Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Lent and Priesthood #10: The Priesthood of Paradox
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Palm Sunday, April 9, 2017 Philippians 4:4-9; John 12:1-8 Very Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. Today is the tenth and final Sunday of our extended meditation on the priesthood, covering all the Sundays preparing us for Lent, all the Sundays of Lent proper, and now Palm…
Nearly Orthodox
Poetry and Liturgy and Holy Week
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“Poetry is when language attains a degree of opacity, and you can’t see right through it.” This quote came from my pal, Scott Cairns when I asked him to talk about the intersection of poetry and liturgy. I was fortunate to have gathered a small posse of smart Orthodox poet-types and ask them questions at the Festival of Faith and Writing in Grand Rapids . Much wisdom came forth from Scott, Gaelan…
With Lamps in Hand
A Hospitable Heart
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Last time, I shared with you a little about the virtue of hospitality and how the openness we can show others can be our invitation for Christ to enter. It was an appeal to our Martha side, an attempt to bring our busyness into humble service to God. Well, here’s the Mary side to hospitality. In much the same way in which we open our homes to those in need of love and comfort,…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Lent and Priesthood #9: The Priesthood of Purification
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Sunday of St. Mary of Egypt, April 2, 2017 Hebrews 9:11-14; Mark 10:32-45 Very Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. On this fifth Sunday of Great Lent, we celebrate the memory of the great St. Mary of Egypt, one of the most famous of all the ascetics…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Lent and Priesthood #8: The Priesthood of Hope
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Sunday of St. John of the Ladder, March 26, 2017 Hebrews 6:13-20; Mark 9:17-31 Very Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. Today is the eighth installment in our Lenten series on the priesthood, and we are also just three weeks away from Pascha. Today our focus comes…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Lent and Priesthood #7: The Priesthood of Sacrifice
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Sunday of the Adoration of the Holy Cross, March 19, 2017 Hebrews 4:14-5:6; Mark 8:34-9:1 Very Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. The Sunday of the Cross is one of the great high points of the holy season of Lent, and so it is appropriate that in…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Lent and Priesthood #6: The Priesthood of Union
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Sunday of St. Gregory Palamas, March 12, 2017 Hebrews 1:10-2:3; Mark 2:1-12 Very Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. It is probably one of our deepest fears that we will be left alone. It is part of what drives us to find love, get married and have…
With Lamps in Hand
Little Bits of Virtue: An Open Door and a Cup of Tea
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My husband likes to tell the story of one of the first times he visited a women’s monastery, and one of the nuns offered to make him and his friends something to eat. Politely, they declined. She offered again, and again they politely declined. Probably knowing that there was no way a group of college boys could possible not be hungry, the nun insisted saying, “Listen. I’m not a very good nun. I’m not…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Lent and Priesthood #5: The Priesthood of Reconnection
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Sunday of Orthodoxy, March 5, 2017 Hebrews 11:24-26, 32-40; John 1:43-51 Very Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. Today is the First Sunday of Lent, which is commonly called the Sunday of Orthodoxy or the Triumph of Orthodoxy. This “triumph” is dedicated to the historical event of…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Lent and Priesthood #4: The Priesthood of Forgiveness
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Sunday of Forgiveness, February 26, 2017 Romans 13:11-14:4; Matthew 6:14-21 Very Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. The Lord said: “If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive…
With Lamps in Hand
Open Wounds
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Well, hello, Lent. Our journey to the resurrection has begun. We’ve asked for the doors of repentance to open to us and are once again intensifying our focus on trusting in the Lord and not on our own strength. It’s not easy work, dear ones. Especially if you’re like me, and you tend to run on your own steam and effort a lot of the time. In fact, our Lenten disciplines can be…
Nearly Orthodox
Notes On Parenting: Everything works for five minutes
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On the top shelf above my desk, I have a collection of framed photos of my husband’s family, my family, our family together. I see the curls Dave sported as a child echoed in my daughter’s hair when she was six. My own kid hair– straight as a poker– frames my middle son’s face in one photo. The pictures stacked one in front of the other so that when I look up…
Nearly Orthodox
Eating Clean (and the wisdom of cupcakes)
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This post has been re-written like twelve times so far. I’m wrestling with the post because all I can think about are cupcakes. True story. When I went to Panera Bread this week the sign on the door informed me that all of their ingredients were now “clean.” I thought to myself, “I hope they have cupcakes and I don’t care how ‘clean’ they are.” I do care, though, a little. If…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Lent and Priesthood #3: The Priesthood of the Last Judgment
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Sunday of the Last Judgment, February 19, 2017 1 Corinthians 8:8-9:2; Matthew 25:31-46 Very Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. We continue today with our ten-week series of meditations on the priesthood according to the themes of the Lenten Triodion, which includes these pre-Lenten weeks. Today’s theme…
Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy
Revised & Expanded O&H on Pre-Order + New Podcast in the Works
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Hello, blog readers and email list subscribers! I just wanted to give you a couple quick updates in case you hadn’t yet heard: — The revised, expanded edition of Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy: Finding the Way to Christ in a Complicated Religious Landscape is now available for pre-order. Wondering what’s new? Read all about that here. Click here to place your order and…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Lent and Priesthood #2: The Priesthood of Return
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Sunday of the Prodigal Son, February 12, 2017 2 Corinthians 6:12-20; Luke 15:11-32 Very Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. We continue on this second Sunday of the pre-Lenten period to discuss our theme for the next many weeks—the priesthood. And as we meditate on the priesthood…
Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy
Review of 'How Our Departed Ones Live' by Monk Mitrophan
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HOW OUR DEPARTED ONES LIVE: THE EXPERIENCE OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH. By Monk Mitrophan. Translated, Archpriest John R. Shaw. Jordanville: Holy Trinity Publications, 2015. 452 pps. ISBN-10: 088465401X The Wall Street Journal ran a headlining piece on March 31, 2011 entitled, “The Last Laugh,” that anecdotally reported on a sea change in the conduct of funerals in the United States in which “families…
Nearly Orthodox
Sustenance: On Eating
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an excerpt from Garden in the East: The Spiritual Life of the Body And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.” (Mark 14: 22) WHEN, IN THE GOSPEL OF MARK, the author tells us that Jesus took the bread, blessed and broke it, the word used for blessed in the Greek is eulogéo, literally translated…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Lent and Priesthood #1: The Priesthood of Humility
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Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee, February 5, 2016 2 Timothy 3:10-15; Luke 18:10-14 Very Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. In his famous work On the Priesthood, St. John Chrysostom says this about the priesthood: “For the priestly office is indeed discharged on earth, but…
Nearly Orthodox
Notes from the Road
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I’m not going to lie. Sometimes it’s difficult for me to be a writer whose work is predominantly “spiritual nonfiction” in this day and age. I aim for the beautiful, even in the ashes. I aim to write about the struggle in such a way that we manage to find the path back to the road, even so. I want to find the road. I think most of us do. We know…
With Lamps in Hand
Your Personality Is Not a Sin
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I just returned a few weeks ago from Orthodox Christian Fellowship‘s College Conference West where I serve as an advisor to the students there. Every year, there are always a few demons I find lurking around the conference disturbing these incredible young adults. This year, one that I heard and saw was Overbearing Guilt. This guy, like all the demons, tries to take something good and holy (that twinge in your heart that…
Nearly Orthodox
Love of the Beautiful
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“Lord Jesus Christ, my God, You have said, “Apart from me You can do nothing.” In faith I embrace Your words, Lord, and I entreat Your goodness. Help me to carry out the work I am about to begin, and to bring it to completion. To You I give glory, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.” -Orthodox prayer before beginning any task My hope for this new year is to finally finish…
Nearly Orthodox
Blank Walls, Deep Wells, Resolutions
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It’s not really blank, you know. There are variations in the paint, chips here and there, maybe a faded handprint, if I look real close. I might spend too much time looking at it real close, finding the variations, finding the handprint. I forget, in those times of looking close, that the wall isn’t the thing. I stare at that blank wall for a long time, thinking about how to fill it,…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
A Covenant in Flesh and Spirit
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Circumcision of Christ / Feast of St. Basil the Great, January 1, 2017 Colossians 2:8-12; Luke 2:20-21, 40-52 V. Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. Today is the eighth day from the Nativity, and on the eighth day from birth, newborn Jewish boys were circumcised. The Lord…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
A Christmas More Meaningful Than Magical
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Nativity of Christ, December 25, 2016 Galatians 4:4-7; Matthew 2:1-12 V. Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. Christ is born! Christmas can be magical. Many of us remember that when from when we were kids, and we try to recapture it as adults. And we often fail.…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Who Shall I Be at Christmas?
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Eve of the Nativity, December 24, 2016 Galatians 3:8-12; Luke 13:18-29 V. Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. Who shall I be at Christmas? Shall I be as old Israel, caught in captivity and under the domination of powers and attitudes and thoughts alien to the person…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
How Many Days is Orthodox Christmas?
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Well, Christmas is here (on the New Calendar, anyway), so we’re planning out how many days of ham we’re going to be eating, right? Or perhaps it’s several days of turkey leftovers. You’ve got to be able to cover every day of Christmas so that we’re not just singing Christmas but also eating it for the whole festal period. But we have a problem.…
