Glory to God For All Things

In the Benedictine tradition, a monk makes four vows: poverty, chastity, obedience and stability. Most people are familiar with the first three but not with the fourth. In classical Benedictine practice it meant that a monk stayed put: he did not move from monastery to monastery. It was not a new idea. Before Benedict had […]

I am grateful for the responses yesterday that were posted on my article Once and For All, and particularly Ephrem’s passages from the Fathers on justice. I have certainly been among the Orthodox writers, speakers, etc., in America who have given short shrift to forensic (legal) imagery when thinking about God and how we understand […]

For a couple of years I was an occasional poster on Pontifications, the Blog created and maintained by my dear friend, Fr. Al Kimel, and it was he who suggested that I create my own. It was a friendly suggestion. Yesterday, after a little more than two months, we passed 50,000 views, which is far […]

I have been puzzling some lately about the doctrine of Justification, particularly as understood by some Protestants. I am not the theologian that my good friend, Fr. Al Kimel, over at Pontifications is, nor am I versed in late medieval scholarship, which is what early Protestant doctrine requires. My puzzle is perhaps a bit more […]

I stood in the rain this afternoon, with twenty or thirty of the faithful as we blessed the waters of the Clinch River at Melton Hill Marina. It’s the same place that is pictured in the snow with the blessing of the waters on a few blogs down. Today the water was everywhere. In the […]

…In the words of St. John Climacus, “Repentance is the daughter of hope and the denial of despair.” It is not despondency but eager expectation; it is not to feel that one has reached an impasse, but to take the way out. It is not self-hatred but the affirmation of my true self as made […]

Every feast day in Orthodoxy is connected to the Feast of Pascha, because Pascha is God’s great act of salvation. However, some feasts show this connection more clearly than others. Three feasts in the year share the same pattern of services: Pascha, Nativity, and Theophany. Each has a Vesperal Liturgy on its Eve and a […]

The Pulley (1633) by George Herbert  When God at first made man, Having a glass of blessings standing by; Let us (said he) pour on him all we can; Let the world’s riches, which dispersed lie, Contract into a span.   So strength first made a way; Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honour, pleasure: When […]

I am an ignorant man, despite posting writings on all kinds of things. But make no mistake – I am an ignorant man. Thus, I would always counsel any reader to remember, these are the writings of an ignorant man. Why would I say this? Because it is true. How am I ignorant? I am […]