Glory to God for All Things
The Nature of Things and Our Salvation
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Reflecting on yesterday’s post, I thought it worthwhile to share these thoughts again on the nature of our salvation. It offers a short summary of the difference between a moral and an existential understanding of the Christian faith and why the difference matters. Indeed, as I look through my writings I know this is a recurring theme. It recurs because it is so fundamental to the Christian faith and is at the…
Glory to God for All Things
Just Showing Up and the Work of Grace
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There has been a tendency in much teaching about the notion of salvation by grace to ground the image in a legal or forensic metaphor. Thus, we are saved by grace in the sense that someone else’s goodwill and kindness (God’s) has now freed us from the consequences of our actions. Thus we speak of grace as the “free gift” of God. There is no denying that grace is a free gift…
Glory to God for All Things
The Grace of Repentance
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From Archimandrite Sophrony’s On Prayer There, on the Holy Mountain, my life found its right track. Almost every day after the Liturgy I knew a feeling of Easter joy.And strange as it may seem, my constant prayer like some volcanic eruption proceeded from the profound despair that ahd taken over my heart. Two seemingly totally incompatible states met together in me. I am recording facts. I did not understand myself what was happeing…
Glory to God for All Things
Death's Boundary
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Most of the Saturdays in Great Lent are “Soul Saturdays,” days when the Orthodox remember and pray for the departed. Thus my attention each week is drawn back to this great cloud of the departed who bear witness to Christ and draw my attention to Christ’s final victory over death. These are some thoughts from several years back on the topic. Having spent two-and-a-half years as a Hospice Chaplain, I had opportunity…
Glory to God for All Things
Knocking on Heaven's Door
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Try to think about the absence of God, and do realize that before you can knock at the door – and remember that it is not only at the door of the Kingdom understood in the general way, but that Christ really says ‘I am the door’ – before you knock at the door, you must realize that you are outside. If you spend your time imagining that in a mad way…
Praying in the Rain
The Feeling of Prayer
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The scripture tells us that the blood of Able cried out to God from the ground. St. Paul in Hebrews 12:24 tells us that the Blood of Jesus speaks better than the blood of Able. Following this same line, St. Gregroy Palamas says that when we fast the members of our body suffer and this very suffering is prayer: prayer that is added to our prayer. That is, fasting increases our prayer…
Praying in the Rain
St. Gregory Palamas on the Cross
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Such is the word of the cross. It was and is, therefore, a great and truly divine mystery…. On the face of it, anyone who lowers and humbles himself in all respects seems to be bringing dishonour on himself, anyone who flees carnal pleasures appears to be causing himself toil and grief, and anyone who gives away his possessions looks as though he is making himself poor. But by the power of…
Glory to God for All Things
The Centrality of 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
Publicans and Harlots and the Last Banquet
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This morning’s gospel was a familiar story: the calling of Levi to be a disciple. As He passed by, He saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, “Follow Me.” So he arose and followed Him. Now it happened, as He was dining in Levi’s house, that many tax collectors and sinners also sat together with Jesus and His disciples; for there were many, and…
Glory to God for All Things
The Systematic Theology of the Cross
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The following excerpt was sent by a dear friend and a frequent reader of the blog. It is taken from Richard Wurmbrand’s With God in Solitary Confinement. Wurmbrand, a Lutheran pastor who was imprisoned under the communists in Romania, always spoke well of the Orthodox whom he encountered in those places of confinement, and brings the insight that suffering for Christ often brings. I was deeply moved by this quote. +++ “I…
Glory to God for All Things
Redeeming the Time
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In Ephesians 5, St. Paul speaks about “redeeming the time” warning those whom he writes that the “days are evil.” It is a phrase that has always reminded me of Christ’s admonition: “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble” (Matt. 6:34). Both statements are among the most “down to earth” statements in Scripture. They speak to me…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Raising Humanity
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The following is an excerpt from the lecture on evangelism which I will be giving in Bethlehem this coming Sunday. This represents some of my first articulated thinking on localist themes with regard to evangelism. Another aspect to the question of location in evangelism is perhaps a bit less obvious, and that is the need for us to foster human community in the places…
Praying in the Rain
Salvation is of the Body: The Intercession of the Saints
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It is very difficult for many converts to Holy Orthodoxy to pray to the saints. For them, it seems, it is a matter of efficiency. They often think: “Why go through an intermediary when you can go straight to the top?” I call this sort of thinking a corporate model of heaven. In a corporation, intermediaries are often seen as obstacles keeping us from the decision makers at the top of the…
Glory to God for All Things
A Southern Lent
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One of the hallmarks of my generation in the South is that we never grew up without a great deal of attention to God. Whether it was the absolute assurance in the sermons of preachers who could say with some precision who was going where when they died, or even with assurance describe heaven, or the far more mundane mutterings of public figures giving lip-service to the God in Whom we believed.…
Glory to God for All Things
The Slow Work of Grace
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In the minds of many, grace is a legal concept – an expression of the kindness of God in the forgiveness of sins. As such, grace is instant and complete. This fits well within the legal conceptions of salvation. In the classical understanding of the Orthodox faith, salvation can indeed have a quality of “suddenness” – the thief on the Cross found paradise “in a single moment” according to the hymns of…
Praying in the Rain
Communicatio Idiomatum: Salvaton by Participation
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It is often bandied about by those who like to talk about theology, that while most Protestants understand Christ’s saving action to be that of substitutionary atonement (Christ took the punishment that I deserve), Orthodox Christians understand Christ’s saving action as the conquering of death. Most often, the writings of St. Irenaeus are used to support this contention. However, in reality Orthodox Christians are far too apophatic to let themselves be tied…
Praying in the Rain
Ortho-skates
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In order to compete in the Olympics, athletes must have the right equipment: you can’t complete in long track speed skating wearing skates designed for short track racing. Expert skaters may debate among themselves which slight variations of, for example, the ankle support are optimal, but when it comes to basic distinctions between long track and short track skates, there is no debate. The difference between the skates is obvious to anyone…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
New Podcast: Roads From Emmaus
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Glory to God for All Things
Restoring the Image of Christ
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Today marked the Sunday of Orthodoxy, a day on which the Orthodox celebrate the return of the images to the Church’s during the time of the Empress Theodora. It is also a day on which the Orthodox faith in its fullness is reaffirmed by the people and the clergy. This year I spoke at Holy Trinity Orthodox Church in Parma, Ohio, for the gathering sponsored by the Greater Cleveland Council of Orthodox…
Praying in the Rain
A Baptist to Emulate
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Yesterday I visited The Rose of Sharon Baptist Church and Christian School. Holy Nativity is looking for church property, and The Rose of Sharon has just begun a new building project on a nearby piece of property; so I called up Pastor Dave to see if they are interested in selling their old property. They are, so yesterday Bonnie and I found ourselves guided by Pastor Dave on a tour of the…
Glory to God for All Things
Just the Shell
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An entertainment personality, fresh from various surgeries (augmentations, alterations, etc.), recently opined in an interview, “But in the end, this is just a shell.” It was a very revealing cultural moment. The body is “just a shell” but worthy of tens of thousands of dollars to alter its appearance. It has been observed that modern man lives his life as a hedonist and dies like a Platonist. The hedonist believes that life…
Glory to God for All Things
The 15th Antiphon of Great and Holy Friday Matins Sung by Archbishop Job of the Midwest
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Glory to God for All Things
The Instinct of Repentance
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Repentance is a difficult journey in the modern world. Our psychologized culture has lost the language and the instinct of repentance. When such language and instinct last existed is itself a significant question. A large measure of the language of repentance is found in the word repentance itself. It is a Latin cognate (coming into English through the French). Rooted in the Latin word paenetentia, repentance has long held associations with crime…
Glory to God for All Things
The Great Fast
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Monday (tomorrow) marks the beginning of Great Lent in the Orthodox Church (which liturgically begins at Forgiveness Vespers on Sunday). Though Great Lent is kept with rigor in Orthodox Tradition, there is nothing unusual asked of believers – nothing that we do not do on many days throughout the rest of the year. We fast; we pray; we give alms; we attend services, etc. But we do these with greater intensity and…
Glory to God for All Things
A Sermon on Repentance (after St. John Chrysostom)
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This sermon was written by Fr. John Parker, Rector of Holy Ascension Orthodox Church in Mount Pleasant, SC. It is modeled on the well known and beloved Paschal homily of St. John Chrysostom.  It offers an interesting echo of the end of the Fast here at its beginning. A recording of Fr. Thomas Hopko reading the sermon can be heard and downloaded on Ancient Faith Radio. +++ If anyone be devout and…
Glory to God for All Things
The Journey to 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
By the Waters of Babylon
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A traditional hymn from the Lenten season. By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. Alleluia. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. Alleluia. For there they that had taken us captive required of us a song; and they that had carried us away required of us a hymn, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. Alleluia. How shall we…
