Category: Communion

  • The Communion of Tradition

    That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life–the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and…

  • Mystical Theology and the Orthodox Faith

    A turning point in my life took place in an unremarkable manner. In my college years, my best friend approached me in the university library and thrust a book into my hand. “Steve, read this!” He said. The book was Vladimir Lossky’s Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church. The year was 1976. I did as…

  • 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…

  • To See Him Face to Face

      “The self resides in the face.” – Psychological Theorist, Sylvan Tompkins +++ There is a thread running throughout the Scriptures that can be described as a “theology of the face.” In the Old Testament we hear a frequent refrain of “before Thy face,” and similar expressions. There are prayers beseeching God not to “hide…

  • Do We Ever Get It Right?

    In the film, Ground Hog Day, actor Bill Murray awakens each morning to the same day – February 2 – and does the same things over and over. At first it’s fun. Then it’s maddening. Indeed, a whole string of days finds him committing suicide in an attempt to stop the repetition, only to awaken…

  • The Communion of Friends

    You meet someone and like them. You slowly get to know them. Conversation and sharing, listening and learning, a picture or a reality begin to emerge. You think about them when they’re away. You’re aware that you matter to them as well. The thought of anything hurting them is painful. This is friendship. We easily reduce…

  • The End of the Sacraments – The End of All Things

    The holidays bring a bit of my family together – for fun and conversation and the joy of a feast. The conversations, however, can serve as a reminder of what I don’t know. Two of my adult children are deep into the world of computers: one is a software engineer, the other a web-designer (among…

  • The Christmas When Everybody Was There

    The soldiers were scattered across Europe with the loneliness of war. The world was caught up in a total struggle. Women had gone to the factories; children were collecting scrap metal. The “war effort” was universal. In many places, food was rationed. The madhouse of consumption belonged only to the war; everything else could wait.…

  • The Heart’s True Home

      I remember the first time I saw the Robert Heinlein title, Stranger in a Strange Land. Very few phrases captured my inner sense of self in such a way. I was a teenager at the time – thus, a fair amount of my commonality with the title has to be chalked up to “teenage…

  • Broken Communion

    The holidays can make it all too poignant: the terrible fact of broken communion. Often, our festivities bring us into close contact with some (few or many) whom we most commonly avoid. An uncle, an aunt, a brother, a parent whose relationship is marked with pain, misunderstanding, shame, and various other torments. Statistics say that…


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