Glory to God for All Things
The Lost Tradition
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Many people think of the loss of various pieces of “Tradition” when they think of the modern, non-Orthodox, churches. Some may think of the loss of liturgical riches or the loss of the canons. Others may see a wholesale change in the spiritual teachings of the Christian faith. When I think of the loss of “Tradition” I think of the loss of fullness – of various truncated versions of Christianity, which, though…
Glory to God for All Things
Milestones and Thank You's
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Glory to God for All Things
The Passion to Consume
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I have mentioned the role that the passions play in our consumer culture. I would like to write in greater depth about that phenomenon. It permeates our culture – and yet, strangely, I do not find it to be a dominant concern of people when they think about their sins or when they think of our culture and its sins. In that sense it reminds me of a study I did several…
Glory to God for All Things
Means and Ends
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St. Seraphim of Sarov is quoted as saying, “You cannot achieve good ends through evil means.” I have taken this to be a given since I first read it. It does not mean that God does not work all things together for good. But it does mean that I must consider carefully how I go about seeking to do a “good” thing. In the history of Christianity there have been many tempatations…
Glory to God for All Things
St. Isaac on Humility
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Humilty is the raiment of the Godhead. The Word who became human clothed himself in it, and he spoke to us in our body. Everyone who has been clothed with humility has truly been made like unto Him who came down from his own exaltedness and hid the splendor of his majesty and concealed his glory with humility, lest creation be utterly consumed by the contemplation of him….Wherefore every man has put…
Glory to God for All Things
The Cross of Conversion
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I grew up in a culture where religious conversion was frequent as well as often short-lived. Religiously, the only remedy to many of the ills of life was conversion. On the face of things I could hardly argue with that now. However, the deeper problem within that particular religious culture was a very truncated view of conversion. For many, conversion was accompanied by emotion (it should be truly “heart-felt”) as well as…
Glory to God for All Things
The Depth of Crime and Punishment
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I took on myself to re-read Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment for Great Lent, and have made far greater speed than I would have thought. (Little or no television and bedtime reading can sometimes take you far.) It is a book I have loved for years – being the first Dostoevsky I ever read as a teenager. I still recommend it frequently as a means of contemplating forgiveness. Like all of Dostoevsky (on…
Glory to God for All Things
The Scripture in Creation
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One of the many endearing stories of St. Seraphim of Sarov was a small act of devotion he engaged in during his years as a hermit. The area around his hermitage was designated by him with Biblical place-names. Thus one place was Jerusalem, another Bethlehem, etc. Thus did the great saint transform the trees and rocks and every path by taking it up into the Biblical story. His every action outside his…
Glory to God for All Things
The Sacrament of the Present Moment
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There is a wonderful translation of Jean-Pierre De Caussade’s Self-Abandonment to Divine Providence, which bears the same title as this post. I am borrowing the phrase, not to comment on the volume (though I highly recommend it), but to bring into focus something of at least equal importance. It is the reality of our moment by moment encounter with God. We confess that God is everywhere present and fills all things, but we…
Glory to God for All Things
Living with Ignorance
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Faith tells us some things – the Holy Scriptures serve as another source of revelation – the Holy Tradition of the Church also informs us of much – but, nevertheless, in the face of all these things our lives are still largely lived in ignorance. It’s not that we cannot memorize Scripture (some memorize much a wield it lika a “sorcerer’s apprentice” doing all sorts of damage). Neither are we ignorant of…
Glory to God for All Things
To Care for the Heart
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There is a term one runs across frequently, particularly in Russian spiritual writing. It is the word; prelest. I have seen it translated any number of ways – but at its heart it’s meaning is quite simple. It is failing or ceasing to care about the state of one’s spiritual life. It is a sort of lassitutude, as though the spiritual life was of no great import. It could be that we…
Glory to God for All Things
Forgiveness and the Kingdom
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I am grateful for the patience of my readers – I have written less in the past few weeks – instead mostly posting quotes from the Fathers. It’s not a laziness on my part but an opportunity to go to a well that is far deeper than myself and a great help when I am in a very busy season in the parish. This Sunday we draw to the edge of Great…
Glory to God for All Things
Why We Fast
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I was asked last year by an acquaintance in town: “Does your Church observe Lent?” I quickly explained that we did. I was then asked how our Church fasted, and I explained something of the general outlines of Orthodox fasting. They then said to me that they needed their nourishment and instead had taken up walking every day as a Lenten discipline. The conversation ended with some pleasantries. Why do Orthodox fast?…
Glory to God for All Things
Forgiveness and Paradise - Dostoevsky
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This small passage from Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov, has always been among my favorites within literature. It is the story of the death of Markel, the brother of Zossima, who will later become a great monastic elder. The words of his brother Markel serve as something of a summary of the elder’s theology and among the most profound thoughts in literature. From the Life of the Elder Zossima …but the doctor arrived and…
Glory to God for All Things
The Last Judgment
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This Sunday, as part of the pre-Lenten calendar in the Orthodox Church, is known as the Sunday of the Last Judgment, because the gospel reading is taken from the Parable of the Last Judgment in Matthew 25. It is a very proper subject for meditation as the Church makes preparation for Great Lent and its call to repentance. When I think about the Last Judgment, apart from whatever cosmic images one may…
Glory to God for All Things
Holy Humility is Complete Trust in God - Elder Porphyrios
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From the Elder Porphyrios, Wounded by Love. Complete trust in God – that’s what holy humility is. Complete obedience to God, without protest, without reaction, even when some things seem difficult and unreasonable. Abandonment to the hands of God. The words we repeat during the Divine Liturgy say it all: ‘Let us commend our whole life to Christ our God.’ The secret prayer of the priest says the same thing: ‘We commend…
Glory to God for All Things
Fasting Without Force
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The following is taken from Wounded by Love: the Life and Wisdom of Elder Porphyrios You don’t become holy by fighting evil. Let evil be. Look towards Christ and that will save you. What makes a person saintly is love – the adoration of Christ which cannot be expressed, which is beyond expression, which is beyond… And such a person attempts to undertake ascetic exercises and to do things to cause himself…
Glory to God for All Things
Salvation by Grace and Just Showing Up
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There has been a tendency in much teaching about the notion of salvation by grace to ground the image in a legal or forensic metaphor. Thus, we are saved by grace in the sense that someone else’s goodwill and kindness (God’s) has now freed us from the consequences of our actions. Thus we speak of grace as the “free gift” of God. There is no denying that grace is a free gift…
Glory to God for All Things
To Hear the Word of God Frequently
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I would not want to give a wrong impression that an Orthodox Christian needs less Scripture. We need more – but it should be used in a right manner. Many so-called Bible studies simply increase information in an already information-overloaded world. We need not so much information as the powerful work of the Word of God moving in our heart. Thus memorization and repetition of Scripture, as prayer, is a very important…
Glory to God for All Things
The Warfare of Prayer
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A friend relates the story that when as a young, protestant teenager, she approached her pastor to ask about a prayer life, she was met with little or no answer. She had an instinct that there was more to prayer than she knew – but she was living in a tradition that knew little about prayer. It is a lack that is born of a truncated notion of salvation. Salvation itself, in her…
Glory to God for All Things
For the Love of God - the Elder Porphyrios
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From the Elder Porphyrios and the book Wounded by Love. There is one thing, O Christ, that I want, one thing I desire, one thing I ask for, and that is to be with You. Let us Love Christ and let our only hope and care be for Him. Let us love Christ for His own sake only. Never for our sake. Let Him put us wherever He likes. Let Him give…
Glory to God for All Things
Love and the True Faith
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Reading more on the life and teaching of St. Silouan of Mt. Athos, I found it interesting that what he thought of as “true faith” was the manifestation of the love of God in us towards all the world. It would have been certainly the case that as an Orthodox monk, St. Silouan would have believed all of the Church’s teaching without question. And yet when he spoke of the true faith…
Glory to God for All Things
Through the Prayers of Our Holy Fathers...
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It is a phrase that is heard frequently in Orthodox services: “Through the prayers of our holy fathers, have mercy on us and save us!” The meaning of that phrase is enlarged and enlightened in the writings of the Elder Sophrony. The following excerpt is from his book, St. Silouan the Athonite. Prayer for the whole world, for all Adam, in many instances distracts the monk from putting himself at the service…
Glory to God for All Things
What Is Good for Us?
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We live in a culture that has a fairly clear idea of what is good for a human being. We have notions of the “American Dream” and other ideals. Self-help books abound, each with its own understanding of what it means to be healthy, successful, well-balanced, etc. Frequently these cultural norms run counter to the writings of the Church fathers – sometimes scandalously so. Consider the following excerpt from the Desert Fathers:…
Glory to God for All Things
Scripture and the Church
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I recently encountered a use of Scripture in a web posting that was alarming to a degree. The writer (who was not apparently a believer) sought to use Scripture to prove that God was a murderer and that the Bible was an immoral book. It gave me an opportunity to reflect on why certain approaches to Scripture will never be productive of a proper understanding and why the Bible is not a…
Glory to God for All Things
We Should Not Be Distracted By Anything
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Reading the Philokalia is, at best, a daunting task. Where to begin? The following is a very useful section, drawn from the writings of St. Peter of Damascus in the Philokalia. It has been edited by Fr. Thomas Hopko. I am indebted to one of his many spiritual children for this copy. We should not be distracted by anything; neither by dreams, whether evil or seemingly good, nor by the thought of anything,…
Glory to God for All Things
In the Father's House
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There is a tremendous kindness in the parable of Prodigal Son. There are many ways to speak of reconciliation with God, or of the forgiveness of our sins. In the parable of the Prodigal Son, however, we find perhaps the most gentle of all images. The son who asks for his inheritance in a greedy and untimely manner wanders far in a land that is waste. He destroys himself in the wickedness…
