Glory to God for All Things
On Loving Your Enemy
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From Fr. Sophrony: However wise, learned, noble a man may be, if he does not love his enemies – that is, love his every fellow-being – he has not attained to God. Contrariwise, however simple, poor and ignorant a man may be, if he carries this love in his heart, then ‘he dwelleth in God and God in him.’ A question was recently raised in our conversations about what exactly constitutes an…
Glory to God for All Things
Back Home (sort of)
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I have spent the day traveling down to South Carolina for a short family visit, and to connect with one of my daughters to help her in buying a car (just the joys of being a parent). My last couple of posts have been dealing with our relationship to place – in settings such as Church or home (or city). There are larger spaces, such as being in your home state, or…
Glory to God for All Things
Reading the Readers
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I like to buy books at a bargain – when I can and if I can. These days, books often come at a bargain with Amazon’s listing of used books. Occasionally the prices are almost irresistable (especially for a book lover). What has become of occasional interest to me can only happen with a used book. The ad reads, “some writing in the margins.” I can hardly resist. There is the book…
Glory to God for All Things
The Shape of Heaven
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I am feeling my way forward with this post – that is to say – I have some thoughts that are probably still in formation – so bear with me. That human beings have a particular relationship with icons is, to me, part of the dogma of the Church. It is not an expressed dogma – the Seventh Ecumenical Council made its defense of icons dependent on the right understanding of the…
Glory to God for All Things
Small Things, Great Hopes
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On the surface it was not a world-shaking event. A friend of the parish loaned me a DVD last week. The DVD was a Russian DVD – with English subtitles. Again, not a world-shaking event. Thus, let me take a few minutes to explain why I felt the earth move. The movie in question is The Island, or Ostrov, to call it by its Russian name. It has won a number of…
Glory to God for All Things
Putting Things Back Together
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One of the most striking features of the day of Pentecost, in the Scriptural account, is the emphasis on diversity. The mission to the Gentiles is a major theme in Luke’s writings (which includes Acts) and thus Pentecost has great importance for him. The disciples gathered in an upper room as they had so many times before in the preceding weeks. But now the promise they had been given was fulfilled – the…
Glory to God for All Things
On the Feast of Pentecost
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O Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, Who art everywhere and fillest all things; Treasury of Blessings, and Giver of Life – come and abide in us, and cleanse us from every impurity, and save our souls, O Good One. On this day (Sunday) the Orthodox Church marks 50 days after the feast of Pascha and commemorates the gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church as recorded in the…
Glory to God for All Things
That the Gospel Should be Shared in Love - St. Silouan
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The following is another excerpt from Father Sophrony’s Saint Silouan of the Athonite. Father Silouan’s attitude towards those who differed from him was characterized by a sincere desire to see what was good in them, and not to offend them in anything they held sacred. He always remained himself; he was utterly convinced that ‘salvation lies in Christ-like humility’, and by virtue of this humility he strove with his whole soul to…
Glory to God for All Things
Back to Metaphors
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Suppose you have the occasion to sit with someone, an interested party, and explain to them the Christian faith. How do you tell the story? When I was in college we had groups who shared the 4 Spiritual Laws – a version of a Christian story, but not the one I would tell. We do not think long and hard enough about the imagery and language that we use. Frequently, our religious…
Glory to God for All Things
If You Would Celebrate Pentecost - Love Your Enemies
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From the Elder Sophrony’s St. Silouan the Athonite. This commandment of Christ’s, ‘Love your enemies,’ is the reflection in our world of the Triune God’s all-perfect love, and constitutes the corner-stone of our whole teaching. It is the ultimate synthesis of all our theology. It is the ‘power from on high’ and the ‘abundance of life’ that Christ gave us. It is the ‘baptism of the Holy Ghost, and with fire’ that…
Glory to God for All Things
Humility and Love
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The following is from the Afterword of Father Sophrony’s Saint Silouan the Athonite. If we cast our thoughts back over the bimillenary history of Christianity we are dazzled by the enormous wealth of Christian culture. Vast libraries full of the grandiose works of the human mind and spirit – innumerable academies, universities, institutes, where hundreds of thousands of young people drink thirstily of the living waters of wisdom. Tens of thousands of…
Glory to God for All Things
Flattery and a Secret Plot by the Kremlin
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All flattery, my friends, as Josef Pieper well taught us, is a form of manipulation. Mass flattery manipulates the soul of a culture. It drags a nation to hell. A quote from Ochlophobist‘s May 19 posting. The thought is worth slow contemplation. I am reminded of a tee-shirt (admittedly too cute) with the picture of a kitten in a basket. The caption on the shirt reads: “Where are we going? Why are…
Glory to God for All Things
I Really Wasn't Kidding - There's Another Gospel Out There
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I generally enjoy our comments and also following the links when others share some portion of Glory to God for All Things with others. Last week I posted on the necessity for the whole gospel – that is – the gospel received by the Apostles and taught to the Church. I noted that in many areas of modern Christianity, very essential elements of that gospel are in danger. I was struck when…
Glory to God for All Things
Learning to Wait
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I have never done a search to see how many times the word for “patience” is used in the New Testament – but my general impression is that it is a lot. Patience is not only a virtue, it is utterly necessary to our life in Christ. I can recall having almost no patience at all as a young man. At age nineteen I was sure that the Second Coming could be…
Glory to God for All Things
Keeping the End of Things in its Place - and a Little Bob Dylan
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I started to entitle this, “Keeping Eschatology in its Place,” but then I remembered that I should eschew obfuscation. 🙂 But the doctrine of the Last Things, generally referred to as “Eschatology,” is deeply important for our lives as Christians – primarily because our faith is an eschatological faith. There it is in the Creed, “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead…” Like the incarnation, crucifixion,…
Glory to God for All Things
All the Fullness of Christ
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When you read this you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; that is, how the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Of this gospel I was made…
Glory to God for All Things
How Much Is Too Little? How Much Is Enough?
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One of the most pervasive rules in Christian believing is the Latin phrase, “Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi,” usually rendered, “The Law of Praying is the Law of Believing.” It is a simple way of saying both that we believe what we pray (praying will inevitably bring about a conformity in believing), and that if something is to be preserved it must become part of the liturgical life. Time and history have largely…
Glory to God for All Things
Ships and Saints and All the Company of Heaven
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I offered a quote from Charles Taylor in a previous posting – as a small reminder I offer it again. One of the central points common to all Reformers was their rejection of mediation. The mediaeval church as they understood it, a corporate body in which some, more dedicated, members could win merit and salvation for others who were less so, was anathema to them. There could be no such thing as…
Glory to God for All Things
Falwell's Death - the Passing of an Era?
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When I was fresh out of seminary, the year was 1980, an election year. I was a newly ordained Episcopal Deacon, serving in a parish with a priest who told me on the first day, “I do not pray.” That same summer I began to get mailings from something called the “Moral Majority.” Those of you who are younger than I will not remember a time when American politics were less polarized…
Glory to God for All Things
The Ship of Salvation
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One of the central points common to all Reformers was their rejection of mediation. The mediaeval church as they understood it, a corporate body in which some, more dedicated, members could win merit and salvation for others who were less so, was anathema to them. There could be no such thing as more devoted or less devoted Christians: the personal commitment must be total or it was worthless…. for Protestantism there can…
Glory to God for All Things
Living Large and Love
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It is common to both the writings of Dostoevsky [particularly in the Brothers Karamazov] and in the teachings of the Elder Sophrony and St. Silouan, that each man must see and understand himself to be responsible for the sins of all. This can be a statement that troubles some – as if doing this were a mere spiritual game – or a violation of others’ responsibility. It is, in fact, a profound…
Glory to God for All Things
Truth and the Icon
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Icons are very peculiar things as art goes. Those who do not understand them often find their “flat,” and almost “stylized” presentation of human beings and events rather stitled or off-putting. The non-Orthodox, I believe, realize that there’s more to an icon than meets the eye, but are not sure where to begin or how to frame the question. Not all Orthodox know the correct answers. We have many visitors to St.…
Glory to God for All Things
From A Spiritual Psalter
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St. Theophan the Recluse collected excerpts from the works of St. Epraim the Syrian and arranged them as 150 “Psalms”. the following is Psalm 11. I Can Control Neither Myself nor the Enemy. Help Me, O Lord! No one can heal my disease except He Who knows the depths of the heart. How many times have I set boundaries for myself and built walls between myself and sin! But my thoughts transgressed the…
Glory to God for All Things
Scripture and Tradition - Fr. John Behr
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The following is excerpted from Fr. John Behr’s lecture on the Orthodox Faith, delivered in 1998 at the University of North Carolina. A link to the full text is given at the end of the article. Fr. John is now Dean of St. Vladimir’s Theological Seminary. Rather than talking about the historical or external aspects of the Churches who have identified themselves as Orthodox, “Orthodoxy” in the first sense of the term, it is primarily…
Glory to God for All Things
Frederica Mathewes-Green on Autism
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Glory to God for All Things
See Paradise
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This June I will be joined by Fr. Justin Mathews and his family here in my ministry at St. Anne Orthodox Church. Among other things, he is a contemporary Christian musician with some excellent work. I have a feeling that I’m going to know much more about contemporary Christian Orthodox musicians in the near future. I offer one of his songs here for your edification and ask you to remember him and…
Glory to God for All Things
The Problem of Goodness
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From my first class in Philosophy 101 in college, the so-called “Problem of Evil” has been tossed up as the “clincher” in arguments against the existence of God. How can a good God allow innocent people to suffer? The most devastating case ever made on the subject was in Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov. Ivan Karamazov, in the chapter entitled “Rebellion,” which is the chapter preceding the famous “Grand Inquisitor,” makes the details of…
