Glory to God For All Things

The following comment was posted in response to my recent thoughts on icons: I’m interested in learning to experience more of what you describe in your experience with icons. I’ve started praying with them, but not sure “how to,” if there is a “how”. I have an icon of Christ the Pantocrator and one of Christ at a young age — not sure what to make of that one at all, but I like it. I look forward to learning to see or realize or experience the Kingdom of Heaven, as well, the reality and presence of which is a…

I give thanks to God that priests are forbidden to hold political office – not that I would ever be elected – but that I would never want to stand in the place where my Christian faith was so torn – between what I might think good for the state and what would seem obedient to God. Anyone who sits in such a position needs prayer – whether they are Christian or not. Someone recently shared an article with me in which the author was commenting on a growing sense of connection between the powers that be in Russia and…

I posted yesterday on the “texture of life,” noting that there is a richness to our lives that cannot be reduced and which seems to have an inherent tendency to reach towards wholeness – for life itself. I concluded with the observation that this texture is an echo of Pascha sounding its way through all creation. I want to turn the same observations towards the Kingdom of God – which Christ taught us was already among us, or “within us.” He Himself brought that very Kingdom into our midst. Wherever He went the signs of the Kingdom followed: the blind…

A parishioner told me the other evening, “Our bodies have an incredible desire to live. If we give them a chance it is amazing what healing can take place.” At least, that is the paraphrase of what I remember. My mind immediately flashed to my years as a hospice chaplain. Each day brought a round of visits with dying patients – patients who had accepted the option of hopice, which means only palliative care. The majority of my patients were older and most had some form of cancer. What I recall from many, many occasions was how someone’s body clung…

One of the first times I noticed a problem with history, as generally conceived, occurred during an Orthodox Liturgy (of all places). I been used to serving in an Anglican context (largely modernized liturgy) where the nature of a service is what I describe as “linear.” First one thing happened, then another, almost never two things at once. The bulletin was therefore very useful, for, just as it indicated, first one thing and then another happened. The first liturgy I participated in as an Othodox Christian, that is with a liturgical role other than as a layman, was the service…

I can feel the pace of Lent quickening (it begins to reveal itself in my schedule). I also feel the march of time towards the Day of all Days, the Pascha of our Lord. In my experience, Lent brings not only the discipline of the fast and additional services, but seems to carry with it as well a series of events in my life and in the parish. Rough edges appear. Crises manifest themselves. There are days when getting out of bed is difficult or hearing a phone ring. But all of these “trials” are occasions for yet more prayer…

I have published the article “The Six Days of Creation” by Kalomiros in the Pages section and commend it to you for reading. My thanks to Jason for posting the link that gave me access to this fine material.

I have written on this subject in other contexts, but wanted to bring it front and center: Jesus Christ is described in Scripture as the “Alpha” and “Omega,” the “Beginning and the End.” This is not simply a statement of who Christ is at the beginning of things, or who He is at the end of all things – but who He is always, everywhere and at all times. To speak with Christ in prayer is to have conversation with Him who is both beginning and end. Thus our prayer not only has a timeless quality – it brings us…

In our world of Christian variation, it is easy for some to think of things like fasting as though they were “works” and somehow opposed to grace (if you had a radical protestant understanding of these matters). The truth, however, is quite different. Actions such as fasting are grouped under the general heading of “asceticism” in Orthodoxy, from a Greek word which means to “wrestle.” Quite interestingly, Fr. Dumitru Staniloae, working from very traditional sources, notes that the very first work of “asceticism” is, in fact, to believe in God. This faith, he notes, is impossible except it be given…