Pascha has begun (though still a few hours away here in the Eastern United States). But if you listen carefully, you can begin to hear the bells sounding from the East. Christ is risen! This delightful Youtube video is a favorite of mine. One of our readers and occasional commenter, Dejan, (without a doubt my favorite Serb) provided the English … Continue reading
For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable. (1Co 15:16-19 NKJ) … Continue reading
For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures… (1 Cor. 15:3-4) No statement is more central to the Christian faith than St. Paul’s rehearsal of the Apostolic Tradition … Continue reading
And we’ve got to get ourselves back to the Garden… Joni Mitchell (1969) The instinct of the folk-music singer celebrating the Woodstock Festival was not wrong. The religious sensibilities of younger generations today would likely say the same thing but with no reference to the Scriptures. The longing that marks the human heart finds many means of expression. I often … Continue reading
What is the criterion of the rightness of this life? Beauty. - Fr. Pavel Florensky It is our habit of thought to think of Truth as, more or less, a correct description or a correct statement. As such, Beauty belongs to some other realm of thought. Beauty cannot be “correct” or “incorrect.” In Orthodox thought, Truth is understood as a … Continue reading
This week, the Church moves from the feast of Christmas to the feast of Theophany - the celebration of the Baptism of Christ. The intent of this feast is not to celebrate a succession of historical events (the Baptism of Christ is at least 30 years later than His birth). Rather this feast takes us into the depths of the mystery of Christ and … Continue reading
Standing in the synagogue in Nazareth, Christ reads from Isaiah (61) the passage: The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who … Continue reading