a matter of the heart, heart felt prayer, just to say thank you God. If I need to put pen to paper, it could be very useful. What am I grateful for right now? Look, I got up, I made my bed, I have a roof over my head. Look, thank God, my kids are okay, even if somebody's not okay. Well, I'm walking through it.
Speaker 1:It's the way we walk through things and we want to by all means, reconnect with the good energies of God known as grace. And this is us working on our perspective, which is theoptia. Not only theoptia is the Greek fancy word for seeing God, but also the gods that are pure in heart, for the asha. See God in all things. But our perspective, when we are only imbibing the news and lots of negativity and I'm not saying it's bad to be aware of the news. I like to be up to date about things because I don't believe in sticking my head in the sand, right, and being irresponsible, even though not everybody has that vocation.
Speaker 1:We need to watch our hearts when we reach out to him right and see light.
Speaker 1:We need to see light, we need to see, we need to always be seeing around the corner, not doom and gloom or that we're going to hell in a hand basket. No, we need to embrace God's undying faith, hope, patience, also with our world, with each of us and what we see. As we say at the end of the creed, I look for, or pros d'co anastas in the crown, I look for the resurrection of the dead and the new life, the life of the age to come already here. So whatever's happening with us, our viewers out there, whether we're in a bad place right now or dealing with a big challenge, or everything seems, you know, hunky dory, if that's a word still in the English language or in whatever language that is. If everything's just great, regardless of what's going on, let's see that it's bringing us new life around the corner. That's our fundamental attitude that whatever's going on, bad or good, god is always leading us to growth, and that's what we see in the lives of the saints how they amen Definitely, and that's an amazing.
Speaker 1:I'm going to have to go.
Speaker 3:Yes, absolutely Amazing reflections. Thank you so much for joining us and we hope, we hope to have you on again, even God willing. Amen, we would love that.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Our audience benefited from that sister boss, we're going to link to your page and your Patreon, etc. Thank you so much for your time and those were beautiful words. I learned a lot today and I think our audience can learn a lot as well.
Speaker 1:And praying in time, if you're interested in my friends out there praying in time. It says Vasal Aaron, it doesn't say sister. Just because that's the format of this publisher Pray in time the hours and days and step with Orthodox Christian tradition. There's an audio book if you don't like to read books, my friends.
Speaker 2:I read it.
Speaker 1:I sing a little bit in it Don't get scared about that part and maybe you'll enjoy that. Check it out at coffeewithsistervasacom, our website, and, by all means you know, continue to watch, as I do, these wonderful, the wonderful work that Jeremy and Nick is are putting together. Thank God for ministry. It's lovely. I'm so happy to have met you guys.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, Likewise sister. Thank you so much. Have a great day.
Speaker 3:Merry, christmas, bye. Yeah, you too.
Speaker 1:Merry Christmas, Bye-bye guys.