Glory to God For All Things

June 14, 2016

The Renunciation of Reason

I grew up in a house of contradictions. We loved each other and we fought. I had a brother who was five years my senior, and we somehow developed a style of contradiction. If he said white, I said black. If I said red, he said blue. Or after either of us made a perfectly […]
Read more: The Renunciation of Reason
Asceticism, Knowledge of God, Mystical Theology, Orthodox Christianity, Reflections
June 10, 2016

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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Incarnation, Reflections, Salvation, Time
June 8, 2016

To Become My Enemy

With the unending political cycle that is America’s public life, there is also an endless identification of enemies. And, of course, this year the enemies seem to come out of central casting – it would be hard to invent characters more susceptible to caricature. The Church has entered something of a political season as well. […]
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Church, Communion, Enemies, Forgiveness, Reflections, Repentance, Salvation, The Church, Union with God
June 5, 2016

The Holy and Great Council and the Hidden Work of God

The science of psychology had its beginnings in the 19th century. It has since gone through many changes, complete with clinical science of the brain and its chemistry. However, in its earliest days it had something of a mystical twist. Freud, Jung and their cohort could see the surface of the personality and the various […]
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Orthodox Christianity, Reflections, Salvation, The Church
June 1, 2016

A Simple, Great Soul

For a variety of reasons, I have been spending a fair amount of time with A.I. Solzhenitsyn, the great Russian writer who died in 2008. I am working through a collection of his writings and have been watching videos on his life along with detailed interviews. If any man lived through the maelstrom of the […]
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Conversion, Morality, Orthodox Christianity, Reflections, Solzhenitsyn, The Journey of Faith, Union with God
May 27, 2016

Democracy in the Kingdom of God

Nothing is equal because nothing is the same. All things are unique and unrepeatable. This is especially true of persons. Understanding this helps us deal with reality. But the mindset of our modern world suggests in a very seductive manner that things are quite different. It suggests that all things are indeed equal and that […]
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Modernity, Mother of God, Reflections, Saints, Saints and Tradition
May 25, 2016

A Bunch of Stuff We Don’t Know

Reading discussions about life after death, it is easy to get the impression that people actually know what they’re talking about, that perhaps they have been there, seen what goes on and therefore authoritatively opine on the nature of things. But, the truth is that we mostly don’t know. We have a few things given […]
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Knowledge of God, Last Things, Pascha, Reflections, Tradition
May 21, 2016

Prayers for the Dead

The Orthodox pray for the departed. The most pressing prayer within the liturgies appointed for this purpose is for God to forgive their sins. We say, “For no one lives and does not sin, for You only are without sin….” This is easily misunderstood, but it goes to the very heart of the mystery of […]
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Communion, Last Things, Modernity, Reflections, Saints, Union with God
May 18, 2016

Learning Like a Saint

The preparation for Baptism in the early Church often lasted as long as three years. Of deep significance is the fact that during that three-year period, many basic doctrines were not explored. The “mystagogical catechesis” (instruction in the sacramental mysteries of the Church) did not begin until after Baptism. What, we may wonder, were they […]
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Conversion, Knowledge of God, Modernity, Mystical Theology, Reflections
May 12, 2016

A Festival of Celtic Orthodoxy

My parish is having its first festival this Saturday (May 14). It was decided that since it fell on St. Brendan’s Day, we would make the festival a celebration of Celtic Christianity. It has given the parish an opportunity to study and think about the wonderful Orthodox history of the British Isles and to think […]
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Culture, Orthodox Christianity, Reflections, Saints

Dee, I’m sorry that my comment (which seems trivial) appears right after yours…. When I wrote, your comment wasn’t yet…

Dear Father thank you for your words and prayers.

Dee, I can think of few things more evil than the intent to crush the ability to love. It is…

Echoing the words of Fr. Thomas Hopko, (whose the two excerpts are very relevant), “I believe we have only one…

Please forgive me, Father, for making so many comments this morning. Given the situation I’ve been in lately, it seems…