Praying in the Rain
When I Am Weak, Then I Am Strong
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St. Paul boasts to the Corinthians about all of his qualifications of pedigree, education, suffering and revelation so that they would know that he is as qualified as the “super apostles” who had been leading them astray. However, about all of his qualifications he says that they count as nothing. He doesn’t want people to relate to him based on his qualifications. He wants people to relate to him based on what they…
Glory to God for All Things
The End of Religion
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Christianity…is in a profound sense the end of all religion. In the Gospel story of the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus made this clear. “‘Sir,’ the woman said to him, ‘I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.’ Jesus saith unto her, ‘Woman, believe me, the our cometh, when ye shall neither…
Glory to God for All Things
Even If I Descend into Hell...
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Charles Williams, one of C.S. Lewis’ circle of friends, once wrote a book entitled, The Descent into Hell. In it he chronicles the slow inexorable damnation of a soul. Choices made or not made – a chronicle more of spiritual ennui than of willful rebellion – it is a very sobering read. There is an understanding of hell that goes far beyond the typical lake of fire and burning Gehenna. Those images,…
Praying in the Rain
Food, Sex and Humility
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In the Garden of Eden, Eve was tempted by food. The draw to the food, or the justification for the draw to this particular food, was intellectual, not biological. That is, she was not drawn to the forbidden food because she was hungry. Eve’s mind and the machinations of her mind (with the help of a serpentine friend) increased desire and justification to the point that she was overcome by desire. The…
Praying in the Rain
Politics and the Image of God
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“Never confuse the person, formed in the image of God, with the evil that is in him; because evil is but a chance misfortune, an illness, a devilish reverie. But the very essence of the person is the image of God, and this remains in him despite every disfigurement.” — St. John of Kronstadt It is often hard for us to believe that the person who hurts us, opposes us, takes from…
Glory to God for All Things
Servanthood and Freedom - A Word to Neurotic Christians
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Be both a servant, and free: a servant in that you are subject to God, but free in that you are not enslaved to anything – either to empty praise or to any of the passions. Release your soul from the bonds of sin; abide in liberty, for Christ has liberated you; acquire the freedom of the New World during this temporal life of yours. Do not be enslaved to love of…
Glory to God for All Things
Silent Sentinels
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On October 1, the Church will celebrate the feast of the Protection of the Mother of God. Icons of this feast portray the Mother of God extending her veil over the whole Church – a graphic presentation of her prayers and maternal love. A similar love and prayer belongs to the saints of heaven, who stand as “a great cloud of witnesses,” urging the Church forward and always surrounding us with their…
Praying in the Rain
Because I Carry You In My Heart
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To the Philippians, St. Paul says, “I thank God at the remembrance of you…being persuaded of this very thing, that the One who began a good work in you will bring it to perfection until the day of Christ Jesus.” Isn’t it wonderful: the good work that God has begun in us will be perfected, if not in this life, then in the next. My perfection in Christ (“perfection” in the…
Glory to God for All Things
The God Who Raised Jesus from the Dead
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Stanley Hauerwas (Duke University) has written a fine article on who God is – or the limits by which we know Him as Christians. I studied under Hauerwas when I was a grad student at Duke and have often found him clarifying on things that should be clear (but often are not). In the article he quotes the Lutheran Theologian Robert Jensen who is also an acquaintance and a theologian of substance.…
Glory to God for All Things
Mere Existence and the Age to Come
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C.S. Lewis, in his marvelous little book, The Great Divorce, uses the imagery of “solidity” versus “ghostliness” to make a distinction between those who have entered paradise, and those who have not. He clearly did not mean to set forth a metaphysical model or to suggest “how things are.” But the imagery is very apt and suggestive when we take a look at what it means for something or someone to exist.…
Praying in the Rain
Motivation
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[An e-mail exchange] Dear Fr. Michael, If you are looking for a blog topic, I’d love to hear you explore motivation within an orthodox understanding of existence. Education is locked in the intrinsic/extrinsic dichotomy (I think they’re two sides of the same coin and arise from an individualistic understanding of humans) and I have some of my own ideas, but you could help my thinking by sharing yours. Dear Educator, I…
Praying in the Rain
Love and Equality
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“The Lord wants us to love each other; this is the essence of freedom: love for God and for your neighbor. This is both freedom and equality. But in earthly titles there can be no equality; this is of no concern to the soul, however. Not everyone can be a king or a prince; not everyone can be a patriarch or an abbot, or a leader, but no matter what your title…
Praying in the Rain
Icons and Idols
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(From a letter to an inquirer) Probably to begin with, I suggest that you get some icons (if you haven’t already) and set up an icon corner or wall or space in your house where your family can say prayers together (and individually). Just one icon will do and it need not be an expensive hand-painted one. You can cut the icons out of the Orthodox Study Bible and put them on…
Praying in the Rain
Love Every Person
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Glory to God for All Things
Existence and Truth
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Fr. Sergius Bulgakov, as a young man who returned to the faith following a flirtation with Marxism, came to an understanding that the Christian faith is not to be understood as a moral structure, but as a matter of true existence. This distinction is deeply important in Orthodox understanding, and has been a hallmark of Orthodox teaching in the 20th and 21st century. Few matters of the faith draw out this distinction…
Praying in the Rain
Tolstoy and the Orthodox Church, Some Reflections
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One of the ways to understand Tolstoy’s relationship with the Orthodox Church is in the context of his search for certainty, certainty regarding truth. Tolstoy’s relationship with the Orthodox Church is paradoxical, that is, very Russian, quite Orthodox. In 1878 at the age of 50, Tolstoy was experiencing a kind of religious awakening during which he frequently attended the village Church wanting to absorb the spirituality of the people. However in the…
Praying in the Rain
Speaking in Tongues
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My internet connection has been down, so I’m late responding to Anonymous’ question about speaking in tongues. As many of you know, I was a Charismatic/Pentecostal Christian before I became Orthodox. I was a tongues speaker. After I became Orthodox, I found myself using (what we called) “prayer language” less and less–not because anyone told me not to pray in tongues. What I found was that the Jesus Prayer as a prayer…
Glory to God for All Things
Knowing What We Don't Know
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The New Testament, particularly in the writings of St. John (but in St. Paul’s works as well) say much about “knowing” God. In St. John’s Gospel Christ says, “And this is eternal life: that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent” (John 17:3). Thus, knowing God is equated with salvation itself. On the other hand, we speak of God as “incomprehensible and unknowable” (for…
Glory to God for All Things
The Cross and the Cosmos
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During this Afterfeast of the Holy Cross it seems worthwhile to continue with thoughts on the instrument of our salvation. In a short work, The Beginning of the Day, (I believe it was a special printing and is not generally available), Met. Kallistos Ware notes this about the Cross and its connection with the whole of creation: …[The] created order in its entirety participated in the Savior’s Passion: the earth shook, the…
Glory to God for All Things
The Tree Heals the Tree
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Readers of the New Testament are familiar with St. Paul’s description of Christ as the “Second Adam.” It is an example of the frequent Apostolic use of an allegoric reading of the Old Testament (I am using “allegory” in its broadest sense – including typology and other forms). Christ Himself had stated that He was the meaning of the Old Testament (John 5:39). Within the Gospels Christ identifies His own death and…
Praying in the Rain
The Virtues are the Christian Way
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St. Maximos the Confessor, in his forth century on love, verse 74, in the Philokalia (vol. 2) says that the biblical use of the word “way” is equivalent to the classical word “virtues” as it is used in patristic Christian teaching. The Greek of the Bible is called Koine Greek. It is a simplified form of Greek developed under Alexander the Great and his descendants in the third century BC so that…
Glory to God for All Things
The Cross of Christ
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The Mystery of our Salvation is contained within the Cross of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. And it is correct to say the “mystery of our salvation,” for what is contained there is more than a cosmic transaction (Christ pays for our sins): it is also the whole of our way of life. It is truly the mystery of our salvation. The extent of this mystery is hinted at in Christ’s…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Can you then think that you are still among men?
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For the priestly office is indeed discharged on earth, but it ranks among heavenly ordinances; and very naturally so: for neither man, nor angel, nor archangel, nor any other created power, but the Paraclete Himself, instituted this vocation, and persuaded men while still abiding in the flesh to represent the ministry of angels. Wherefore the consecrated priest ought to be as pure as if…
Praying in the Rain
On Interpreting the Interpreters of the Holy Fathers on Education
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I have not read most of what St. Gregory Palamas (or any Church Father for that matter) has written. I have read his homilies (at least those recently published in English by Mount Thabor Publishing), bits from the Philokalia, and about twenty years ago The Triads, published in the Classics of Western Spirituality series–of which I understood absolutely nothing. However, the great majority of what he has written I have not read.…
Glory to God for All Things
Something from Nothing and the Apostolic Hypothesis
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On September 8 the Orthodox Church celebrated the Nativity of the Mother of God. This is one of a number of feasts involving the life of the Virgin Mary, particularly during this time of the year. Many of the feasts mark events that are unfamiliar to many Christians, in that they are based on Tradition and have no direct account within the Scriptures. This would be especially troubling for some, if these…
Praying in the Rain
St. Maximus on Hoarding
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This morning I was reading St. Maximus the Confessor (“Four Centuries on Love” in volume two of the Philokalia) and I came across these verses. It is not so much because of need that gold has become an object of desire among men, as because of the power it gives most people to indulge in sensual pleasure. There are three things which produce love of material wealth: self-indulgence, self-esteem and lack of faith.…
Praying in the Rain
Education and Illumination
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Referring to St. Gregory Palamas, Metropolitan Hierotheos (in The Science of Spiritual Medicine: Orthodox Psychotherapy in Action) makes the following comment: Secular learning (philosophy) is not a spiritual gift, which someone can only acquire through study and reading. “Our divine wisdom,” however, is not a natural gift, but a gift bestowed by God on those who have purified their hearts. If this gift comes to fishermen, it makes them sons of thunder…
