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Faith Encouraged
What Are We?
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There was a stunning article in the January 2013 issue of Boston Magazine. It was entitled “Losing Our Religion” and the article begins by telling the story of a mother and her 9-year-old son watching a procession of the faithful from the Greek Orthodox church across the street from their home on our Great and Holy Friday. It’s worth reading the whole thing, but I wanted to show you this part of…
Eastern Christian Insights
The Patient Obedience of Letting Down our Nets: Homily for the First Sunday of Luke in the Orthodox Church
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Luke 5:1-11            Many people today scroll quickly through the many options they have in choosing how to identify themselves and live their lives. It easier than ever before to try out all kinds of choices and to disregard those that we do not find immediately appealing or fulfilling. Not only has our society formed us as consumers who want our immediate preferences satisfied, the digital age has made it even easier to…
Faith Encouraged
A Small, Shallow, Inattentive Life - Sunday's Homily
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The paradox of the Orthodox message concerning the Holy Cross uniquely reveals the deepest weakness of we humans, our self-centered pride. The cure for this deep, human, sickness is the paradox of “if you want to save your life, you have to lose your life.” The Cross of Jesus undoes the slavery of arrogance and pride by killing the ego of human inattentiveness, and burying the old fallen man so that the…
Glory to God for All Things
What Happens When We Play (Pray)
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In my previous article I compared children’s use of play to the place of ritual words and actions in the life of the Church. I absolutely did not mean to imply that one thing is like the other. I mean to say clearly that they are very much the same thing. And I say this both to change how we understand play as well as how we understand ritual words and action.…
Faith Encouraged
A Special Message
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Dear Faith Encouraged Daily Family, Since late 2012, we have partnered with Ancient Faith Ministries to distribute the Daily Devotionals from Faith Encouraged. We started this Daily Devotional ministry to encourage our Orthodox Faithful to read and apply the Holy Scriptures to their everyday lives. Since then, thousands of folks have read and used these daily devotionals to be a part of their spiritual growth. Starting October 1st, Ancient Faith Ministries will…
A Lamp for Today
Light from the Psalter 6: Robed in Majesty!
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Psalm 92/3, Isaiah 6, Genesis 3, Isaiah 51:9, cf. Isaiah 27:1, Ezekiel 29:3, Psalm 88/9:10 Having entered into God’s holy presence in Great Vespers, by means of the Lamplight Songs, and the ancient Hymn, O Gladsome Light, we are given a vision of the LORD, robed in majesty. It is as though we are tracing the experience of the prophet Isaiah in the Temple, when he saw the LORD high and lifted…
Faith Encouraged
Do You Know Your Inheritance?
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The great American Founding Father, Patrick Henry said “This is all the inheritance I give to my dear family. The religion of Christ will give them one which will make them rich indeed.” Henry understood the relative uselessness of temporary material things and the true value of a spiritual inheritance that lasts forever. But the only way we ever really truly value our spiritual inheritance is by understanding what that inheritance is!…
The Word of the Day
The Disclosure of the Mystery of God’s Purpose (Friday, September 22)
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The word of the day is “mystery.”  In our reading of Ephesians 1:7-17 today, Paul lifts his eyes from his concerns for his churches, and he gazes into our hope in Christ.  The Apostle speaks of the “mystery of His [God the Father’s] will.”  It is the revelation of what God “purposed in Himself according to His good pleasure” (vs. 9). The Greek word for “mystery” is derived from the sense of stopping the mouth or being silenced. The term implies that a mystery is a secret that is being kept until the proper time.  Even then, it can only be disclosed by revelation and known by those whom the Spirit enlightens (Strong’s #3466 168).  The mind of the Almighty is inscrutable.  His judgments and “ways are…
Glory to God for All Things
Playing with God
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There are things that children understand instinctively. And the things that children know and understand are worth consideration. They have much to teach us. Among the most natural things children do is play. Depending on how you define play, it is among the first activities in which we engage. It comes to dominate the lives of children and is the hallmark of their existence. Play is what children do. It is quite…
Faith Encouraged
What Does "Holy" Mean?
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OK, so one of my favorite movies in the whole world is “Princess Bride” and one of my favorite scenes in the movie is when Vincent keeps using the word “inconceivable!” Finally, after so many times of hearing this word from Vincent, Inigo Montoya responds “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” The truth is words matter, and the meaning of words matters.…
The Word of the Day
Chosen in Christ Before the Foundation of the World (September 21)
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The word of the day is “chose.” Today we begin reading Paul’s letter to the Ephesians with Ephesians 1:1-9. Ephesus was the capital of the Roman province of Asia. It was the residence of the proconsul and the seat of the courts of justice for the whole region. According to tradition, Paul wrote to this vital center of ancient Christianity while imprisoned in Rome from 61-63 AD (OSB “Introduction to Ephesians”). At the mouth of its harbor stood one of the “Seven Wonders of the World,” the Temple of Artemis (the fertility goddess Diana) (OSB fn. Acts 19:27). Paul spent almost two and half years there, the longest he would stay in one place in his missionary journeys. In today’s…
Walking an Ancient Path
The Sanctity of the Human Body & the Church’s Stance on Cremation
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Quick announcement: Walking an Ancient Path is available in both blog and podcast formats. The blog has been hosted on the ancientfaith.com website for almost five years now, but Ancient Faith Ministries will shut down its entire blog platform on October 1st. I will continue the blog by migrating it over to a Facebook business page. I have a very short time to figure all that out, but I hope to have…
Faith Encouraged
Armored to Fight The Real Enemy
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I love this Armed Forces Motto: “The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in battle.” Isn’t that great? In other words, when you put the time into preparing for battle, you are more ready to face the fight. And what is true for physical fighting is also true for the spiritual battle each of us faces every day! What? You didn’t know this was going to be a fight…
The Word of the Day
A Word of Wisdom Used in Two Senses (Wed. Sept. 20)
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The word of the day is “bear.” Words must be understood in context. A single word can have different meanings depending on the situation in which it is used. Today in our reading of Galatians 6:2-10, St. Paul seems to contradict himself.  He writes, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (OSB vs. 2).  But then he writes, “For each will have to bear his own load” (OSB vs. 5). We learn from our study that these verses are not opposed to each other. They refer to different points that Paul is making. Bear One Another’s Burdens The first statement is that we should “bear each other’s burdens” (OSB vs. 2).  The word, “burdens” here refers to what is “heavy,”…
Faith Encouraged
Simple Or Easy But not Both
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“It is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones, after all.” So says the author of Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder. But life is so very often not simple. It’s complicated and difficult and filled with so many motivations all mixed together and hard to tease out the good from the bad. I was having a recent discussion with my daughter and we were talking…
The Word of the Day
Controlled Not By Law But By the Spirit (Tues. Sept. 19)
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The Word of the Day is “fulfill”’ as in to “fulfill desire.” In our reading of Galatians 5:11-21, St. Paul urges his flock to “Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh” (OSB Galatians 5:16).  Today we consider Paul’s warning not to use our freedom in Christ as a pretext for indulging in our sinful desires. Paul qualifies that Christian liberty does not mean license. His congregations in Galatia are being torn apart by bitter and hateful controversy. But it is not merely a theological argument over circumcision. Paul sees that the deeper problem is a misunderstanding of his teaching of believers’ liberty in Christ. A False Choice It seems that the Galatians are…
Glory to God for All Things
What Do We Need? Love Amidst the Clutter
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I’ve been slowly making my way through the book, An Empire of Things. It’s subtitle, How We Became a World of Consumers from the Fifteenth to the Twenty-first Centuries, describes the fascinating journey outlined in the text. It tracks the gradual evolution of the modern world as seen in our acquisition of stuff. The average citizen in the 1400’s would have been lucky to have a change of clothes and the barest…
No Other Foundation
Moses, the Wilderness Guide
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The difficulty in understanding the words and life of Moses is that we have a literary embarrassment of riches. There is almost too much material to absorb—or varying the image, the mountain is almost too big to bring within focus. How does one begin to understand such a towering figure? In an essay on Hamlet, C.S. Lewis attempted to deal with a similar literary dilemma, in that there were many discordant views…
Faith Encouraged
Christ Has Set Us Free
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I’ve never yet heard a politician boldly proclaim “Vote for me and I’ll take away your freedom!” They are always going on about “protecting democracy” “restoring your freedom” or “protecting your rights.” Even those politicians bought and paid for by special interests are desperate to tell you they aren’t bought and paid for by special interests! The older I get, the more comical in the classic sense this appears. But, to be…
The Word of the Day
Love Puts Faith to Work (Mon. Sept. 18)
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The word of the day is “work.”  A popular slogan is that we are justified “by faith alone.” But this familiar translation of Romans 3:28 adds the word “alone” to the Greek text.  Today in our reading of Galatians 4:28-5:10, Paul does not isolate faith. But he says, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love (OSB vs. 8).  Today we will consider how true faith does not exist by itself, but love makes faith “active,” that is, effective. When we separate faith from everything else, we make it into belief. It becomes the assent to the truth of something that cannot be proven by empirical evidence. The Book of James addresses this…
Eastern Christian Insights
Taking Up the Cross is Very Different from Trying to Use the Cross to Get What We Want: Homily for the Sunday after the Elevation of the Holy Cross in the Orthodox Church
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Galatians 2:16-20; Mark 8:34-9:1            As we continue to celebrate the Elevation of the Holy Cross, we must remain on guard against the temptation of viewing our Lord’s Cross as merely a religious artifact that reminds us of what happened long ago. Through His Self-Offering on the Cross, Christ has conquered death and brought salvation to the world. But in order for us to share personally in His fulfillment of the human…
The Word of the Day
The Cross: The Unconquerable Power of the Kingdom (Sat. Sept. 16)
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The word of the day is “cross.” What one thing in this world is the most desirable? The answer must be power, for when one has enough power, one can gain whatever else one desires. But what kind of power is most valuable? In today’s reading, Paul gives the answer. It is the power of the kingdom. He writes, “For the kingdom of God is not in word but in power” (OSB vs. 20). Today we learn what the power of the kingdom is. In our reading of 1 Corinthians 4:17-5:5, Paul warns his congregation in Corinth that he intends to visit them to deal with their disobedience. Some of them are puffed up with pride. They are boasting that Paul will not come to confront them.…
Faith Encouraged
As Sheep Among the Wolves
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Don’t kid yourself, the spiritual life is no cakewalk. And by that I mean there is a real struggle involved. To put it like our Orthodox Fathers said – it is war. But not the war we think of nowadays. No, this is a “war” with myself where I have to commit to a purposeful, attentive, struggle against the tug of my passions toward slavery to my desires. I have to “fight”…
The Word of the Day
Under the Law or Under Freedom (Fri. Sept. 15)
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The word of the day is “under.” At the end of our first reading (Galatians 4:8-21), Paul asks the pivotal question, “Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law?” (Gal 4:21). Today, we consider Paul’s teaching of what it means  to be under the Law or under freedom. In Paul’s day, the “Judaizers” had insisted that the Gentiles had to be circumcised to become “real” Christians. The great Jewish teacher Gamaliel had trained Paul, and the apostle knew that circumcision was the rite of binding one to the Law of Moses. So if the Gentiles were circumcised, they would be bound to keep the entire Jewish Law, its rituals, dietary restrictions, and division of clean and unclean, as…
Beyond the Bars
Read More at THEOCPM.ORG
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Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, While we are saddened to hear of the approaching end of the Ancient Faith Blog, we are excited to witness how Ancient Faith Ministries, an organization we have been grateful to be partnered with for years, is honing their skills and callings in service to Our Lord. If you have faithfully read Beyond the Bars on Ancient Faith–thank you! We hope our stories have connected with you and…
Faith Encouraged
If I Be Lifted Up
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The old saying is “There ain’t no way to put lipstick on a pig.” It meant that no matter how hard you try, you can’t make a horrible situation better by pretending it isn’t “all that bad.” It just doesn’t work. It’s like the awkward conversations with those who have had a family member pass. It seems all our words to “make everything OK” just sound shallow and even dismissive. It’s that…
The Word of the Day
Faith No Longer Needs the Law as a Schoolmaster (Thurs. Sept. 14)
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Blessed Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross! The word of the day is “tutor.” When we are new to the faith, we might suppose that we must put ourselves under some strict external disciplines to regulate our life in Christ. For example, Paul’s opponents demanded that the believing Gentiles still keep the constraints of the Law of Moses. But in today’s reading of Galatians 3:23-4:5, the apostle compares the Mosaic law to a “schoolmaster,” “guardian,” or “tutor”[1] who forces an undisciplined child to comply with his directives. The Law as a Tutor The apostle writes, “Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.  But after faith has come, we are no longer…