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The Shepherd's Guild

Welcome to the Guild's site !

Μετάφραση αυτής της σελίδας στα ελληνικά

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From St. Paul's Letter to the Galatians 5:22-26; 6:1-2

Brethren, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us have no self-conceit, no provoking of one another, no envy of one another. Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Look to yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

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The Chapel of Panagia Soumela, Paracletos Monastery

Matthew 8:5-10 (New King James Version)

The Faith of a Centurion
5 Now when Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, pleading with Him, 6 saying, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, dreadfully tormented.”
7 And Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.”
8 The centurion answered and said, “Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof. But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed. 9 For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.
10 When Jesus heard it, He marveled, and said to those who followed, “Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!

1 Peter 2:20 - 25
 
20 For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. 21 For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps:
       22 “ Who committed no sin,
             Nor was deceit found in His mouth”;

 23 who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; 24 who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed. 25 For you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

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photo: Reuters/Eliana Aponte

1 Peter 5:2-3

New King James Version (NKJV)

2 Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion but willingly,[a] not for dishonest gain but eagerly; 3 nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock;

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Greece

John 15:18-21 (New King James Version)
 
“If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me.

Mark 8: 34-38  (NKJV)
Take Up the Cross and Follow Him
34 When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. 35 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? 37 Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? 38 For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”

James 2:14-26 New King James Version (NKJV)

Faith Without Works Is Dead
   14 What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? 17 Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
18 But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your[a] works, and I will show you my faith by my[b] works. 19 You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! 20 But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?[c] 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? 22 Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect? 23 And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”[d]And he was called the friend of God. 24 You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.
25 Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way?
26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

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An Orthodox Christian boy holds a crucifix during an Epaphany rite at the Jordan River, near the West Bank city of Jericho, January 19, 2007. (Reuters/Yonathan Weitzman)

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Saturday, February the 18th from Noon to 9 pm @ the Civic Center of Anderson, SC ... featuring our not-yet-famous Baby Back Pork Ribs

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Greece

The man who mourns never makes mistakes. The pious and humble man doesn’t think of doing evil. The mourning is a result of piety, and leads to the expulsion of evil.

St. Ephrem the Syrian

For those in the arena:
 
"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."
 
President Theodore Roosevelt

      Have we become stiff-necked?!

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THE ORTHODOX LAYMAN'S POSITION IN CHRIST by Rev. Archimandrite Fr. Eusebius A. Stephanou, Th.D.

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Father Basilios Nassar, the New Martyr
 
On January 25, 2012 Greek Orthodox Hieromonk Basilios Nassar was shot by an armed terrorist group in Hama, Syria on the second day of heavy fighting there. Fr. Basilios was at the Metropolis when he was informed by a phone call that a parishioner of his was shot and needed assistance. The Patriarchate of Antioch has reported that the 30-year-old priest was shot while giving medical aid to the wounded man who was previously shot. Fr. Basilios was shot in the chest and in the right armpit. Immediately another priest, Fr. Panteleimon Isa, who was with him dragged his bloody body to a nearby building to save him, but the martyr for Christ Father Basilios was dead within 30 minutes from hemorrhaging. His funeral took place today, January 26th, in the Church of Saint George in Hama. The blessed Father Basilios, known in the world as Mazin, was born in 1982 in the village of Kfarmpo in Hama and was a graduate of the Theological School of Balamand. He was also a teacher of Byzantine Music in the school Saint Kosmas the Melodist which he founded in the Metropolis.
 
source: "Mystagogy"" blog

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Greece

"Orthodoxy is life; one cannot talk about it, one must live it."     Elder Nektary of Optina

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The Life of the Cross

“Christians obtain their inheritance from Christ when they meet certain conditions. They must seek the Kingdom of God, according to Christ’s statement: ‘Seek the Kingdom of God and all these things will be yours as well’ (Luke 12:31). They are obligated to love Christ and keep His commandments (John 14:23), pick up their Cross and follow Him (Matthew 10:38), do unto others as they would want to be done to them (Matthew 7:12), love their neighbors as themselves, and follow many other conditions that are written in God’s Covenant with the Church.”

[The Church’s Identity Established through Images according to Saint John Chrysostom, Patristic Theological Library 2, Orthodox Research Institute, Rollinsford, New Hampshire, 2006; pg. 163.]

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A Bulgarian boy kisses a cross during a festival marking the traditional holiday of Todorov Den, also known as Horse Easter, in the village of Gorna Banja, near Sofia March 15, 2008. Orthodox Bulgarians organise horse races on Todorov Den as it is believed to keep their farm animals in good health. REUTERS/Oleg Popov (BULGARIA)

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A cross is seen as Orthodox Christian pilgrims pray during Orthodox Christmas services at the Church of Nativity, traditionally believed to be the birthplace of Jesus Christ, in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, early Monday, Jan. 7, 2008. Christmas falls on Jan. 7 for Orthodox Christians in the Holy Land, Russia and other Orthodox churches that use the old Julian calendar instead of the 16th-century Gregorian calendar adopted by Catholics and Protestants and commonly used in secular life around the world. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)

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St. George Greek Orthodox Cathedral, Greenville, SC

Free 2012 Greek Orthodox calendar 
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