Glory to God For All Things

September 14, 2017

The Tree Heals the Tree

Readers of the New Testament are familiar with St. Paul’s description of Christ as the “Second Adam.” It is an example of the frequent Apostolic use of an allegoric reading of the Old Testament (I am using “allegory” in its broadest sense – including typology and other forms). Christ Himself had stated that He was […]
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Cross
September 12, 2017

Mary and the Temple

“And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.” (Exo 25:8) The center of Jewish life at the time of Christ was the Temple in Jerusalem. Jesus was presented there at forty days of age. His family traveled to the Temple when he was twelve. He taught there during His ministry […]
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Knowledge of God, Mother of God, Mystical Theology, Reflections
September 5, 2017

Food for the Soul

I recently sat in on a meeting between my bishop and a young man looking to attend seminary. After getting the bishop’s approval, he asked a wise question: “What should I be reading to prepare?” I was as interested in the answer as he was. “Read good literature,” was the answer. This advice came from […]
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Beauty, Conversion, Dostoevsky, Reflections, Solzhenitsyn
August 30, 2017

What To Do With What You Know

In a world driven by information, it is more than a little easy to mistake knowing something as important and good in and of itself. As such, the acquisition of spiritual information is something of a going industry. In a Russian novel written back in the 90’s, a woman intellectual encounters a monk who is […]
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Doctrine, Knowledge of God, Mystical Theology, Orthodox Christianity, Reflections
August 28, 2017

Clothed in the Image

Begging my readers’ patience, I will take a small anthropologist 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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Beauty, Icons, Reflections, Salvation, The Sacraments, Union with God
August 26, 2017

Everywhere Present

Everything you do, all your work, can contribute towards your salvation. It depends on you, on the way you do it. History is replete with monks who became great saints while working in the kitchen or washing sheets. The way of salvation consists in working without passion, in prayer…. May God give you the strength […]
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Reflections, Union with God
August 23, 2017

Before the Judgment Seat of Christ

For a Christian ending to our life: painless, unashamed, and peaceful; and a good defense before the dread judgment seat of Christ, let us ask of the Lord. From my childhood, I have memories of the phrase, “Great White Throne of Judgment.” It comes complete with an abundance of frightening images and threats. It […]
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Cross, Forgiveness, Knowledge of God, Last Things, Morality, Reflections, Repentance
August 16, 2017

Humble and Meek and Middle-Class Morality

“He Will Exalt the Humble and Meek” There is an interesting historical pattern that has been repeated any number of times across the centuries. A group of the dispossessed and the poor come together within a religious movement. What begins with great enthusiasm succeeds. As it succeeds, those who were once poor and dispossessed […]
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Conversion, Forgiveness, Heart, Morality, Reflections, Repentance, Salvation
August 10, 2017

Literalism and Another Word

There are many who speak about literalism and see it where it does not exist. The trees of modern theories and habits hide the forest of ancient understanding and use of texts. It is necessary to back away from details and look at a larger context to see what we are actually seeing. In cultural […]
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Allegory, Interpretation, Modernity, Reflections
August 7, 2017

The Struggle Against the Normal Life

Within the Christianity of our time, the great spiritual conflict, unknown to almost all, is between a naturalistic/secular world of modernity and the sacramental world of classical Christianity. The first presumes that a literal take on the world is the most accurate. It tends to assume a closed system of cause and effect, ultimately […]
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Culture, Knowledge of God, Modernity, Reflections, The Church, The Sacraments

Well … even if I don´t emotionally or physically experience something when I take communion (for example) … I think…

Matthew, You’re making some leaps and connections that are not at all necessary and possibly even unhelpful. You seem to…

What could be more experiential than inner, ontological change? Anything less than this is simply mind gymnastics. It seems to…

Diedert, It is difficult to say what Orthodoxy would say about how to deal with religious experience. It is important…

For me real spiritual experience keeps getting smaller