Faith Encouraged
The Time is Fulfilled
·
The American astronaut Buzz Aldrin once said “Timing has always been a key element in my life. I have been blessed to have been in the right place at the right time.” And, of course, this reminds me of the old saying in comedy, “Timing is everything.” It really is amazing when all the elements of time, opportunity, ability, and circumstances all mix together to create just the right environment for things to happen! Frankly, I could…
The Morning Offering
Miracles of Light
·
We can never be sure what is or is not a misfortune until it all plays out Our power went out during a major wind storm at 1:20 am Sunday morning, and was off until the Little Entrance of the Nativity Liturgy. After exactly 33 hours (like the 33 years of Our Lord’s ministry on earth), the lights came back…
Growing the Church
2. Management/Administration: 3. Finances
·
In this post will address that part of the Church’s finances which involves monies donated. At this point I am not concerned with questions of accounting or the outlay of funds. In the past we have referred to this inward flow of resources as stewardship, tithes, or offerings.[1]Traditionally these gifts were brought to the Church and physically offered during a divine service as an act of worship. Today, however, the direct link…
Faith Encouraged
Baptized into His Death
·
We are a death-denying culture. In the US, the Funeral business is a $20 Billion industry employing over 13,000 people nationwide! And, in 2016 we crossed that line where over half of the American’s who passed away choose cremation over a burial. If we don’t choose cremation, we apply technics to the body to make it look less like a corpse. While all of this may seem to be honoring, and to…
The Morning Offering
Authentic Faith
·
The Church must proclaim the Good News in all humility and love If she be true to herself, the Church acts with an authority that is grounded in love. She holds within her realm the authority to make her people the children of God. She has the authority to forgive, and the capacity to love. And just as her Head,…
Faith Encouraged
Don’t Settle for Half!
·
It was frustrating not having the whole story. It felt like I was on a bridge that was only half finished. No matter how hard you try you’re never going to cross a bridge half built. And yet we all too often make final decisions about small and big issues in our lives without the “whole story” and when this happens we often discover we’re at a dead end! Look at our…
The Morning Offering
The Nativity
·
The condescension of God and the deification of man Those of us who observe the Julian Calendar have now completed the Nativity Fast, where we have abstained from meat, eggs, dairy products, anger, envy and other habits, for the sake of promoting the discipline the soul. We are now joining hundreds of millions of Orthodox Christians around the world, in…
The Morning Offering
The River of Fire
·
An all-consuming fire and an illuminating light Upon Christ’s Second Coming, everyone who has ever lived will see Him in His uncreated light, forever. For “those who worked good deeds in their lifetime will go towards the resurrection of life, while those who worked evil in their lifetime will go towards the resurrection of judgment (John.5:29)”. All will be separated…
No Other Foundation
The Marks of the Church: the Church as One
·
Every Sunday we confess in the Creed that the Church is “one”—i.e. we confess the unity of the Church of God. But what does this creedal confession mean? In what sense is the Church one? It cannot mean that the one church is made up of all the various different Christian denominations, for when these words of the Creed were written these different denominations did not exist. Rather, the Creed is here…
Glory to God for All Things
Theophany - Showing the World to be the World
·
I was standing beside the Jordan River, somewhere along its trek through Israel. I was with a group of pilgrims led by Met. Kallistos Ware gathered for the Great Blessing of the Waters. Somehow, it seemed that I was the only priest who had brought an epitrachelion (stole), so I loaned it to the Metropolitan for the service. As the service began, I noticed a school of fish at the edge of…
Time Eternal
"When You, O Lord, Were Baptized…" (Guest Post)
·
Christ is (almost) baptized! The new year is always an exciting time, temporally speaking, all the more so as we approach the Feast of Theophany. The Time Eternal Blogathon has more or less come to a close. Before we conclude, however, I’m sharing a guest post from one of the most loveable (and teasable) priests I know, Fr.…
The Morning Offering
Arrogance
·
Arrogance produces disobedience It does not matter how many books we read, or acts of charity we perform, if our pride leaves no room for the grace that comes from the Holy Spirit. Our arrogance can produce only destructive disobedience, while humility produces obedience, and leads to the salvation of our souls. The Lord instructed us to, “Learn from me,…
Father Bill's Blog
100. The Seven Deadly Sins #4: Anger, Part One
·
Previous posts on the Deadly Sins are #85, #86, #93, #94. Anger is defined in our Antiochian Pocket Prayer Book as “unworthy irritation and lack of self control”. Some Examples of Anger 1 My family and I were driving on a road west of Cedarburg, speed limit 40 and I was going 45, when this guy rushed up behind and started tailgating us. I mean, close, right on my bumper. This went…
Faith Encouraged
An Unexamined Life
·
Christ is Born! Socrates sees the wisdom in living a wakeful life when he says “ὁ δὲ ἀνεξέταστος βίος οὐ βιωτὸς ἀνθρώπῳ – The unexamining life is not worth living for a human being.” Notice the continual action implied in the original. This wisdom, planted in we humans by our loving Creator, is simply obvious but continually difficult. Our experiences, relationships, choices, priorities, and beliefs are shaped by and are shaping others all…
The Morning Offering
Church Etiquette
·
Proper etiquette upon entering an Orthodox temple From ancient times, the traditional posture for prayer and worship in the Orthodox Church has been to stand. Traditionally Orthodox churches have no pews, but do provide chairs or benches on the side walls reserved for the elderly and infirm. When worshiping in churches with pews, we need know it is fully acceptable…
Faith Encouraged
To Make the Invisible Visible!
·
Christ is born! “To Make the Invisible Visible.” These were the words of a catechist to a catechumen when he was asked why would God become a man? The Christian Faith is unique among all world religions in this mystery of God in the Flesh. Oh, to be sure some religions have gods they can see, and other religions insist their god can never be seen, even going so far as to…
The Morning Offering
The Sabbath Day
·
The Orthodox view of the Sabbath Day The Orthodox Church does not see an obligation for her people to follow the Saturday Sabbath. Just as her faithful are not obligated to follow the Old Testament dietary restrictions, upon which our Jewish friends hold to Kosher laws, or the required practice of circumcision as a sign of our covenant with God,…
The Whole Counsel Blog
Theophany and River Gods
·
The Orthodox Church has always taught that the background against which the scriptures and scriptural events are rightly understood is preserved within Holy Tradition. Holy Tradition is the life of the Holy Spirit within the church, but how precisely this functions is often misunderstood. Sometimes it is thought to be some sort of secret additional knowledge, beyond the scriptures or the public proclamation of the church passed down orally. This sort of idea, however, is roundly condemned by the Fathers in their contest against Gnosticism. What separates Christianity from Gnosticism, they argue, is that Christianity has always publicly proclaimed the same faith delivered once and for all to the saints. A prime example of how tradition ‘works’ can be seen…
Glory to God for All Things
Fixing Jesus
·
In C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce, a ghostly theologian has found himself at the very edge of heaven, having taken a bus from hell. He is invited to remain, though doing so will require that he leave behind the imaginary world of the unreal (hell), and take on the difficult task of being truly what he was created to be. The conversation has an interesting moment when he describes his latest project:…
Faith Encouraged
In the Days of His Flesh
·
Christ is born! “But why does it matter?” With that question, I was stumped. I thought I had a pretty good grasp of the subject we were discussing and had made some strong points as to why I was right about this. Then came that question: “But why does it matter?” And a very good question it is. I remember speaking to a group of young seminarians about the importance of Preaching…
The Morning Offering
The Orthodox Church
·
The Ancient Christian Church in the modern world We are part of the worldwide Orthodox Church – the oldest Christian Church in the world. This is not a theological statement, it is an historical one. In every part of the world there are Orthodox churches, missions, and monasteries. They are found in traditionally Orthodox countries such as Russia, Greece, Romania,…
Faith Encouraged
The LawGiver Obeys the Law!
·
“Do as I say, not as I do!” I remember thinking “Well, that’s not very convincing.” How can someone who refuses to follow their own advice have any credibility at all? My mom drove that point home to me as I watched her follow her convictions when it would have been temporarily easier for her to “bend” her convictions to bring her some temporary comfort. She just pressed ahead with what she…
The Morning Offering
A New Year
·
And a new beginning Today we celebrate the beginning of 2019, a New Year, and with it a chance to recommit ourselves to working harder at making changes in our lives that will lead to spiritual growth. The Lord’s patience never runs out, so we always have the invitation to renew our commitment to Him. The New Year is that…
Glory to God for All Things
Hiding in Plain Sight
·
In the time of their visitation they will shine forth, and will run like sparks through the stubble. (Wisdom 3:7 RSV) ____ The story is told of St. Macarius that he was falsely accused of fathering a child by a young woman in the village. After being beaten and humiliated by the people there, he returned to his cell and gathered all of the mats and baskets he had made and gave…
Faith Encouraged
What Belongs to Caesar
·
NASA recently released the largest picture ever taken. It’s made up of 411 snapshots from the Hubble telescope of our nearest neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy. The picture is 1.5 billion pixels and takes 4.3 gigs of disk space to load. It’s big. But as large as the picture is, the scene it shows is even more incredible. It shows over 100 million stars and peers 40,000 light years away from us. Breathtaking! Fascinating…
The Morning Offering
Rekindling the Missionary Mind
·
We Orthodox are Duty Bound to Share the Faith As we usher in a new year, we Orthodox Christians are duty bound to share our faith with others. Christ is for everyone, but with all the bad press Christianity has been getting during the past decade, it is especially important that we approach evangelism in light of the historic Church.…
Eastern Christian Insights
Joseph the Betrothed, a Model of Obedience: Homily for the After-Feast of & Sunday After the Nativity of Christ in the Orthodox Church
·
Galatians 1:11-19; Matthew 2:13-23 Christ is Born! Glorify Him! As we continue to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ for the salvation of the world, we should acknowledge that we are probably so familiar with the Christmas story that we often imagine it happened in a world quite different from our own. We tend to make His Nativity a sentimental event that we celebrate yearly with various cultural customs before going back…
