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To Fulfill All Righteousness
Read more: To Fulfill All RighteousnessOn February 2nd, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple. The feast is also known as the “Meeting” focusing on the “meeting” with St. Simeon and the Prophetess Anna. Again, the feast is also called the “Purification” remembering that one important aspect of this 40-days after the birth of […]
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Asceticism and Normalcy
Read more: Asceticism and NormalcyIt always seems to me that I run into two kind of people when it comes to ascetical labors. One person tries to do too much too soon, and quickly becomes disgusted with themself and thereafter does little. Another person does very little, out of fear, and again remains in the same position. Oddly, the […]
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Finding Faith
Read more: Finding FaithTwo of my favorite modern Orthodox authors, Metropolitan Anthony Bloom and Fr. Sophrony Sakharov have a peculiarity in common that make them “work” for me. Both include in their personal stories their own search for God, including the confession of dealing with modern Atheism. I never personally became an Atheist – that was a faith […]
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Conversion and the Return of our Humanity
Read more: Conversion and the Return of our HumanityMy wife and I returned last night for Detroit, Michigan, having attended and been part of a Colloquium on the Orthodox Faith, aimed primarily at Episcopalians and Anglicans. We met a wonderful group of people and were struck by the quality of the conversation that took place. I thought I would share a thought or […]
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I Can’t Make It Without God
Read more: I Can’t Make It Without GodI introduced some of Tito Colliander’s Way of the Ascetics. I offer here the second chapter as well. I have been in Detroit, Michigan attending a conference and will return to the website on Tuesday evening if I’m not able to do any work in Detroit. May God bless. Chapter Two: ON THE INSUFFICIENCY OF HUMAN […]
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Learning to Sin
Read more: Learning to SinAs strange as it sounds – human beings have to “learn to sin.” Not that we need any help doing the things that sinners do – all of that comes quite easily to us. But we have to learn that we are sinners – and this does not come easily to us. Oddly, I first […]
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Back to the Cross
Read more: Back to the CrossI feel a need to tie a few loose ends together – or at the very least to make a few connections. It’s possible as in this last week to drink rather deeply at one of the many wells of living Orthodoxy such as the writings of Fr. Sophrony. It’s also possible in doing so […]
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A Closing Word Tonight from St. Silouan
Read more: A Closing Word Tonight from St. SilouanA few paragraph’s from Fr. Sophrony’s St. Silouan the Athonite. It was a great moment in the history of human thought and spiritual experience when Descartes pronounced the words, ‘Cogito, ergo sum’ (‘I think, therefore I am’). Another philosopher, one of our day, understood life rather differently, putting it, ‘I love, therefore I am, for […]
Continuing (I think) in the same vein as Matthew’s question, I’d like to put forth a small, concrete example that…