Category: Reflections
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The Scriptures and the Church
The notion of the “Scriptures” has undergone radical changes across the centuries. Today, we picture them as a single book, the Bible. Indeed, we picture that book as private property, perhaps a personal guide for all things spiritual. Even when we hear its words being quoted in public or in Church gatherings, we imagine the…
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Theophany – Showing the World to Be the World
I was standing beside the Jordan River, somewhere along its trek through Israel. I was with a group of pilgrims led by Met. Kallistos Ware gathered for the Great Blessing of the Waters. Somehow, it seemed that I was the only priest who had brought an epitrachelion (stole), so I loaned it to the Metropolitan…
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The Hidden Gospel
There is a genre of Scriptural writings that are described as “apocalyptic.” The book of Revelation, in Greek, is called “The Apocalypse.” Ezekiel and Daniel also have very strong passages described as apocalyptic. The term is very straightforward: it means “revealing what is hidden.” These books are described as “making known hidden things” because their…
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Angels Sing! Merry Christmas!
A Serbian Christmas Song – lyrics by St. Nikolai Velimirovich Andjeli Pevaju Noć prekrasna i noć tija, nad pećinom zvezda sija, u pećini mati spi, nad Isusom andjel bdi. Andjeli pevaju, pastiri sviraju, andjeli pevaju mudraci javljaju: Što narodi čekaše, što proroci rekoše, evo sad se u svet javi, u svet javi i objavi:…
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Building God’s Temple
I stumbled into a conversation recently in which I heard, “Well, they say that the people are the Church, while the building is just a building.” I hesitated and mumbled something that indicated some level of disagreement. I could have said (should have said), “The building is a sacrament – it matters.” In a neighboring…
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An Avalanche of Kindness
A chance conversation with my wife opened a world of wonder for me recently. I mentioned to her that, as I reaching for a scarf before my walk on a chilly morning, my thoughts drifted to a woman (a parishioner, now deceased) who had knitted several items for me. As I remembered her, I prayed…
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Worshipping a Weak and Foolish God
I cannot begin to measure the amount of time I have spent over the years in conversations about the “problem of evil.” That problem, in short, is the impossibility of reconciling an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good God with the presence of suffering, injustice, and evil in the world. Those conversations often involve listening to a deeply…
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Me and My Bible
How do you feel about the Scriptures? What thoughts come to you as you read? Do they comfort you or challenge you? Do you love them or wrestle with them? Does God speak to you in them or are they opaque and bothersome? My primary relationship with the Scriptures as I was growing up was…
Fr. Paul, It’s all there in the Greek! Thanks. Indeed He is risen! It underscores that icons are not just…