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The Desert Struggle
Read more: The Desert StruggleOne of the best-known sayings to have come from the Desert Fathers is: “Stay in your cell and your cell will teach you everything.” To a large degree the saying extols the virtue of stability. Moving from place to place never removes the problem – it only postpones the inevitable. Somewhere, sometime we have to […]
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Shadows, Icons, and the Age to Come
Read more: Shadows, Icons, and the Age to ComeWhat will heaven be like? It is not an unusual question. Sometimes it is asked with all the freshness of a child, other times with the anxiety of the old. It is not a question that admits of easy answers, nor a question for which language is sufficient. The cynic says, “Nobody knows.” That attitude […]
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God’s Tattoos
Read more: God’s TattoosCall me a Boomer. Among the more surprising developments across my nearly seven decades of life is the now widespread practice of tattooing. As a child in the 50’s, the only tattoos I ever saw were on the occasional sailor, and we rarely saw many of them. Indeed, I don’t think there was a tattoo […]
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God With Us
Read more: God With UsPopular New Age thought postulates that everyone has a “god within.” It’s a pleasant way of saying that we’re all special while making “god” to be rather banal. But there is a clear teaching of classical Christianity regarding Christ-within-us, and it is essential to the Orthodox way of life. We should not understand our relationship […]
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The World as Grand Opera
Read more: The World as Grand OperaTowards the left-hand side of the FM dial (yes, I’m so old I think of radios as having dials and linearity) there have always been one or two “classical” stations in the places I have lived. Often, they provide a welcome relief from the noise and bump of the neighboring stations to the right. […]
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Living with Ignorance
Read more: Living with IgnoranceGerman theoretical physicist Max Planck was told by his professor not to go into Physics as “almost everything is discovered already”. So Planck said he did not want to discover anything & just wanted to learn the fundamentals. He went on to originate Quantum theory & won a Nobel Prize. – a recent fact that […]
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How Powerless Are You Willing to Be?
Read more: How Powerless Are You Willing to Be?“My spiritual efforts don’t do anything, they merely bring me to the place where I know I can’t do anything, to the place where I am utterly naked before God!” -Fr. Silviu Bunta Sometimes I run across a quote that strikes my heart so deeply that I’m surprised it wasn’t me who said it. The […]
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The Fullness of Lent
Read more: The Fullness of LentThis article comes to mind as we celebrate the Liturgy of the Pre-Sanctified Gifts on these Lenten Wednesdays and Fridays. There is nothing to compare to them in the Christian liturgical world. It’s hard to think of fasting in the midst of such a feast. Orthodoxy has a number of “favorite” words – all of […]
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Repentance for the World – Prayers by the Lake XXIX
Read more: Repentance for the World – Prayers by the Lake XXIXThis XXIX prayer of St. Nicholai of Zicha from Prayers by the Lake, echoes the kneeling prayers of Pentecost, or perhaps, the Prayer of Manasseh… The “collective” voice that characterizes its petitions echo St. Silouan’s prayers for the “Whole Adam.” In a time of trouble (such as our days), we do well to learn this […]
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Judgment and Apocalypse – The Tale of Two Parables
Read more: Judgment and Apocalypse – The Tale of Two Parables“He came to himself.” These words form the turning point in the story of the Prodigal Son. They are words of judgment, apocalypse, and revelation. When the younger son demanded his inheritance from his father, he was not himself. When he traveled to a far land and wasted everything in wild pleasure, he was not […]
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Latest Comments
The disciples denied Him, But the thief cried out: “Remember me, O Lord, in Thy Kingdom!” Wow. This resonates.
Janine, Many do not realize the depths of the poetic theology in Orthodox services – we sing texts written by…
So beautiful. It is wonderful that hymns are treasures that teach us so much. Mystical poetry!
Thank you so much Michael! Same for you and your family.
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Wishing everyone a great Resurrection. It is so sad to see so many faces in church only on Holy Friday…