Glory to God for All Things
Take, Eat
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The simple words of Christ to His disciples at the Last Supper were profound on many levels: the commandment was short and straight-forward; it reversed an ancient prohibition; it set the primary manner for human beings to receive grace and thus teaches us much about how it is we receive grace in a normative manner (and were always meant to). The Orthodox are somewhat fond of quoting this simple commandment, only if…
Glory to God for All Things
For the Sake of Envy
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In the Praises for Matins of Holy Wednesday, we read: Oh, the wretchedness of Judas! He saw the harlot kiss the footsteps of Christ, but deceitfully he contemplated the kiss of betrayal. She loosed her hair while he bound himself with wrath. He offered the stench of wickedness instead of myrrh, for envy cannot distinguish value. Oh, the wretchedness of Judas! Deliver our souls from this, O God. We are also told…
Glory to God for All Things
Riding on a Donkey
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As far back as Genesis, in the prophecy of Jacob over his sons, we hear the association of the Messiah with a donkey: Judah, you are he whom your brothers shall praise; Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; Your father’s children shall bow down before you. Judah is a lion’s whelp; From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He bows down, he lies down…
Glory to God for All Things
In the Tomb of Lazarus
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Largely ignored by much of Christendom, the Orthodox today celebrate “Lazarus Saturday” in something of a prequel to next weekend’s Pascha. It is, indeed a little Pascha just before the greater one. And this, of course, was arranged by Christ Himself, who raised His friend Lazarus from the dead as something of a last action before entering Jerusalem and beginning His slow ascent to Golgotha through the days of next week (Orthodox…
Frederica
Hannah Montana: The Movie
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Glory to God for All Things
From Friday to Friday
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Orthodox and Western calendars rarely coincide on the question of the date of Pascha (Easter). They work with different numbers and come up with different answers. Thus it is that the common pattern obtains this year: Pascha one week apart. It is possible as an Orthodox Christian to ignore the world around you and pretend that the majority of Christians are not marking Good Friday today or that their Easter will come…
Glory to God for All Things
It Is But a Small Thing
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I have noticed in my daily struggle that most of the things that are of importance turn on very “small things.” The decisions that set me on the course of prayer or kindness are made not with fanfare or even large efforts, but on a moment’s turn. By the same token, the decisions that set me on a course of sin are often so small that I can hardly notice that…
Glory to God for All Things
Where He Leads
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The journey to Pascha is nearly complete. This weekend the Orthodox celebrate Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday, marking the beginning of Holy Week. I sat in the tomb of Lazarus last year, located in Bethany. It is not a very long journey from there to Jerusalem. Perhaps one of the most striking features of Holy Week and Jerusalem is simply how small everything is. All the events that mark that make up…
Glory to God for All Things
Living Knowledge of God
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From Fr. Nicholas Sakharov’s I Love Therefore I Am… As far as spiritual knowledge is concered, it has a unique basis: “Our knowledge is a result of the revelation from above.” Spiritual knoweldge is understood as “con-joined existence,” or “co-existence” (sobytie), as “uniting fusion” (spaika) of very being. In Felicite, Fr. Sophrony writes: “Knowledge is conceived as communion in being.” Scientific “knowledge” rests on the resources of human rational thinking, while “authentic”…
Glory to God for All Things
To Remember God
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Abba Macarius said, “If we remember the evil that others have done to us, we shut down our ability to remember God.” There are many ways to misunderstand the Christian faith – certainly far more ways to get it wrong than to get it right. One of the deepest misunderstandings of our culture is the popular concept of Christian morality. The history of this is its own complex story – how Christians…
Glory to God for All Things
Worth the Time to Think It Through
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There are many things written in theology that are difficult to understand. Certain writers, certain realities are difficult if not impossible to grasp with reason alone. I can recall spending several days with a single sentence from Met. John Zizioulas’ Being As Communion. However, after several days, “the coin dropped,” as the saying goes, and it started a chain reaction that changed my life. Three days well spent. I am offering here…
Glory to God for All Things
My Heart Is Heavy
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I received official notice this afternoon that the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America officially accepted the retirement request of Archbishop Dmitri of Dallas and the South, my diocesan bishop. The heaviness of my heart is made lighter by the fact that His Beatitude Jonah, Metropolitan of the OCA will become Locum Tenens, taking care of the needs of our diocese as we look for a new bishop.…
Glory to God for All Things
At the Center of Everything - the Cross
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Fr. John Behr, in his book, The Mystery of Christ, takes a very close look at the earliest centuries of the Christian faith, and at the very heart of Orthodoxy itself which is to be found there. In particular he speaks with great clarity about the “rule of faith,” certainly known to all of the Apostles and to the Apostolic Church. If placed in words it sounds much like the Apostles’ Creed (which…
Glory to God for All Things
In the Beginning
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The previous post, a substantial quote from the work of Archimandrite Zacharias, a disciple of the Elder Sophrony, carries the reader back to the “Big Bang” or something to which it is compared. Beginnings are always interesting things – with even greater significance if seen in a proper theological light. The Christian understanding of beginnings differs little if at all from its understanding of endings. Christ Himself is said to be the…
Praying in the Rain
Prophetic Ministry
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I have been thinking lately about the prophetic ministry. Particularly, I have been thinking about how this ministry is manifest in the Church. Coming from a Pentecostal background, I have a lot of experience in what the prophetic ministry is not. Prophetic ministry does not include utterances in King James English or ecstatic proclamations preceded by “Thus sayeth the Lord.” Nor is prophetic ministry about prediction. Based on the example of the…
Glory to God for All Things
Humility and the Big Bang
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The following is an excerpt from Archimandrite Zacharias’ The Hidden Man of the Heart. As we draw closer to Pascha, my own heart is drawn towards that moment – the marriage supper of the Lamb. It is impossible to exhaust the subject of Pascha for within it is contained the whole of God’s plan for mankind. Here, Fr. Zacharias, working largely from the writings of the Elder Sophrony (his spiritual father) directs our attention…
Glory to God for All Things
The Incarnation: Cause of All Things Made, and Caused by None
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The title of this post is a chapter heading in George Gabriel’s Mary the Untrodden Portal of God. Gabriel occasionally strikes hard at the West and the book would perhaps be strengthened with a less combative approach to the differences of East and West in the faith (my own opinion), but I liked the book and found Gabriel addressing many things, well foot-noted, that are not found in many other places. I share…
Praying in the Rain
Hiding From God
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I got to go up to spend a night at the monastery this week, and while there, Br. Samuel shared the following with me. In the Septuagint version of Genesis Adam and Eve, after eating the forbidden fruit, hide “themselves within the tree in the middle of the garden from the presence of the Lord” (3:8). This tree in the middle of the garden is none other than the tree of the…
Glory to God for All Things
A Story of Repentance
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One of my favorite books comes from the last years of the Soviet Union. It is the story of Tatiana Goricheva, a member of the “intelligentsia” and a Soviet-era dissident. Her book, Talking About God Is Dangerous, offers fascinating insights into both a period of time and the period of a human soul’s conversion by grace. The little volume is out of print but can be found on the internet for as little…
Glory to God for All Things
Careful Devotion to Christ
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In writing about monasticism, I recently made mention of what I called “careful devotion to Christ.” In turn, a reader asked me to write further on “careful devotion.” In many ways the great problem of our age is the two-storey universe (which is make-believe) in which we live as religious people. We live in a secularized atmosphere, where “reality” means the hard stuff around us, but generally does not include what we…
Glory to God for All Things
Monasticism - What Is Possible
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In the 4th century, the great Bishop, Athanasius of Alexandria, wrote a biography on St. Antony of Egypt. St. Antony was among the first hermits. St. Athanasius was both a first rate theologian and an outstanding writer. For a time in which books were copied by hand, his small tome on St. Anthony became a “best-seller.” More than that, it set on fire the imagination of a generation of Romans (from all…
Glory to God for All Things
Southern Orthodoxy - Personal Reflections
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I am a native of the American South, born in a time when cotton still grew in the fields and Jim Crow laws made life hell for a black man. For all of its strange contradictions – the South truly was a Christ-haunted culture. When Martin Luther King, Jr., began his preaching and marching for justice – his message was pretty much Southern gospel. It was the religion of his message that…
Glory to God for All Things
Orthodoxy and the Christ-Haunted Culture of the South
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I continue my short series in honor of Vladyko DMITRI of the South. This wonderful talk was given by the priest, Paul Yerger, of Clinton Mississippi, a true gentleman. Archbishop DMITRI was deeply sensitive of the unique culture in parts of the South and of the proper role that Orthodox mission should play. His own Southern roots taught a generation of priest how to serve as missionaries with him. The piece follows…
Glory to God for All Things
Elder Sophrony and Appalachia
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Why are the consequences of Adam’s disobedience so disastrous? Why does spiritual life in Christ take, in this world, the tragic form of a hand-to-hand battle against death? Why is God’s creation linked to this negation, to death, to this struggle full of pain? Why must I struggle against things which kill me without having the strength for it? I do not understand. To the degree that Christ and the Holy Spirit…
Glory to God for All Things
Archbishop Dmitri and the Dignity of Man
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The attacks come from two different directions – and the object is the destruction of man. This, for me is a short summary of a consistent prophetic word I have heard from Archbishop DMITRI of Dallas for the past 15 years. The Archbishop is set to retire on March 31 of this year. With his retirement, one of the strongest voices for the dignity of man will be heard less often. For…
Glory to God for All Things
Archbishop DMITRI of Dallas Announces Retirement
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The first Orthodox bishop I ever met was Vladyko DMITRI of Dallas and the South. He was everything I had ever thought a bishop should be – faithful, dynamic, mission-minded, and with a heart of gold. He has been the Apostle to the South here in the United States, leading many men and women into the Church and establishing around 60 parishes during his tenure. He is the first Bishop the South…
Glory to God for All Things
Personhood and Love
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I have written several times recently about the understanding of personhood – particularly as found in the writings of St. Silouan and the Elder Sophrony. They push the envelope of our understanding to the edge and then beyond. For many their work is difficult to understand – both because of vocabularly and because what they are saying in their writngs is simply hard to grasp. And yet, what they have to say…