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A Patient Joy – Finding the True Self
Read more: A Patient Joy – Finding the True SelfAmong the weakest things in the world of social relations is the truth. That might seem to be an odd statement. However, the weakness of the truth is the limitations placed upon it by its very nature. It cannot say just anything, nor can it ever pretend to be something that it is not. Those […]
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Slowing Down for the Necessary Thing
Read more: Slowing Down for the Necessary ThingI make a weekly visit to a nursing home about an hour away. I have a dear parishioner who has been in that place, or similar places, for about eight years. Our conversations center around the past week, her life and mine, with occasional forays into deeper matters. One of the difficulties of life in […]
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Form and Conformity – How Tradition Saves Us
Read more: Form and Conformity – How Tradition Saves UsWhen C.S. Lewis tried to describe the nature of reality as undergirded with order and discernible principles (The Abolition of Man), he looked for a term that would be more easily palpable to a secularized audience that was already becoming highly resistant to Christian terminology. He chose the Chinese term, the Tao, as a disarming […]
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The Despised God
Read more: The Despised GodIn his On the Orthodox Faith, St. John of Damascus declares: “The Son is the image of the Father, and the Spirit the image of the Son.” Such statements are easily read and passed over as among the more obvious Trinitarian statements. I add to this statement another from St. Irenaeus: “That which is invisible […]
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The Good That Lies Within
Read more: The Good That Lies WithinThe line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart — and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. […]
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Making the World a Better Place – Or Else
Read more: Making the World a Better Place – Or ElseIf you lurk around social media, particularly in conservative conversations, you will have undoubtedly seen something about recent statements on the part of a minor Democratic candidate for the Presidential nomination. I have no interest in the politics of the matter. However, the exchange goes to the heart of the modern impulse and serves as […]
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Tolkien’s Long Defeat and the Path of History
Read more: Tolkien’s Long Defeat and the Path of History“Actually I am a Christian,” Tolkien wrote of himself, “and indeed a Roman Catholic, so that I do not expect ‘history’ to be anything but a ‘long defeat’— though it contains (and in legend may contain more clearly and movingly) some samples or glimpses of final victory” (Letters 255). +++ History as a long defeat – […]
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The Best Place – The Worst Place – Orthodoxy in Location
Read more: The Best Place – The Worst Place – Orthodoxy in LocationFrom time to time, I read articles on the “10 Worst Cities in America,” or the State. There are similar articles on the “best.” The thoughts offered remind me of the article published earlier this year in which the Orthodox (worldwide) were described as the “least happy” people of any religious group. If you scratch […]
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The Space Between
Read more: The Space BetweenIs there a God “out there”? God is “everywhere present and filling all things,” we say in our Orthodox prayers, but is He “out there?” For what it’s worth, I want to suggest for a moment that He is not. Largely, what I am describing is what takes place in our imagination – that is, […]
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Clothed in the Image
Read more: Clothed in the ImageBegging my readers’ patience, I will take a small anthropology tour through our culture. What I want to draw our attention to is the place of the image. We are not only fascinated with looking at images, we place them on our bodies as well: t-shirts, tattoos, hats, shoes, pants – in short, everywhere. […]
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I know a family that makes it impossible to care for each other. The level of selfishness is so high…
Matthew, Well, I suspect that I’m showing my age. When I think of the liberal arts, I have in mind…
Thank you, Fr. Stephen, for this very clear and stimulating post ! I smiled when I read “in the hands…
Fr. Stephen said: “One of the struggles I found in catechesis was that frequent lack of exposure to the “liberal…
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Matthew and Father, I’ve seen similar fears and ignorance concerning science (not referring to technology or math). Too few have…