Search results for: “worship mary”

November 18, 2019

Venerating Icons – It’s So Much Other Than You Think

In 1991, I sat in a room at Duke University with Geoffrey Wainwright, Stanely Hauerwas, and Susan O’Keefe. The purpose was the defense of my thesis, “The Icon as Theology.” I was an Episcopal priest, who was turning his doctoral work in Systematic Theology into an M.A. and heading back to parish life (a long […]
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Icons, Knowledge of God, Personhood, Reflections, Salvation
July 2, 2019

Shame and the Modern Identity

It is a common definition that the emotion of shame is about “who I am.” It centers in feelings of exposure, unworthiness, and damaged identity. Guilt, they say, is about “what I have done.” There are ways to deal with guilt – but shame, if it is actually a matter of “who I am,” runs […]
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Knowledge of God, Last Things, Modernity, Reflections, Salvation
March 29, 2019

A Modern Lent

Few things are as difficult in the modern world as fasting. It is not simply the action of changing our eating habits that we find problematic – it’s the whole concept of fasting and what it truly entails. It comes from another world. We understand dieting – changing how we eat in order to improve […]
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Fasting, Modernity, Reflections
October 13, 2018

When Miracles Ceased

One of the stranger ideas that accompanied the Reformation, was the notion that miracles had ended at the time of the New Testament’s completion. Never stated as a doctrinal fact in the mainstream of Protestantism, it remained a quiet assumption, particularly when joined with an anti-Roman Catholicism in which the various visions, weeping statues, and […]
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Knowledge of God, Modernity, Reflections, Secularism, The Sacraments
September 15, 2018

The Doors of the Heart

In the summer of 1952, an obscure event took place in London that would have a profound impact on the future of Orthodox Christianity in the English-speaking world. A seventeen-year-old English lad walked through the doors of St. Philip’s Russian Orthodox Church on Buckingham Palace Road (the Church has long since been torn down). Today […]
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Conversion, Knowledge of God, Reflections
May 4, 2018

The Erotic Language of Prayer

The very heart of true prayer is desire, love. In the language of the Fathers this desire is called eros. Modern usage has corrupted the meaning of “erotic” to only mean sexual desire – but it is a profound word, without substitute in the language of the Church. I offer a quote from Dr. Timothy […]
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Beauty, Prayer, Reflections, Union with God
March 20, 2017

Getting to the Point

With this Ring, I thee wed, with my Body I thee worship, and with all my worldly Goods I thee endow: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. – The Book of Common Prayer (1662) +++ English is a great language, except when it isn’t. We […]
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Knowledge of God, Mother of God, Mystical Theology, Reflections
March 9, 2017

You Are Not Alone – And Neither Is God

I consider it both a strange mystery and a settled matter of the faith that God prefers not to do things alone. Repeatedly, He acts in a manner that involves the actions of others when it would seem, He could have acted alone. Why would God reveal His Word to the world through the agency […]
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Orthodox Christianity, Reflections, Salvation, The Church, Union with God
January 3, 2017

The Holy Name

In 1913, a small Russian fleet landed a contingent of soldiers who forcibly removed a group of Russian monks from Mount Athos. This action came at the end of a stormy controversy surrounding the name of God. The monks were known as the Imyaslavsy (“Name worshippers”) and were following ideas that had been promulgated in a […]
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Icons, Reflections, Salvation, Union with God
December 7, 2016

A Terrible Knowledge

Greek Mythology made the curiosity of Pandora the primary cause of suffering in the world. She fails to resist the lure of finding out what is in a box she is told to leave closed. Opening the box, she unleashes sorrow and suffering into the world. We humans are a curious lot. We want to […]
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Heart, Knowledge of God, Reflections

Janine said: “How do you know God is not looking at you the same way you see your son?” Man…

Thank you SO much Carlos! I really appreciate your thoughts and your prayers. Thanks also Fr. Stephen and Simon. Do…

As I re-read the post and the comments, one word comes to mind as the fundamental reality and substance: Mercy.…

Carlos, thanks for your reply. Even if the prayers are first person singular, they are for all of us to…

Janine, Yes! I’ve read about the ancient corporate sense and its interpretive power in scripture, but I’m hesitant to apply…