Constantine Zalalas at St. Catherine in Clearwater 06.01.2024

0:00 I just want to intro I want to introduce accomplished author respected translator International speaker um guest lecture and apologist for the true Christian faith Conant thank you thank you Brett I also like to ask for the blessings of our holy fathers father Z back there on the other side of the table and papa Dimitri a uh very good friend and someone who has been encouraging me for years now to be coming to Florida and looks like this is going to be a a yearly destination uh because all us young people have to stick together fight for the

0:46 faith I think the average age in my parents is about 70 so this is a quite a change thank you for inviting me and it's also a great uh blessing to be in the presence of your St Catherine the name of your church I don't know who selected that name but it's one of some some one of the great names of our church the name of my grandmother Karina whom I never met and um I never thought I would I would ever make it to sin but uh last September I happened to be in Co on

1:33 my the the island that I was born with my family and just out of the blue the opportunity arose I went to I went to Jerusalem little bit before the war and then um with the the help of a good friend we made it to the monastery of St Catherine the burning bush and next time I come I will bring you pieces of the burning bush and a number of rings that I have from the monastery of St Catherine and with a Russian group we made it all the way to the top takes about two hours uh you you take your time to to to go all the way to the top of the mountain and then about 2 2 o' in the morning we had

2:19 liturgy with a Russian group and a very Pious priest and again very thankful to St Catherine and all of you who made this meeting possible I see that a lot of you didn't have enough punishment last night we spoke for two and a half hours so you are back God bless you today I will try to be a little bit more brief and a little bit more organized so we will because we had liturgy and U uh of course the the most important part of our faith is the mysteries of the church lectures are good they're helpful reading the script scriptures but everything we do in the church is to

3:05 unite with Christ everything we do in a church all these things these are all tools fasting reading prayer all these things are tools but the end result is to become one body and one blood with Christ this is what this re ation of God our faith has other faiths you submit to God you follow God you believe in God but only in the Christian faith in Orthodoxy you know we love our God we love Christ and this is why you come to the church not to socialize and we do that not to

3:53 become good people and of course we will become better people as we follow the Commandments that become automatic but the main Essence the main purpose of coming to the church is to unite commune and be one body and one blood with Christ forever and that's what it that's what eternity is all about the medicine of immortality are not good speakers good speeches good talks reading the medicine of immortality is Holy Communion unless you eat my body and drink my blood you have no life in

4:38 you that is the essence of our church and we can do all of the above but if we don't prepare ourselves to commune and become one body and one blood with Christ then you know we are missing the mark so we love him because he loves loved us first God created us not because of Any need God needs nothing God doesn't need pets you know we need pets we bring dogs into the house and cats you know so we can love them and so they can love us back and you know we can avoid our boredom and uh you know loneliness God created us simply and

5:25 because of his love he wanted to share his love with us to expand his love out of the Holy Trinity and share his love with his creation he needs nothing we don't make him any happier he's always happy he's always perfect he needs nothing he misses nothing but out of his sheer love he created us so he created us according to His Image he gave us everything he has according to Essence he gave us according to Grace he has immortality by his grace we can become

6:14 immortal he is full of wisdom by his grace we can become very wise he is good and by his grace we can develop goodness he is Meek and humble and by his Grace we can attain all these attributes up to a p up to a point and that's who our Saints are our Saints are those who humble themselves and permitted God to work in them you when he asked St pus and the other Saints what what do you do different a lot of the other monks would approach him and say what do you do differently why are you a

7:02 saint and he says I do nothing different come on in he says I simply allow God to work inside of me I Surrender my will to the will of God I let him fashion me and that's what we do in this church because the image of the image of God in us was shattered after the fall something terrible happen it's like when you take a vase a piece of glass and you drop it and it becomes 10 pieces the

7:49 same thing the image that God created for for us was shattered our news our mind the energies of our soul were distorted and the love of God and the love of his creation that perfect love that he gave us it became love of self self centered love and all these powers of the Soul were distorted we are darkened and now these energies of the Soul these gifts that he gave us were misdirected and became passions so now instead of being Masters

8:38 of the Universe he made us masters of the plans to protect the plans to protect the environment to become loving to the environment now we want to be Lords through egotism we want to control everything we want to squeeze everything out of the environment squeeze everything everything out of the Earth for our own pleasure because of our distorted energies after the fall so we were created according to His Image and if we would use we would use our will our Free Will and we will do this freely because as we said yesterday Free Will is a necessary prerequisite of

9:26 God's image in US we're in the image of God because we are free we have free will we have the disposition we have the will to deny him or follow him we have that freedom and he can't he will not take it away from us but all this could not take place this destruction that took place to humankind after the fall we could not repair ourselves the prophets help the Kings helped all these holy people in the Old Testament they helped they gave us their law but their law by itself was not enough to regenerate that broken image

10:15 in us that shattered image could only be fixed through the Incarnation of Christ he became to his own but his own own did not accept them his own were the Jewish people it was one of them through the Virgin Mary his Zone did not accept him but those who received him he gave them the exusia he gave them the authority the power the power to become children of God so we are all creations of God created by God but the specific children

11:03 of God are those who accept Jesus Christ those their Messiah and savior Lord and Savior Jesus Christ so the Incarnation gives us the potential again if we want to to progress from the image of God to the likeness so we all have the image of God again which was shattered and or by all by ourselves by your goodness no one could put that image together regenerate that image the Greek philosophers had great virtues Plato and

11:49 Socrates and Alexander the Great they had great virtues not enough to regenerate that image of God inside of us it was through the Incarnation and also through the water of regeneration St Paul calls it the labor of regeneration so we are being refashioned through holy baptism that's why we have all these images I mentioned yesterday that from last Sunday until the next two three Sundays the theme of the gospels will be

12:35 water will they the pool of Bethesda the water in the pool of Bethesda and then we'll have tomorrow Jacob's Well I can give you living water he told to the Samaritan woman and then next week will be the pool of silom they almost got Stone there last September you know I was with a Greek priest and we were walking around and we wanted to go to the pool of suum and we got to a monastery on the side there we stayed for an hour we had lunch and it was about 2:30 3:00 and we tried to get in but it was closed they closed it was Friday so they

13:22 closed it at 3:00 because it says visitors can only come from like 9: to 3: well the priest from Greece says father timoth says you know what I know another entrance from the back said okay so we walk from the back and we go down there and we found four or five naked uh Jewish people being uh cleansed in the pool and two of the serbs that were with us the one had no shoes he walked through Jerusalem without shoes at all and really strong people they just go right into the pool jump in and they float in and they became like Yellow

14:08 Jackets get out of here you know they start screaming at us spitting on us and I said guys it's time to go this is not the time for us to be here because you know they're doing their rituals so we got out of there quickly but I did touch the water of the pool of suon so uh so the theme for the gospels will be water signifying baptism it was the direction directive of Christ go out and make disciples of all Nations baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit so what

14:53 makes us ready to enter enter the body of Christ is Holy baptism without holy baptism we cannot be regenerated people so through holy baptism or our sons or all our sins are forgiven we become that is the uh first gift of holy baptism then the second thing that happens is we become adopted as Sons and daughters Christ adopts us as his brothers and sisters and then after that we have a third

15:40 step and that is we are invited to share this is this this we forget this part we're like the first you know we like our sins forgiven who doesn't we like to wipe our sins away and of course we like to be the children of God we all love that doesn't cost anything you see but then the third step is a little costly St Paul says we are asked to to share in the sufferings of Christ to share in the sufferings of Christ the sufferings that would be uh that would if Christ was still living on Earth he will continue to suffer he will

16:25 continue to be persecuted because his words would not be accepted as they are not accepted today especially today and because we are his brothers and sisters and his adopted children the sufferings that he would have to face we will share them on our body so if you are persecuted as a Christian congratulations that is your calling in this world because we have three enemies in this world Enemy Number One our fallen nature our bad self Enemy Number Two a fallen world that will ask us questions what do you what why do you think why are you

17:12 fasting why are you doing this where you think you're better than us from our own family you didn't you didn't do these things before why are you changing all of a sudden will beig question and the members of a man's household will become his enemies this happened from the early years when some members of the family decided to become Christians and the fathers will behead their daughters they would destroy their own children because they became Christians so we share in the sufferings

17:58 of Christ so these are some of the basic presuppositions that we need to know and apply to start living our Christian Life in Orthodoxy we don't believe in predestination once saved always saved or God wants to save as many as he wants to save we believe in Free Will and we believe in the Synergy salvation is a Synergy between God and Men God will do the 99% we still have to give him our will we have to surrender

18:44 our will to him salvation is a matter of synergy working together with God if we don't want to the one who created you according the one who created you without your will cannot save you without your will St Augustine said so we can say know to God he's a free God he says anyone who wants to anyone who wants to if you notice that anyone who wants to come after me anyone who wants to come after me we

19:31 don't go before him we don't tell him what to do like Peter did Lord no no no you can't do that because get behind me Satan you're not going to tell me what to do I told you you have to stay behind me don't go ahead of the priest you stay behind the priest the priest is in the presence of Christ we stay behind our Bishop we don't try to become Bishops in the church anyone who wants to come after me must deny himself which self our bad self we have to deny our bad Fallen self our

20:20 egotism our sinful desires our idiosyncrasies our passions all these things things that separate us from God we will deny all these things if we want to be connected with Christ because God cannot be connected to Sin Sin insulates us from Christ and from the grace of God sin inactivates the holy spirit in us so once we are baptized through the labor of regeneration we receive the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit we have all these gifts but now it's up to us to continue

21:08 to keep that Spirit active that flame in the vigil lamp we have to continue to add oil the flame will light for one day two days three days after that you got to keep eating o you got to keep adding oil that's a presupposition you don't keep adding oil what's going to happen it won't it won't taste good it won't it won't burn okay that flame will go out and St Paul says don't put out the flame of the Holy Spirit like the uh like the five foolish

21:54 virgins they didn't have mercy what they didn't have works of Mercy they didn't do you know they they were virgins they did all these things externally but they didn't cultivate a spirit of vigilance a spirit of love it didn't cultivate a spirit of Mercy good works for their fellow person and then their oil dried up the light went out in the middle of the night and the bright bridegroom [Music] came and that's what happens after holy baptism we go back home and the home is the worst place to

22:41 be today unfortunately because people in our home may not believe especially if you're a convert they might even be upset with you and so you will be persecuted in your own home and you have to use discretion you have to be careful but whatever happens Christ says anyone who loves father mother son daughter more than me is not worthy worthy of me if your parents I mean not if you're five years old or 10 but if you're of age and they don't allow you to go to church once or twice at a times you

23:26 leave that home nobody nobody will separate us from Christ who can separate us from Christ no one if that flame of Christ is lit inside of us no way the Earth can fall apart we will still continue to be United with Christ what can separate what can separate us from Christ sword no a sword is a great benefit in a couple minutes he unites you with Christ like St Ignatius of Antioch was telling to the Romans or to

24:13 some of the Christians who wanted to pay off the politicians or the leaders to save his life and he says no don't you thereare do that I want to go back I want to be United to my Lord even if the lions come and if they don't want to eat me I will force them to rip me apart and I want to become I want to I want to go in their teeth now that that's craziness okay yeah you know we we have we have this group of Christians call fools of Christ and that's probably the highest level the highest highest level of spirituality they're fools for Christ when somebody has that kind of

24:59 aish love for Christ nothing holds them back nothing will hold them back he says even if the Lions you know they're too lazy and they they don't want to eat me I'm going to entice them I'm going to force them to because I want to become a sweet bread in the teeth of the Lions for my Lord and my savior that's the kind of love that the early Christians had and this this is the kind of love that's absent from a 95% of the Christians today and this is why you live in an anti-christian world because words are cheap actions speak a lot more than

25:49 words and that's why whenever the Romans will kill 10 martys 100 or a thousand more converts will come in the more they killed it was like the blood of their Mars was the great fertilizer for Christianity the more they kill the more they spread because when people see that you're not afraid of death you want him over everyone is afraid of death but when we transcend death when we live that hymn that we chant does of times at every service between now and [Music]

26:40 Pentecost no one can be afraid of death St John and Chris because the death of the death of the Savior freed us from the fear of death where is your sting or death saying Paul would say so after our baptism we need to keep nourishing ourselves and it's wonderful that some of you are being baptized and coming to the church now consciously of course the church adopted infant baptism back then but under

27:27 presuppositions The Godfather or the anos would promise to the church that they would be responsible for the upbringing of that child and the the parents and the adults were promising to the church yes we will be baptize my child but I will make sure that he's brought up as a Christian and I will do whatever it takes to nurture his soul was a Christian that doesn't happen today in 90% of their homes and that's why by the time our teenagers get out of high school they never come back to church because that light was never lit

28:14 inside of them the spirit that they've received from their home from baptism and the gifts of the holy spirit was inactivated in their homes and when that spirit is inactivated that we're no different than the Heathen we have a Christian baptism that's just sitting there but at some point through the grace of God or through the help of another person when the spirit the grace of the holy spirit is activated now we be begin once again our Christian

29:03 journey and it's a mystery when God will call someone someone they can call them from childhood some some can be called at the age of 30 40 50 some 70 and some on their deathbed from the mercy of God God God's Great Mercy knows what would be the opportune time for that person to respond to his salvation and that's why we don't lose hope for anyone we can pray for our children who may not be coming to church for our brothers for our sisters what this point may not be awake spiritually but 5 years from now they can be running circles around us only God knows that that's why we never

29:48 despair we never lose hope and we continue to pray for all those people resting assured that God will never forget our prayers just like you never forgot the prayers of St Monica for his son Augustine for was very sinful at times and then he became a great bishop and saint of the church so after our holy spirit is activated through the mysteries of the church through coming to church with holy confession having a spiritual father and continuing through the services of the church then we keep the

30:35 Commandments keeping of The Commandments is the medicine against our passions they are the vitamins that will begin to transform our passions into virtues by the keeping of The Commandments and they're not just 10 the whole new test Testament is full of Commandments rejoice in the lord always is not a suggestion if you're a resurrected Christian you cannot help but have joy if we are pitiful miserable Christians the Holy Spirit doesn't live in us because one of the fruits of the holy

31:21 spirit is Joy before we are constantly stressed from work full of stress anxiety depression the Holy Spirit doesn't live in us it's in active because the peace of God is one of the highest gifts fruits of the Holy Spirit if we Harbor bad feelings even for one person God is not inside of us that feeling that enmity animosity hatred for even one person will not permit the grace of God

32:08 to live inside of us so we become people forgiveness when when we humble ourselves when we begin to Humble ourselves when we learn from our Lord and he says learn from me for I am of a Meek and a humble heart learn from me and you saw me wash the feet of all the apostles when you were in a church don't choose the higher the high profile things to do we got to become

32:55 smart when we choose the high profile things we don't realize that we do it because subconsciously we still suffer from a little bit of egotism and we want attention want to be in charge what did Christ choose to wash the feet of his Apostles what did St John of Damascus do when he went to the monastery of sa Sava when his illiterate Abbot wanted to throw him out because he chanted A Hymn because of the funeral of one of his brother

33:41 monks the Elder told St John of Damascus you will not write any hymns until you get a blessing you will not sing anything imagine telling a chanter telling someone who's perfect in music so someone who writes him knowy like me going to a monastery and the ABA will tell me Constantine you will not speak for the next 10 years what but that's obedience that's what makes people holy there was a Chan like Mount Aus who was when he chanted he was like a a

34:29 chant from constant Bop and he was just amazing when he would chant you would think like there was a whole choir there so he goes to mount AOS and is abat says listen You'll never tell anyone here that you know how to chant once they hear your chant you'll never rest you will be invited at every place at every Feast at every Monastery to be chanting you will never have any rest and you will never never get to pray so shut your mouth you'll never tell anyone that you know how to chant and you will not open your mouth and he did obedience four five six seven years and then a few days before his

35:14 death the Elder says now I want you go up go up there and stand on at the chanter stand and the professional chanters of Mount AOS looked at him and they said what is this doing here and then when he started the Cher of bikim they were flab guas that they said wow we don't know if we're in heaven or on Earth you know so this is the power of obedience but that's what made him holy and that's what saved him to do the things that we don't want to do those are the difficult things to do the things that nobody else wants to do and when the Elder wanted to throw s

36:02 St John of Damascus out of the monastery he says please please I'll do anything i' do anything don't know I I will never do this again okay you're going to you're going to clean the bathrooms then the bathrooms back then they were not like they are today so the job of St John of Damascus was to go and clean the out houses every day and that great Saint did that with great pleasure because humility is the foundation of all virtues without humility we cannot attain any of the

36:47 virtues and we saw that in the parable the Pharisee and a Publican the Pharisee had great virtues he did everything right he fasted TW twice a week he gave 10% he dress well properly he did everything well and the tax collector was a criminal he did everything wrong but in a final analysis the moment the Pharisee judged and condemned his brother he lost it all and a you from the Publican and

37:35 Contrition and beating his heart he was exonerated and saved that day so these are the lessons that we need to learn and humility doesn't come by reading books humility comes by suffering by things not going well for us by losing a job by being broke sometimes worse things by an illness and that's when we learn to trust in God so we go from Faith to hope to

38:22 love initially we have Elementary faith we believe in the existence of God we believe that the church is correct we believe the things that we read in the Bible but that is Elementary Faith a higher level of faith is learning to have faith in the Providence of God that God is here with me God is everywhere no matter what's happening in my life no matter what I'm going through God is present God is always present God sees everything I do when we

39:10 begin to live that experience just like Joseph in Egypt when that great Temptation came and this evil woman wanted to pollute him he made us simp people thought how can I do this in front of my God because he was he he had constant memory of God he had the realization that God is watching me all the time whether I go in a room and lock my door where if I go in the basement where I going in the woods anywhere I go God is always there and my guardian angel if I have that realization that constant

39:55 memory of God that that's nipis that's guarding of the news guarding of the mind that helps us to stop being tempted by certain things but again we have to nourish nourish that faith that God is present always and we believe in the Providence of God and then we go from Faith to hope the hope that God loves me and we have to understand that no matter what happens God God's love is unconditional he loves everyone 100% God loves me and whatever is happening he it's happening because of my own good whatever adverse thing is happening

40:41 in my life God is allowing it because he would help my salvation and these people that attack me people that are slandering me God is allowing it because I will learn humility so we always look for the good things and we always make excuses for the other people we always criticize ourselves and make excuses for the other people well perhaps they didn't you know they didn't realize they were doing that give them another chance forgive them 70 time 7

41:28 and once we begin to realize and look inside of us that there's only one sinner on this Earth and that's me then we will not be able to accuse another person no matter what they do they killed somebody I would have done worse they fell into that sin yeah I probably would have done worse if if Christ did not protect me if the grace of God was not with me I would do worse and we begin to believe that and then with that Faith meekness humility goodness gentleness you know we begin to cultivate these fruits of the Holy

42:13 Spirit and that's what shows to the world that we are Christians not our words not if we come to church Christ is going to look for the fruit he's going to take an x-ray of our heart and tell the devil look stay away from him he his image is just like mine he belongs to me but if that x-ray shows malice shows Slender shows lust it shows evil it shows dissension it shows hatred if all those things are still in our heart when we're ready to leave the

43:00 other life those things separate us from God and that makes Christ very sad when we willfully did the will of the devil and not the will of our father just like the Jews today in the gospel if you heard he told them that wasn't in the gospel but a verse after that Christ told them your father is the devil after father read the gospel he says you know our father is Abraham our father is Abraham they were proud they thought that just because their father was Abraham they already had their salvation we have good genes our DNA is good we are from

43:47 Abraham we are not out of fornication some interpreters say that they were accusing Christ that he was born born out of fornication that he was not they not the son of Joseph they would never believe in the Virgin birth and that's why they said we were not born from fornication imagine the darkness of these people and because of their pride and because of their impure Hearts they missed their Messiah and to this day they're still awaiting for their Messiah just like Christ Pro prophesied in the Gospel of

44:33 John I came and you did not I came in my father's name I came in my father's name and you did not receive me you did not accept me but when the other one comes in his own name you will receive him who's the other one the Antichrist they're false Messiah that the New World Order wants to serve serve to us in a few years and they are making great progress great progress so anyone who wants to come after me must deny himself pick up his cross what is our cross Our

45:21 Generation the difficulties of our life now our cross is what we have to deal with our cross is our bad Health our cross can be our bad condition our illness all these things can be our cross and if we take advantage of these things and through these difficulties and these seemingly terrible things if we find a way to glorify God then we become Ms St pisio says that during illness and during

46:09 suffering if you say you want glory to God is worth a thousand Lord have mercy during peaceful times when we have cancer and we're or not bed and we are in pain and excruciating pain at that moment if we get the strength to say glory to God for everything God knows what he's doing if we can say that we are moers instead of complaining why me Lord why me and I was I you know I helped your church and I helped uh did the you know I was in church every Sunday why why are these things happening to me and

46:55 all the Heathen not nothing happens to them all they're bad people they seem to be doing well they have wealth they they have good health when we think like that then we do not have self- knowledge we don't know what the cross is and we don't know the path of our Salvation the path towards our Salvation is through the Cross of Christ so we follow Christ regardless of our situation regardless of the years that we live in regardless of the century that we live in regardless of the family that we are born

47:46 in if he when he said anyone who wants to he means that anyone who wants to he will be able to if you want to you're able to and sometimes you'll say well lord I can't do this I can't do this and yes human needs very difficult when we have addictions when we have passions and we can't give up something then we can Lord I want to but I can't it's enough to want to and the things that we cannot do then the grace of God will do for us continue say I want to Lord I want to be with you but my evil nature doesn't allow me please help me this is a very very good

48:32 prayer so even for the things that we can do and we can fix in our lives some of the passions that we have and we can't give up the antidote is repentance for the things that we cannot do we repent for them I have a gambling problem I don't I'm just said that and I came give it up and I say Lord I want to give it up but I can't but I can't this constant repentance for it I have this problem but I repent for it this problem doesn't describe me I don't want it I hate it please help me I

49:17 can go to my death bed saying this and at the last moment Christ will save me because I am I have that antidote of repentance which shows humility that I know my faults I know my wrongs and I repent for them no one will be perfect on this Earth even the Saints have faults even the Saints make mistakes the Saints our Saints are not infallible only the pope is our Saints are not infallible they make mistakes and the Saints suffer because they have so much illumination they have so much light inside them and they

50:05 grieve because they compare their state the distance of their state from the state of God and they see that distance and they weep they see that and that's what makes makes them cry constantly and weep because they compare themselves to the purity of God to the purity of Christ so Perfection is not of this life we will continue to sin hopefully you know not because we want to because of our weaknesses but we will immediately

50:52 immediately go to God and ask for forgiveness as we go through the Mysteries as we practice the faith as our mind becomes illumined as our heart is purified we will know instantly what we are in the wrong and will be asking for forgiveness either from the other person or from God and when a person constantly says I'm sorry it was my fault that person will have peace in their home they will have peace in their heart and they will have the peace of God inside them and then the Yoke of Christ becomes very light and then we live the Abundant Life that guide that Christ promised for us I

51:38 came so you can live the good life the Abundant Life and this is what Orthodoxy has to offer for us thank you for listening and I will stop at this point