Month: November 2007
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What Theology Looks Like – Revisited
This was first posted back in May. It’s subject seemed to me quite germane to the topic of the relationship between theology “lived” and theology as “academic” which has arisen in the comments of the recent post on Fr. John Behr’s work. It recounts a story and reflection in my life that the topic always brings…
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Orthodoxy and Scripture – Fr. John Behr’s Lecture Revisted
The earlier attempted debate (in the comments about St. Michael the Archangel) about Scripture and Orthodox understanding of the saints, prayers, etc., is rooted in an understanding of Scripture that is itself the very basis of the Christian faith. Attempts to remove the Bible from its proper Churchly context by the Reformation and modern day Protestants…
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St. Michael the Archangel – And Other Angel Stories
Some years ago, when I was a young seminarian, I served with an Episcopal priest who greatly disappointed me in conversation one day by telling me that he saw “no need” for angels. “There’s nothing that angels are described as doing that the Holy Spirit could not do instead.” This kind of heavenly economy had…
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Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep…
This delightful old English prayer said by children and their parents at bedtime has long ago been shortened to only its last verse. There is more (as I was taught): Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Bless the bed that I lie on. The are four corners to my bed, Four angels round my head, One…
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Thinking of Angels
This 8th of November is the Feast of St. Michael and All the Bodiless Powers of Heaven. The feast marks its own special occasion, but it seems entirely appropriate that the feast should be so close to the beginning of the Nativity Fast. There are very few Biblical stories where angels do not play a part,…
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Knowledge that Saves
It is perhaps unfortunate that our English language (as well as the Greek and many other Indo-European variations) do not make a clear distinction between knowing something as a fact, and a different kind of knowing which requires participation in the actual life and reality of that which we know. Thus it is possible for…
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Do We Want to Know God?
It was remarked briefly in a recent comment that “we cannot know God completely,” and that we should be satisfied with the mysteries of the faith and trust the teaching of the Church (I apologize for using the writer’s honest statement as the point of departure for this post). However, this short quote from St. Silouan:…
Thank you for this lovely reflection, Father Stephen. My earliest memory, which was before I was walking so very early,…