Glory to God for All Things
Lent in the South
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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
Lenten Thoughts
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Glory to God for All Things
All Things Were Created For Him
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St. Paul makes the remarkable statement in Colossians: “For all things were created through Him and for Him.” This remarkable statement gives rise to a later even more remarkable statement by St. Maximus the Confessor: “The incarnation is the cause of everything.” This statement takes the “all things were created for Him and sees it applying to the incarnation itself, rather than to Christ as some eschatological point. In truth, the incarnation…
Glory to God for All Things
St. John Chrysostom on Fasting
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The following text comes from Monachos.net’s Great Lent 2003 (a CD I purchased), though the text is from the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, vol. 9. As we begin the fast I can think of no better passage in the Fathers for our consideration. By St John Chrysostom From Concerning the Statues, Excerpts from Homily III I speak not, indeed, of such a fast as most persons keep, but…
Glory to God for All Things
If You Want to Read Some Basic Zizioulas
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The name of Metropolitan John (Zizioulas) came up in discussion on one of the other threads. He is well known in the West for his book Being as Communion, which is a difficult read. There is, however, a remarkable resource available in English from his lectures at the University of Thessaloniki. I would commend it to anyone who is a serious student of theology and wanted to form an opinion of Zizioulas’…
Glory to God for All Things
The Difficulty of Lent
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Great Lent is one of the most important spiritual undertakings in the course of the Orthodox Church year. There is nothing unusual asked of us, nothing that we do not do the rest of the year. We fast; we pray; we give alms; we attend services, etc. But we do all of them with greater intensity and frequency and the Church’s contextualization of the season drives its points further and deeper. Of…
Glory to God for All Things
If You Love Dostoevsky
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Glory to God for All Things
To Forgive is Divine
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One of the more important verses in the New Testament, it seems to me, is Christ statement, “Apart from me you can do nothing” (Jn. 15:5). I have noticed that there are some side discussions that some of my comments have been used in on the subject of “synergism” vs. “monergism,” which is not a debate I wish to take part in (I don’t think debates serve much of a Godly purpose),…
Glory to God for All Things
That One Must Be Watchful Not to Judge Anyone
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From the Wisdom of the Desert Fathers. In a monastery there were two remarkable brothers who soon merited to see the grace of God descend upon each other. Now one day it happened that one of them went out of the monastery on a Friday and saw someone who was eating in the morning, and he said to him, ‘Why are you eating at this hour on a Friday?’ Later there was…
Glory to God for All Things
The Grace of Forgiveness
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I never know quite how these things work, but I awoke this morning with the tune and words of “Open to me the Gates of Repentance.” It invariably set the tone of my morning’s thought and the background for the better part of the day. It occurred to me, reflecting, that forgiveness, like repentance, is not automatic, or even the sort of thing we can “do,” in and of ourselves. We…
Glory to God for All Things
The Word of God
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Every human thought, every human word, is energy, a force. And if this is true where human thought and speech are concerned, how much more so is it with the Divine word, the word of Christ. When we hear Christ’s Gospel sayings, so fragrant, so gentle and sweet – ‘Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God’ or ‘This is my commandment, that ye love one another’ or ‘Learn…
Glory to God for All Things
A Brief Apology
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If you’ve been reading today and wondering about articles appearing and disappearing I was doing some repair caused by my own damage. I apologize particularly to Jean-Michel for misunderstanding his translation (I am still working on my French – and non-verbal signals.) The internet can be a wonderful place and confusing at times. I have reposted the article Ignorance and God and posted its links to Jean-Michel’s French translation as well as…
Glory to God for All Things
The Great Mystery of Everything
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I have written earlier that I am an ignorant man. I am now translated into Romanian and French on that very topic. Apparently my 15 minutes of fame will come as an ignorant man. That’s doubtless a good thing. But as we near the time that Orthodox Christians approach one another and ask forgiveness (Great Lent), we do well to remember the utter mystery that we confront. No one knows the things…
Glory to God for All Things
The Dread Judgment Seat of Christ
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Though we do well to spend time speaking of the heart it is also important that it not be somehow viewed separate from the rest of us. The heart is not only the seat of our encounter with God, it is also the place where our own evil thoughts may emanate. What comes from the heart reveals the heart. In the 25th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus offers the parable of the…
Glory to God for All Things
The Hypostatic Nearness of You
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Sometimes I sit down to write with an idea and I know that I am either getting ready to write something good, or something really bad. That is how I feel about this particularly topic. I have good feelings about it because I am writing about something that is close to my heart and which I think about frequently. I have forboding, because such things are notoriously hard to capture. Some years…
Glory to God for All Things
To Think with the Heart
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I had the privilege two weeks ago to be in Detroit, Michigan, together with my wife, and to speak at the Faith of Our Fathers Colloquim – an event to share Orthodoxy with with interested Anglicans and others. Those who spoke were mostly, like myself, former Episcopal priests who had been received into Orthodoxy at various points in their ministries. I was not assigned a theological talk, per se, but asked to…
Glory to God for All Things
In Accordance with the Scriptures
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I begin teaching a class tomorrow, under the umbrella of our local community college – there are usually 40 to 50 non-Orthodox who attend these weekly classes. But my subject is “Christ and the God of the Old Testament.” From many conversations over the years I hear more confusion about the Old Testament from Christians many of whom have opted for some quiet form of Marcionism. That is, many simply dismiss the…
Glory to God for All Things
Your Prayers Please
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Apparently like many around this part of Tennessee, I’ve been ill with a flu of sorts the last 24 hours. This is only the second time to look at the computer. I’ve had to miss several services, but pray to be able to be back at the altar tomorrow morning. I would appreciate your prayers as I will pray for you all. I’m already mending a bit (got up as far as…
Glory to God for All Things
Soul Saturday
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In my early exposure to Orthodoxy, I became intrigued with the term, “Soul Saturday.” My family would visit a monastery not too far away for their annual pilgrimage that occured on one of the weekends of a “Soul Saturday.” This is term from popular parlance, the more proper English title of the event is a “Memorial Saturday.” These are held at a number of times during the year, mostly during Lent. They…
Glory to God for All Things
Driving with a Goddess
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That was a misleading title to this post. But I found myself driving through town yesterday and caught sight of a bumpersticker (how can you not – that’s what they’re there for) – which said, “I am a Goddess.” Of course the first thought that comes to mind is, “Which one?” But I know that’s a silly question and I think I understand what the driver meant by her bumpersticker and I…
Glory to God for All Things
Praying in the Belly of a Whale
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The marvelous book of Jonah, read in its entirety on Holy Saturday, includes a very rich prayer which is obviously intended to be spoken from within the depths of Hades itself – thus its inclusion on Holy Saturday, the day on which Christ is proclaiming liberty to those “in prison.” Like the phrase from Psalm 139, “Lo if I descend into Hell there art there,” this prayer in Jonah is a poignant…
Glory to God for All Things
Uniting with Christ
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Last Sunday (which was truly busy), I had the joy of five Baptisms to begin the day. Orthodox Baptism not only has a lot of prayer, but it seems, that with each additional candidate another level of chaos is reached. It is simply a joyful action and practicalities involved in immersion (and the changing of clothes, etc.) invariably slow things down and ratchet up the chaos – but a joyful chaos. I…
Glory to God for All Things
So What's Wrong with Us?
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I’m sitting in the Jacksonville airport with a couple of hours of free-time, and a kind airport that actually has free wi-fi. Some airports, such as Detroit (as I learned last week) charge you to use wi-fi. Ouch! I’ve been thinking some as drove around northern Florida today (definitely not Detroit or Tennessee) on the general topic of “what is wrong with us?” I was using as my starting point the death…
Glory to God for All Things
Orthodox in the Southern World
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I tend to think of myself as doing Orthodox mission work in the world of Appalachia. Geographically that is true, though much of the work I do with people are with folks who comes from somewhere other than the Appalachian region. My own roots are fairly shallow in Appalachia, though they are on the at least the fringes. There is also the Southern aspect to mission. A culture that is steeped in…
Glory to God for All Things
Again, Many Thanks
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Again, I offer many thanks to the readers of “Glory to God for all Things.” We continue to average nearly 1,000 views per day, and the quality of comment is an inspiration to me. Part of the software available to those who manage blogs gives them much information about what is going on “behind the scenes.” This blog is hosted by WordPress which is home to over 600,000 blogsites. Rarely does a…
Glory to God for All Things
Mission to the Modern World
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C.S. Lewis spoke of “men without chests” in his famous little book, The Abolition of Man. Without going into all he meant by that, I will suffice it to say that he saw many modern men who no longer felt about themselves and their world as men had generally felt through the ages. And here I should note, that would certainly be true for women as well. One of the great missions…
Glory to God for All Things
Orthodox Mission
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Today I have had the pleasure of being in Jacksonville, Fl, for the Diocese of the South’s annual clergy retreat. Our speaker is Fr. Michael Oleska who teaches in Alaska, and is probably the foremost authority of the history of Orthodox missions to America, as well as Orthodox missions in general. Our lecture this afternoon was excellent, particularly connecting the fairly well-known work of early missions in Alaska, with the larger history…
