Category: Reflections

  • Good Friday and the Irony of Believing

    Irony is probably too much to ask of youth. If I can remember myself in my college years, the most I could muster was sarcasm. Irony required more insight. There is a deep need for the appreciation of irony to sustain a Christian life. Our world is filled with contradiction. Hypocrisy is ever present even…

  • The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil

    There is a death that leads to death and there is a death that leads to life. In them are hidden the meaning of all things. As we approach Pascha, I continue to marvel at St. John’s description of Christ in Revelation 13, as the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” It is…

  • The Mystical Reality of Holy Week

    As we journey through Holy Week… 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…

  • Get Out of Hell Free

    The Saturday before Palm Sunday is known as Lazarus Saturday among the Orthodox, and they celebrate Christ raising him from the dead just prior to His entrance into Jerusalem (gospel of John). It is a feast that offers something of a preview of Christ’s resurrection, and a foretaste of the General Resurrection at the End of the…

  • Saving A Democratic Man

    Everywhere he goes, he meets his equals. All of the world is open to him, bidding him enter in, take what he wants and go his way. Early on he learns to negotiate his way through competing crowds of others, jostling for position, asking for attention, making his way forward. His direction is a matter…

  • A Lesser Atonement

    It has long been known that people tend to see what they think they are seeing. This is particularly the case where what we think is familiar and expected. The case of “mistaken identity” flows from our assumptions and expectations. This is no where more true than when we are reading Scripture. If a passage…

  • Our Conciliar Salvation

    I consider it both a strange mystery and a settled matter of the faith that God prefers not to do things alone. Repeatedly, He acts in a manner that involves the actions of others when, it would seem, He could have acted alone. Why would God reveal His Word to the world through the agency…

  • Come Join Me for a Retreat in San Francisco

    I will be speaking at the Lenten Retreat in San Francisco at Joy of All Who Sorrow Cathedral this coming weekend. My topic will be “Running on Empty in the Abundant Life.” I am greatly looking forward to meeting the faithful in the Bay Area and participating in the life of one of the great…

  • Superstition and the Material God

    People gather at the end of Church for a “travel blessing.” A priest chants a prayer and sprinkles water over them with a brush. They cross themselves and have some sense that their travels will now be better. Many modern people watching this procedure would describe the process as “superstitious.” It appears to them that…

  • Protopresbyter Thomas Hopko – Memory Eternal!

    The Protopresbyter, Fr. Thomas Hopko, has fallen asleep in the Lord. His life and impact on the Church in the modern world cannot be exaggerated. He was a pastor, a scholar, a teacher, mentor and friend to several generations of priests. He will be missed more than words can say. I first met him in…


Subscribe to blog via email

Support the work

Your generous support for Glory to God for All Things will help maintain and expand the work of Fr. Stephen. This ministry continues to grow and your help is important. Thank you for your prayers and encouragement!


Latest Comments

  1. Profound as always Father. Thank you. I struggle with this notion of staying put. My monastic cell is just my…

  2. Mark, the struggle is real. I have begun trying to separate the struggles from the expectations I have about the…

  3. Nathan, Exactly! I went to Confession this past week and (of course) felt restored. And I was crabby only three…


Read my books

Everywhere Present by Stephen Freeman

Listen to my podcast



Categories


Archives