Category: Saints and Tradition
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St. Olga of Alaska, Pray for Us!
It is difficult to describe culture of saints within the life of Orthodoxy. When speaking to Christians who are strangers to such devotions, it is like trying to describe a flavor that is unlike anything else (try describing salt without using the word, “salty”). My family’s direct experience of Orthodoxy began in the early 1990’s.…
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History’s Detectives
The search for the historical anything is an exercise in fantasy and imagination, a good movie, but not good for much else. C.S. Lewis noted that reviewers of his books, speculating on how they were written and other such intimate historical matters, were almost universally wrong. He wondered out loud why we should presume historical…
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The Sacrament of Humility – Part Two
In my earlier article, I described humility as “our willingness to receive with thanksgiving those things (of whatever size) that come our way.” This describes humility as a virtue, but the article’s title described it as a “sacrament.” Oddly, I seemed not to have unpacked what that means. There are several ways to think about…
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The Sword that Pierces the Soul
Mary, the Theotokos, was described by St. Irenaeus in the 2nd century, as the “New Eve.” Like Eve, she is the “mother of us all,” if we have the eyes to see her properly. She is a quiet figure in the New Testament – not a preacher or worker of miracles. We see the…
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Mother of Us All
A young friend recently lost his mother. It has been an occasion of reflection for me, thinking about the emptiness created by such a loss. Despite all of the confusion and conundrums in our contemporary culture surrounding gender issues – they only serve to underscore the fact that male-and-female, on the most fundamental level of…
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Things You Can’t Invent
Most of the things in our lives are not of our own making – they were given to us. Our language, our culture, the whole of our biology and the very gift of life itself is something that has been “handed down” to us. In that sense, we are all creatures of “tradition” (traditio=“to hand…
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The Tradition of Being Human
Being human is a cultural event. No one is human by themselves and no one becomes human without the help of those around them. This is so obvious it should not need to be stated, but contemporary human beings often imagine themselves to be their own creation. The exercise of individual freedom is exalted as…
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Mary as the “Secret Joy” of the Church
Fr. Alexander Schmemann wrote: …When investigating the history of Mariological piety, one discovers that it is rooted not in any special revelation but, primarily, in the experience of liturgical worship. In other terms, it is not a theological reflection on Mary that gave birth to her veneration: it is the liturgy as the experience of…
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The Mother of Us All
A young friend recently lost his mother. It has been an occasion of reflection for me, thinking about the emptiness created by such a loss. Despite all of the confusion and conundrums in our contemporary culture surrounding gender issues – they only serve to underscore the fact that male-and-female, on the most fundamental level…
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Traveling the Old Roads
In C.S. Lewis’ book, That Hideous Strength, the character of Merlin (the ancient “wizard” of Romano-Celtic Britain) is awakened from a timeless slumber in an underground chamber. There is a group of evil men who are searching for him, thinking they can use his magic for their own schemes. As it turns out, Merlin is…
Thank you very much, Dee. The quote from St Sophrony is particularly helpful.