Glory to God for All Things
What Faith Shall I Defend?
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Contemporary challenges to the Christian faith, whether from children’s writers such as Pullman or various scientific voices in the world of mass media, are frequently not challenges to the Christian faith but attacks on the misperceptions of the Christian faith. By the same token, many professions of the Christian faith are not professions of the faith, but professions of misperceptions of the Christian faith. To some degree, one can beget the other.…
Glory to God for All Things
Where Do the Children Play?
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I recall an old Cat Stevens song from the early 70’s, Where Do the Children Play? It runs through my head from time to time when I think about the adult world interacting with children. I had the phrase somewhat in mind when I reacted to the recent invasion of Harry Potter’s world by JK Rowling’s world. I stated then that I was sad that children can’t be left out of some…
Glory to God for All Things
Another Milestone - with Thanks
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Sometime tomorrow (here in Tennessee) or this evening (if something unusual happens) Glory to God for All Things will reach another milestone in its young life. We will cross 400,000 “views” since the blog’s debut in October last year. Readership has continued to grow (slowly but steadily) which is encouraging. In general, I think we’ve managed to maintain kindness within the posts and comments, even if both occasionally speak quite frankly. My…
Glory to God for All Things
A Faith Worth Believing
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In the past month of more I have been working from time to time on posts about a “One-Storey Universe” versus a “Two-Storey Universe.” The comments and the readership have said to me that I am writing about a topic that touches many. Perhaps the most poignant responses I have had have been those who have heard descriptions of the One-Storey World, in tales from monastics in which the language is clearly simple:…
Glory to God for All Things
St. Ignatius Brianchaninov on Prayer and the Fire of the Spirit
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St. Ignatius Brianchaninov was an early 19th century Russian Bishop and saint. His teachings on prayer, drawn from the fathers are among the best modern commentaries. His work, The Arena, is a must-read on the subject of spiritual delusion. The following excerpt is from his book, On the Prayer of Jesus, in which he draws from various fathers their teaching on this most classic of Orthodox disciplines. This excerpt is from the…
Glory to God for All Things
The Mystery of the Human Heart
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St. Macarius is famously quoted: The heart itself is but a small vessel, yet dragons are there, and there are also lions; there are poisonous beasts and all the treasures of evil. But there too is God, the angels, the life and the kingdom, the light and the apostles, the heavenly cities and the treasuries of grace—all things are there. (H.43.7) This, of course, only opens the mystery of the heart –…
Glory to God for All Things
Confession and Forgiveness in Solzhenitsyn
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My dear friend, Fr. Al Kimel (known to many as the Pontificator) sent me a link to this wonderful excerpt from Solzhenitsyn’s The Red Wheel, including some insightful commentary. The piece may be read in its entirety on the Blog, Word Incarnate (on WordPress). My thanks to the writer, Abbot Joseph (a Byzantine Catholic) for such excellent writing, and to Fr. Al for the head’s up. The passage describes a young woman who was…
Glory to God for All Things
What Theology Looks Like - Revisited
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This was first posted back in May. It’s subject seemed to me quite germane to the topic of the relationship between theology “lived” and theology as “academic” which has arisen in the comments of the recent post on Fr. John Behr’s work. It recounts a story and reflection in my life that the topic always brings me back to. Theology is, finally, always lived, for all of our books will eventually perish, but…
Glory to God for All Things
Orthodoxy and Scripture - Fr. John Behr's Lecture Revisted
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The earlier attempted debate (in the comments about St. Michael the Archangel) about Scripture and Orthodox understanding of the saints, prayers, etc., is rooted in an understanding of Scripture that is itself the very basis of the Christian faith. Attempts to remove the Bible from its proper Churchly context by the Reformation and modern day Protestants inevitably leads to a misunderstanding of the gospel and an attack on the very Church itself. Fr.…
Glory to God for All Things
St. Michael the Archangel - And Other Angel Stories
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Some years ago, when I was a young seminarian, I served with an Episcopal priest who greatly disappointed me in conversation one day by telling me that he saw “no need” for angels. “There’s nothing that angels are described as doing that the Holy Spirit could not do instead.” This kind of heavenly economy had never been offered to me as a theological reason before. When I thought about it, I realized…
Glory to God for All Things
Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep...
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This delightful old English prayer said by children and their parents at bedtime has long ago been shortened to only its last verse. There is more (as I was taught): Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Bless the bed that I lie on. The are four corners to my bed, Four angels round my head, One to watch, and one to pray, And two to bear my soul away. Now I lay me…
Glory to God for All Things
Thinking of Angels
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This 8th of November is the Feast of St. Michael and All the Bodiless Powers of Heaven. The feast marks its own special occasion, but it seems entirely appropriate that the feast should be so close to the beginning of the Nativity Fast. There are very few Biblical stories where angels do not play a part, and their presence only grows greater with the incarnation of Christ. In the life of the Church…
Glory to God for All Things
The Holy Relics of Sts. Joachim and Anna
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Glory to God for All Things
A Short Good Read
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Glory to God for All Things
Knowledge that Saves
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It is perhaps unfortunate that our English language (as well as the Greek and many other Indo-European variations) do not make a clear distinction between knowing something as a fact, and a different kind of knowing which requires participation in the actual life and reality of that which we know. Thus it is possible for me to know a great deal about the history of bread-making in 16th century France, even though…
Glory to God for All Things
Do We Want to Know God?
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It was remarked briefly in a recent comment that “we cannot know God completely,” and that we should be satisfied with the mysteries of the faith and trust the teaching of the Church (I apologize for using the writer’s honest statement as the point of departure for this post). However, this short quote from St. Silouan: It is given to our Orthodox Church through the Holy Spirit to fathom the mysteries of God,…
Glory to God for All Things
Help Vladik Find a Home
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I am posting this at the request of John Hogg, an Orthodox Christian, who worked in a Ukrainian Orphanage. He’s trying to find a home for a wonderful child, Vladik. If you can be of help then contact John at his website. I have borrowed a picture of Vladik from John’s site as well. If you are able to be of help – send me a note at Glory to God for…
Glory to God for All Things
The Importance of Being Ignorant
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I remember a talk given by Fr. Thomas Hopko last year in Dallas. In the course of some side remarks, he said that his son, Fr. John Hopko, had been asked what his dad was doing now that he was retired and no longer Dean of St. Vladimir’s. As reported by Fr. Tom, young Fr. Hopko said, “He’s going around the country talking to whomever will listen and telling them to remember…
Glory to God for All Things
Ignorant Man - Part 3
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Twice before I have written on the topic, “I Am an Ignorant Man.” In both cases I posted the article for good reason. Today I post because occasionally I need to confess this before others, lest I be taken for some kind of an authority beyond what I actually am. Yesterday I posted a short article on reading the Fathers – though I am far less an expert at the subject than…
Glory to God for All Things
Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room
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Well known to almost everyone is the Christmas carol that bids: “Let every heart, prepare Him room.” It is an excellent piece of theology – drawing a comparison between the coldness and lack of hospitality found in Bethlehem so long ago and the inner landscape of our own hearts. We should prepare our hearts so that there is room for God. I had some experience with this in a different way earlier…
Glory to God for All Things
Reading the Fathers
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I mentioned in a comment to a recent post that more people talk about the Fathers of the Church than actually read them. I also noted that good translations are hard to find. I wanted to offer some thoughts on reading the Fathers as well as some suggestions on how to begin that important task. First, you should understand that you will never read all the Fathers, or understand all that they…
Glory to God for All Things
Solidarity and Salvation
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Who is God? And what is man? What is wrong with man such that he needs to be “saved?” Is there more than one way of explaining this? The issue of salvation, of how man is brought back into a proper relationship with God, has been the primary concern of Christianity since its very inception. Christ himself begins His ministry with the proclamation, “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”…
Glory to God for All Things
The Fullness of the World to Come
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I am fascinated by what the Holy Tradition does with the idea of “fullness” or “fulfillment.” The Church is described as the “fullness of Him that filleth all in all” (Ephesians 1:23). And it is not unusual for Orthodox Christians to express the meaning of Orthodoxy under the rubric of “fullness”: Orthodoxy is the “fullness of the Church.” The Scriptures do much with the concept – speaking of the “fullness of time,”…
Glory to God for All Things
Music from Georgia - Ethnos Fulfilled
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The subject of Orthodoxy and ethnicity has come up in several recent posts. To limit Orthodoxy to a particular ethnic group is, of course, heretical. But as I have noted earlier, the fullness of Orthodox does not destroy the particularity of who we are – but fulfills it. A man does not become less himself but more truly himself than he could ever have been apart from Christ. Only in Christ are…
Glory to God for All Things
A Matter of Perspective
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During my recent foray into iconography – I spent a week studying with a Master iconographer and a week discovering how little use my hands are in certain circumstances. But among the most fascinating aspects of the week was a lecture that focused largely on the technique of “inverse perspective” that is part of the artistic language of icons. Essentially, inverse perspective does just the opposite of traditional Renaissance art with its…
Glory to God for All Things
A Smaller World - A Larger World
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I posted an addition to my blogroll today, an Orthodox Blog in Macedonia (former Yugoslav Republic), Digital Areopagus. I added this link both because it seems a good site, and to return the favor of being added as a link to his site. The internet has a way of making our world both smaller and larger. Digital Areopagus found its way to this site through the postings of Fr. Dorin Piciorus on…
Glory to God for All Things
The Abolition of Man and Some Other Thoughts
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I frequently find myself thinking about C.S. Lewis’ little masterpiece, The Abolition of Man, if only because it was correct when he wrote it and has been prophetic ever since. It’s odd, the copy I own is old, tattered, and rescued from a fire – much like his thesis. That thesis is almost too complex to put into this posting – at least in the time I’ve allowed myself to write today.…
