Glory to God for All Things
Concentration in Prayer
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Glory to God for All Things
A Single Moment and Paradise
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During Holy Week, one of my favorite hymns in the Church is the Wise Thief (the Exapostelarion of Holy Friday). It recalls the thief, crucified on Christ’s right hand, who repents and finds paradise “in a single moment.” It demonstrates the fullness of God’s love who would take the repentance of a single moment and transform it into life eternal. The Wise Thief didst Thou make worthy of Paradise, in a single…
Glory to God for All Things
He Ascended on High
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There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all. But grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it is said, “When he ascended on high he led a host…
Glory to God for All Things
I Don't Know Anything About That
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A Hermit advised, “If someone speaks to you about a controversy, do not argue with him. If what he says makes sense, say, ‘Yes.’ If his comments are misguided, say, ‘I don’t know anything about that.’ If you refuse to dispute with his ideas, your mind will be at peace. For years I knew a man who was a very wise Christian. For most of those years I failed to recognize the…
Glory to God for All Things
St. Nikolai Velimirovich - Prayers By the Lake
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Glory to God for All Things
The Unexplored Landscape
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Like the Kingdom of God itself, the landscape of the human heart (considered spiritually) remains largely unchartered territory and beyond the easy access of most people. Our culture uses the language of “heart” quite easily, but means by it something emotional, something psychological and not at all in the sense it is used in either Scripture or the Fathers. Such confusion between words can easily lead to someone thinking they know what…
Glory to God for All Things
The Praying Mind
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Glory to God for All Things
Spiritual Fatherhood
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I am the father of five children, four who are living and one who has gone to his rest. The oldest of my children is now 27, soon to be 28, and, by God’s grace, soon to give birth to my first grandchild. God is truly gracious. Closely related to this is the notion of spiritual fatherhood – the unique relationship a priest has to those who have been given to him…
Glory to God for All Things
Orthodox Serbian Monasteries in Kosovo
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This is a beautiful sharing from the heart of the earliest Serbian Orthodox homeland.
Glory to God for All Things
The Truth of Ourselves
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Abba Poemen believed that the only time you could observe a person’s true character was when that person was tempted. From the Sayings of the Desert Fathers There is obvious wisdom in the saying about Abba Poemen: it is not our strengths that best define us, but our weaknesses. In our culture, where virtual reality – both of the entertainment world and the political world – are defined by carefully managed personalities…
Glory to God for All Things
Nothing but the Whole Truth
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Because Christ Himself is the Truth, we cannot have any such thing as “partial” Truth. Something or someone can be close to the Truth or moving towards the Truth – but in a proper Christian sense – only Christ is the Truth and Christ is one. And thus within Orthodoxy it becomes problematic to speak of anything in isolation from everything else, for the Church is not the summary of its parts,…
Glory to God for All Things
Humility
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When someone asked a hermit to define humility, he answered, “Humility is when you forgive someone who has wronged you before he expresses regret.” I cannot think of how many times in my experience the subject of apologies has come up along with the subject of forgiveness. Of course when someone asks forgiveness we should forgive – indeed, it would seem that according to Christ’s commandments we sin if we refuse such…
Glory to God for All Things
Is a Relationship with God What We Want?
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An excellent question was raised in the comments of my previous post – the question being about the nature of relationship. It is commonplace in our modern parlance to speak of a “personal relationship” which is either redundant, or a way of weakening the true meaning of “personal.” I suspect that the modern meaning of “relationship” is in fact not capable of bearing the true weight of theological meaning and is simply…
Praying in the Rain
America Coming to Orthodoxy
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I got an e-mail today from a colleague in the world of Orthodox Christian publishing who commented that “America is not coming to Orthodoxy.” It was at once a statement of realism and apparent resignation. However, I do not think his observation is correct. If by “America coming to Orthodoxy” we mean a massive conversion on a popular level–revivalist fervor, tent meetings with icons, incense and golden chalices, along with the accompanying…
Glory to God for All Things
The Depths of the Personal
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I have written on modern distortions of “personal relationship” in which “private” relationship is one of its corrupted meanings. I have also noted that, properly understood, “personal” always carries a meaning of “corporate” as well. To be in personal relationship with Christ necessarily means that I am in relationship with His Body, the Church. There is a mutual sharing of life – my life becomes Christ’s – His life becomes mine –…
Glory to God for All Things
The Orthodox Church and Personal Salvation
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A priest friend sent me an article from Franklin Graham’s website, describing a revival in the Ukraine. Like others who have gone to Eastern Europe to preach the gospel, there is frequently a mistaken assessment of the Orthodox Church. Graham’s article recognized a holiness present in the Church’s there, but described it as “Old Testament,” and generally likened the Church to “religion” and not the same thing as “personal relationship.” These, of…
Glory to God for All Things
For More on the Way of Humility
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Glory to God for All Things
Grace and "the Inverted Pyramid"
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Fr. Sophrony [Sakharov], in his book on St. Silouan, presents this theory of the “inverted pyramid.” He says that the empirical cosmic being is like a pyramid: at the top sit the powerful of the earth, who exercise dominion over the nations (cf. Matt. 20:25), and at the bottom stand the masses. But the spirit of man, by nature [unfallen nature as given by God], demands equality, justice and freedom of spirit,…
Glory to God for All Things
Silent Sentinels and the Saints among Us
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I originally ran this post last December. I have watched the film mentioned in it many times. The thoughts in the post came back to me again today. Like many, I recall my highschool years somewhat vividly. Our school was of moderate size with a personal history for most students that increased its impact. It opened in 1965 with grades 7 through 12, among the earliest accomodations in our county to the…
Glory to God for All Things
Living With A Brain
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For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Hebrews 4:12). Anyone who spends time listening to the spiritual struggles of other people – or spends time struggling with their own life (which, I am sure, we all must do to some extent) – will eventually…
Glory to God for All Things
Images in the Modern World
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What do you do in a world that is awash with images and yet denies the very power of those images in our lives? It is possible to live in a make-believe world in which all Christians have to do is react to negative and improper images, leaving the Church with a “Church-lady” image that everything out there is simply of “Satan.” This is not an answer to the problems posed by…
Glory to God for All Things
St. Silouan on Peace
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The following is a small excerpt (including the prayer) from St. Silouan the Athonite written by the elder Sophrony. The painting is Vasnetsov’s Baptism of the Prince Vladimir. The soul that has known the Lord wants to see Him within her at all times, for the Lord enters the soul in quietness and gives her peace, and bears silent witness to salvation. If the kings and rulers of the nations knew the love of…
Glory to God for All Things
Kinder, Gentler
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The following quote (of St. Seraphim of Sarov) is framed and mounted in the narthex of my parish. I first obtained the quote from my Archbishop: You cannot be too gentle, too kind. Shun even to appear harsh in your treatment of each other. Joy, radiant joy, streams from the face of him who gives and kindles joy in the heart of him who receives. All condemnation is from the devil. Never…
Glory to God for All Things
You Can't Pray Too Much
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Some years ago I stood by the bed of an elderly Pentecostal woman in mountains of East Tennessee. She was dying from respiratory complications – I was visiting her as a Hospice chaplain. We chatted about many things – mostly the things of God. She showed me a well-worn Bible she had owned for most of her life. In the front she had marked down the date for each occasion when she…
Glory to God for All Things
A Dowry Much Finer Than Gold
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I have wrtten before of my Father-in-law. Regular readers of this blog will know that he was a man of great faith whom I never knew to be less than thankful to God. The goodness of God was doubtless his greatest joy and favorite topic of conversation. He was also a man of great prayer. I found out early in my married life just how great his prayers were. In the course…
Praying in the Rain
PASCHA Joy, or not
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Holy Nativity is growing! We had 68 for PASCHA. It was glorious. Or was it? Why is it that two people can share what appears to be the exact same experience, but each come away with very different impressions of it? One comment I heard from a visitor was “You just keep repeating the same thing over and over again” [Christ is risen]. We certainly do! I can see how that could…
Glory to God for All Things
Myrrhbearers and the Truth
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The second Sunday after our Lord’s Pascha is always remembered as the “Sunday of the Myrrhbearers,” when the Church remembers the women and men who cared for our Lord’s body after His death on the Cross. Joseph and Nicodemus are the two men remembered. Mary and Martha of Bethany, Mary Magdalene, Mary the wife of Cleophas, Salome, Susanna and Joanna (and in some accounts Mary, the Mother of God) are those numbered…
