Glory to God for All Things
Love Is Before All Things
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Spiritual struggle is frequently counter-intuitive – and is almost always learned from those who have walked its paths successfully before us. The following is a small passage from the teachings of the Elder Porphyrios. Its wisdom speaks for itself. If you would gain the victory in spiritual struggle, then above all things, seek to love. Forget about all your weaknesses so that the adverse spirit does not realize what is going on…
Glory to God for All Things
Father Sophrony's Prayer
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A dear friend shared this with me: Fr Sophrony’s Prayer O Eternal Lord and Creator of all things, in your inscrutable goodness you have called me into this life and have given me the grace of baptism and the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit. You have instilled in me the desire to seek your face. Hear my prayer! I have no life, no light, no joy, no strength, no…
Glory to God for All Things
How Can We Give Thanks?
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Everyone capable of thanksgiving is capable of salvation. Fr. Alexander Schmemann I do not believe it is possible to exhaust this topic and that there are many things worth saying in a second article. Most specifically I want to write on what seem to me necessary elements in giving thanks to God. If giving thanks to God is difficult these may be places to begin or to which to give attention. 1.…
Glory to God for All Things
Saved with Thanksgiving
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Everyone capable of giving thanks is capable of salvation. Fr. Alexander Schmemann Nothing is more essential to human living than the giving of thanks. According to the Apostle Paul, it is one of the very purposes for which we were created (Romans 1:21 St. Paul here upbraids us for our failure to give thanks). Much of our understanding of thanksgiving today is deeply tied to a modern, shallow, understanding of psychology and…
Glory to God for All Things
And Thus the Heart
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All of these things of late: waiting, patience, the presence of God, our personhood, the Church and the Cross, all come back to the human heart. It is the place of all things of our existence. It is as St. Macarius said: 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…
Glory to God for All Things
In Christ is True Existence
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I have written recently that the true central question of our relationship with God goes to the very fact of our existence, that “in Him we live and move and have our being.” I have also written some short comments on statements of the Elder Sophrony reminding us that all we do, we do in the presence of God. Both of these bring us to the question of true or authentic existence.…
Glory to God for All Things
In the Presence of God - Elder Sophrony
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Do not let the things of this world disperse your energy. Concentrate all your attention on, devote all your energy to, a life which coresponds to the spirit of the Gospel commandments.Let us keep control over our mind in the face of the distractions of the exterior world. Without ascetic effort, our mind will never be able to remain constantly in God. It is from now, in this life, that we must…
Glory to God for All Things
The Pity of God in Dostoevsky
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The following passage is scandalous in the extent of its mercy. It is not in the canons – but in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Perhaps I love it because many of the men I knew in my early life were more likeMarmaladov (the old drunk) than like others. But this passage has always been a favorite. Forgive me if I scandalize any by quoting Dostoevsky. God will scandalize us all when we finally behold…
Glory to God for All Things
A Personal Salvation
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Perhaps the most difficult theological truth to communicate in the modern world is that of personal existence. Modern English has taken the word person from the realm of theology and changed it into the cheapest coin of the realm. Today it means that which is private, merely individual. As such, it becomes synonymous not with salvation but with our very destruction. Life lived as a mere individual is no life at all…
Glory to God for All Things
Work Out Your Salvation
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…work out your own salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12) What does it mean to ‘work out our salvation’? It means that among all the things that we see in cosmic existence, we choose what is pleasing to God and separate ourselves from what goes against God. Then, little by little, we see our life changing. But be patient. God can, of course, visit us and in an instant open our…
Glory to God for All Things
The Importance of Waiting
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I took some time early this morning to look through a small devotional book on the Church year. It interested me that it looked at Christmas and Theophany, and then immediately went to Great Lent. It was as though these times of the year immediately abut one another. And of course they do, to a certain extent – but not without the Feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple. It…
Glory to God for All Things
What Are You Waiting For?
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To a degree, it can be said that everybody is waiting for something. Some are waiting for their ship to come in. Some are waiting to win the lottery. Others are waiting to finish school. Some are waiting to die. This list could probably be made as long as the imagination could sustain. As I child, I was waiting for things to get better. Sometimes it was as simple as waiting for…
Glory to God for All Things
A Few Things More
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It’s very easy in longer postings (such as the previous) to forget the closest things. Church is everything the Scriptures say of it, but we largely encounter Christ in a particular setting, among particular friends and family (sometimes). Thus, just as He gives Himself to us in His consecrated Body and Blood, so too, He gives Himself to us in the flesh and blood, and spirit, of the witnesses with whom we…
Glory to God for All Things
The Ecclesiology of the Cross
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The following article is a series I wrote during the early months of the blog. I think it worth reprinting (surely people aren’t going back to read everything I’ve written). It is also available in the “Pages” section of the blog. If you’ve read it before I hope you enjoy rereading it – if not, I hope you find it useful or worth some thought. Part I Writing to the young Timothy…
Glory to God for All Things
St. Isaac the Syrian and the Door of Heaven
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Be at Peace with your own soul; then heaven and earth will be at peace with you. Enter eagerly into the treasure house that is within you, and so you will see the things that are in heaven; for there is one single door to them both. And another: If you do not strive, you will not find; and if you do not knock eagerly at the door and keep long vigil…
Glory to God for All Things
God and the Universe
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The material and organic world is not a world of thought. Only man can think, knowing himself and everything that surrounds him. In our mind an entire ideal world is borne in which is reflected everything we know. But we see that the universe is filled with wisdom, that in acquiring the knowledge of the truth we do not invent it but perceive it through our spiritual eyes. The truth about the…
Glory to God for All Things
At the Edge of Tradition
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There are many things that we see in our lives to which the word “traditional” may be attached. It can refer to a style of dress or an understanding of relationships. In Church it may refer to the use of certain kinds of music or a sytle of worship. Many years ago, pastoring my first parish as an Episcopal priest, I had a young couple who were Roman Catholics, who had come…
Glory to God for All Things
In the Depths of the Heart
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For many years I have had an image that I carry around with me – it is the notion that the world could be completely other than it appears if we had eyes to see it in some other way. I suspect it’s originally a science-fiction idea that got into my head but the idea also seems just theological enough that I’ve never been able to shake it. The notion gained strength…
Glory to God for All Things
The Goodness of Being
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The primary good is existence itself, for if someone does not exist, how can he make use of good things of any sort? And, whereas we all simply somehow exist, God is “the One Who Is,” that is, He is the One Who enjoys utter fullness of existence, the One Who is Being itself. God’s being has within itself its own cause or foundation. It is absolutely whole, individsible and unchangeable; it…
Glory to God for All Things
For the Life of the World
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Glory to God for All Things
It's Really All About Being
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I wasn’t sure how to title this post. One part of me wanted to say, “It’s really all ontological,” but that would lose half my readers in the maze of theological/philosophical vocabulary. I also thought about entitling it, “It’s not what you do but what you are,” and that might have been better than what I chose. My podcast this weekend on Ancient Faith Radio will also touch on this same subject.…
Glory to God for All Things
Philotimo - Responsive Gratefulness
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As noted in my preceding post, I was introduced to this word through reading about the Elder Paisios of the Holy Mountain who used it quite frequently in his teaching. The following short article appears on OrthodoxWiki, the online Orthodox encylopedia. It is a worthy read on an important virtue as taught by the Church. May God, by His grace, increase such virtue in us all! The virtue of philotimo is commonly emphasized in Greek…
Glory to God for All Things
Responsive Gratefulness, Miracles and Love - the Elder Paisios
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Responsive gratefulness (translating the Greek philotimo) is a very strong theme in the teachings of the Elder Paisios of the Holy Mountain. The following is taken from the book Elder Paisios of the Holy Mountain. Elder Paisios stressed that our acts are worthwhile only if they are done out of a grateful predisposition. He always urged us not to struggle out of self interest, but rather out of responsive gratefulness. Even our…
Glory to God for All Things
The Love of God and the Gospel of Christ
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I believe that the love of our enemies is utterly essential to the love of God. If we do not love our enemies, we will not know God, nor rightly love Him. Indeed, I believe that we only know God to the extent that we love our enemies. If anything, this points to the utter necessity of grace – for how else will we ever love our enemies? On the other hand, I believe that embracing…
Glory to God for All Things
St. Gregory the Theologian on our Ransom by God
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One of the greatest orators of his age, St. Gregory the Theologian (also known as Gregory Nazianzus), is considered among the most central of Church fathers. His work, and that of St. Basil the Great, did much to win the day for the Nicene Creed (by God’s grace) and to secure its completion at the first Council of Constantinople, where the Creed received its final and present form. He is not as…
Glory to God for All Things
Justice and Mercy - With Thanks to the Pontificator
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Fr. Al Kimel has recently posted an article (The Injustice of Grace) on the triumph of God’s mercy that is well worth reading. The following is an excerpt in which he quotes passages from St. Isaac the Syrian and St. Antony the Great: The seventh century ascetical master, St. Isaac the Syrian, boldly challenged the portrayal of God as one who rewards the virtuous and punishes the wicked: Do not call God just,…
Glory to God for All Things
Further Notes on a Common Faith - Newman
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In my recent post on a Common Faith, I offered a concatenation of quotes from the Fathers, East and West, on the doctrine of salvation as union with God (divinization or theosis). It included as well, both Luther and Calvin. I commented at the time that with some little research surely we could add Newman to that number. Considering that he was one of the 19th century’s greatest scholars on St. Athanasius,…
