Glory to God for All Things
The Chief of Sinners
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A version of this post appeared last January. In light of the recent posts on prayer and communion it seemed timely to rerun this post. Though not on prayer, it carries some of the same thoughts to the commonality of our life as Christians and of our life as human beings. I believe that we will make little progress as Christians nor as human beings (as measured in the Kingdom of God)…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
In the world, but not of the world
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Fourth Sunday after Pentecost, July 5, 2009 Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick Emmaus, Pennsylvania In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. Yesterday was the 233rd anniversary of our country. This year marks the 250th anniversary of the town of Emmaus and its 150th anniversary as an incorporated borough of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.…
Praying in the Rain
Envy, Self Righteousness and Pity
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I am familiar with Envy—you might even say that Envy is a friend of mine. It’s not that I want to envy, it’s just that I often do. I don’t want to be friends, but we have spent so much time together over the years that it seems Envy has its own comfortable chair in the living room of my heart. Over the last little while, however, Envy has been somewhat uncomfortable…
Glory to God for All Things
The Communion of Prayer
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Now it came to pass in those days that He went out to the mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God (Luke 6:12). Have you ever wondered what Jesus did when He prayed all night? Have you ever tried to pray all night? If your conception of prayer is a monologue of needs, information and requests, then your experience of prayer is either that it is very short…
Glory to God for All Things
Salvation, Prayer and Communion with God
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Few things are as fundamental to the New Testament as the reality of communion (koinonia). It means a commonality, a sharing and participation in the same thing. It is this commonality or sharing that lies at the very heart of our salvation. This communion is described in Christ’s “high priestly prayer”: I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they…
Praying in the Rain
Forebear Threatening
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In Ephesians, as in other epistles, St. Paul fills the last half of the letter with practical advice for Christian living. Here he advises “masters” to “forebear threatening.” Most of us live in circles of relationships in which we are at various times and in various contexts master or slave, parent or child, elder or younger. Almost no one is always only “wife” or always only “child” or always only “master.” However,…
Praying in the Rain
Bear One Another's Burdens
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When St. Paul at the end of Galatians tells us to bear one another’s burdens and “so fulfill the law of Christ,” What exactly is he telling us to do? Just three verses later, St. Paul tells the Galatians, “Each one shall bear his own load.” Is this a contradiction? Most of us, I think, never thought about this. Even if we knew both verses, we would quote them for different purposes.…
Glory to God for All Things
Hopko on Life and Death
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Glory to God for All Things
Prayers By the Lake XXII - Shatter the Narrowness of My Soul
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O Only Son of God, receive me into Your wisdom. You are the head of all the sons of men. You are their heavenly comprehension, illumination and jubilation. You are the One who thinks the same goodness in all men: the same thought and the same light. A man recognizes another man through You. A man prophesies to another man through You. Through Your voice men hear each other. In Your language they understand.…
Glory to God for All Things
Civilizations and the Kingdom - A Call for Prayer
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This reprint (with changes) seems fitting for America’s Independence Day celebrations this weekend. I give thanks to God that priests are forbidden (by canon law) to hold political office – not that I would ever be elected – but that I would never want to stand in the place where my Christian faith was so torn – between what I might think good for the state and what would seem obedient to…
Glory to God for All Things
Rightly Reading
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This is a reprint from last October. The course of your reading should be parallel to the aim of your way of life…. Most books that contain instructions in doctrine are not useful for purification. The reading of many diverse books brings distraction of mind down on you. Know, then, that not every book that teaches about religion is useful for the purification of the consciousness and the concentration of the thoughts.…
Glory to God for All Things
You Are Not A Bible Character
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Events which receive more than their share of news coverage are not my favorite topics for blog posts. However, this past week’s revelations of yet another politician’s infidelity offered one aspect worthy of comment (or so it seems to me). That is the use of the Bible as a means for reflecting on one’s personal situation in life. There is a long history of just such usage. The pilgrim fathers who came…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Arrival
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Glory to God for All Things
Belief and Practice
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A friend sent me a review of the book The Byzantine Lists: Errors of the Latins by Tia M. Kolbaba (University of Illinois Press). The review is by Elesha Coffman, associate editor of Christian History. An excerpt from the review offers an interesting insight: According to Kolbaba, historians have never really studied the lists because of their unusual content: a mixture of theological, liturgical, and seemingly personal disagreements. Keroularios’s list accuses Latins…
Glory to God for All Things
St. Paul's Salvation
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What things were of gain to me – these I have counted as loss for Christ. Indeed, I count all things as loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which…
Glory to God for All Things
Are You Saved?
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Glory to God for All Things
Calvinism As Heresy
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Met. Jonah of the OCA today addressed a group of conservative Anglicans. In the course of outlining what would be necessary for true ecumenical dialog and union, he stated, “the renunciation of Calvinism as a heresy.” This probably came as a surprise to many of the evangelical Anglicans in the audience. Appended here is the proclamation of the Council of   which proclaimed, from an Orthodox perspective, certain aspects of Calvinism to be…
Glory to God for All Things
Not in Vain and Not by Chance
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Not in vain and not by chance Was life granted me by God And not without God’s hidden will Has it been condemned to death. I myself through willful power Summoned evil from the dark abyss And my soul I filled with passion, Stirring up my mind with doubts. Remember Him whom I’d forgotten Pierce through with light the gloom of thoughts Then it will be, through You created  A heart that’s…
Glory to God for All Things
A Sacrifice of Emptiness - the Fullness of Life in Christ
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Conversation this past week on this site has centered around mercy and justice and the understanding of the sacrifice of Christ. I began with an article on a quote by St. Isaac of Syria, who famously questions the human concept of justice and its relation to God. The Christian treatment of the atonement – what does it mean to say that “Christ died for us” – has found expression in a variety…
Praying in the Rain
Dating non-Orthodox Christians
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Single Orthodox Christians have no easy road before them, especially if they suspect that they will be married some day. For most of history and in a large but shrinking portion of the Orthodox world today, single people did not have to worry about who they would marry: someone else chose for them. In the best cases, the people involved had veto power; that is, neither one had to accept the match.…
Glory to God for All Things
A Slight Pause
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I leave in the morning (July 17) to conduct a youth retreat in S.C. at Sts. Mary and Martha Monastery. I will have some chance, in the evenings to check the blogsite (clear spam and make some responses). Whether I’ll have time to post time will tell. Please don’t take my reduced responses in the next few days for lack of interest. The present topic is of deep interest (I’ve written on…
Praying in the Rain
The Staretz Never Came
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When I was inquiring into Orthodox Christianity, I (and the group I was a part of) became convinced early on that we needed a staretz, an elder of profound holiness and insight to guide us. At the time, it made perfect sense. In the milieu from which we came, sincere earnestness was the primary—if not the only—indicator we had to spiritual vitality. And since we were an intensely earnest bunch of enquirers,…
Glory to God for All Things
More on the "Justice" of God
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I will add an additional thought (related to the previous article) on the future “justice” of God. There are many who imagine theologically that at some later point, a final judgment, God’s justice will be manifest. In this manifestation of justice, the punishments of hell figure prominently. Of course, this is simply poor theology. Eternity in hell is not a matter of justice nor can it ever be. Justice involves equality. For…
Glory to God for All Things
St. Isaac - Mercy and Justice
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There is a strain within some forms of Western theology that is deeply concerned with the “justice” of God. Some even go so far as to say that God is constrained by His justice – that He cannot deny its demands (to do so, they argue, would make Him “less than just”). It is common for Orthodox theology to find this problematic. Here St. Isaac of Syria states the case quite clearly:…
Glory to God for All Things
By Your Prayers
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It is a common phrase in Orthodoxy, “By your prayers.” it is a recognition that we cannot make this journey alone. I have days when I think I’m doing ok, and then there are much longer periods when I realize that only by the prayers of others and the mercies of God will I make this journey in any shape or form. I am probably more fortunate than many. I have a…
Glory to God for All Things
Multifarious Trials of Repentance
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Through repentance a person receives back that knowledge which was given to him as a pledge in baptism…. Repentance arises in a person through the activity of divine grace in the soul. It begins when God bestows on us a consciousness of our own sins. This consciousness penetrates into our thoughts as God sees to it that we suffer multifarious trials. Perceiving one’s own sins, Isaac claims, is more important than performing…
Praying in the Rain
Dark Belief
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If you don’t mind, I’d like to talk about what someone has called the dark belief. When God turns out not to be who we thought he was, particularly because the circumstances of our life are more painful than the God whom we had imagined would have allowed, cynicism and atheism (or agnosticism, her sister)seem appropriate coping mechanisms. Initially, there is a perverse joy in attributing to others the worst possible motives…
