The Morning Offering
Forgiveness
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Forgiveness is the Cure for Judgment, Anger, and Resentment. Our Lord Jesus Christ told us: “Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you shall be forgiven (Luke 6:37).” In the Our Father, the very prayer given to His disciples after Christ was asked to teach them to pray, we…
Praying in the Rain
The Prodigal Son
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The second week of pre-Lent focuses on the parable of the prodigal son. It is a week with the typical Wednesday and Friday fasts, and in most respects it is a normal week liturgically. It is normal in that it calls the believer to a moderate ascetic labouring in the vineyard of salvation. The prodigal son, like the publican, becomes for the believer a paradigm, a paradigm of repentance and approach toward…
The Morning Offering
Solitude
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We are Liberated by Solitude If we are honest with ourselves, we are all solitaries, for it is inevitable as humans. As individuals we meet God alone, and we die alone. Spiritual maturity requires inner solitude. To be alone in solitude is to be emptied of all that is important to this world. In solitude we seek God above all…
The Morning Offering
Silence
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Multnomah Falls Be still, and know that I am God Great and Holy Lent is seen by most as the forty days before Pascha when we give up certain foods (dairy, meat, eggs, fish), and give more attention to alms giving. The season of the Great Fast is also a time when we try to cut back on entertainment, avoiding…
Praying in the Rain
Lesser Commandments
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“On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matt. 22:40). All of God’s commandments are not equal. Most commandments hang on others. That is, all commandments are understood in the light of two others or exist as expressions of the two others. The Old Testament sacrificial laws, for example, existed to instruct those before Christ how their love for God (the first, great commandment) was to be expressed. The…
The Morning Offering
The Sins of Others
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The south end ferry dock, with Tacoma, WA off in the distance. If You are to Win the Battle, Focus only on Your Own Sins When we take our eyes off our own failings, shortcomings, and sins, we notice the failings of others. As the sins of others get our attention, our focus turns away from our own struggles with the…
The Morning Offering
Humility
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On the top deck of our new south end ferry. If you are to be truly humble, you must never cease to reproach yourself. You must actively pursue a humble heart, and imitate, even embrace the sufferings of Christ. Without the virtue of humility, there can be no salvation. Without humility your effort is useless. Humility bestows peace in your…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
The Wise Men of Silesia
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Throughout much of January and often into February, I spend close to 20-30 hours every week visiting the homes of parishioners and blessing them as part of the annual Theophany celebrations. I put several hundred miles on my car’s odometer during this time. Aside from the extra workload and of course the joy of visiting parishioners in their homes, I also particularly enjoy driving…
The Morning Offering
Putting off
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the Old Man Abbot Tryphon, Metropolitan Hilarion, and Priest Sergei Sveshnikov Vomit up the Evil Fruit At the moment we’ve committed ourselves to a life in Christ, change takes place. We begin walking the path of repentance, putting off the ‘old man’ and putting on Christ. The waters of baptism began this change, and the life giving waters of regeneration…
Praying in the Rain
The Publican And The Pharisee
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This week in the Holy Orthodox Church, we commemorate the parable of our Lord concerning the publican and the pharisee (Luke 18:10-4). This week is the first week of the pre-lenten period. Pre-lent is designed to prepare us to enter Great Lent with a proper attitude so that we can get the most out of the season of abstinence and thus be able to see the Paschal Light. In preparing for Pascha,…
Glory to God for All Things
The Audacity of Mercy - St. Isaac the Syrian
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St. Isaac stretches love and mercy to it’s farthest limits, occasionally beyond the bounds of canonical understanding. He remains a saint of the Church and his words are very important to hear. +++ Let yourself be persecuted, but do not persecute others. Be crucified, but do not crucify others. Be slandered, but do not slander others. Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep: such is the sign of…
The Morning Offering
Theologians
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Philosophers and Theologians There are only a few Orthodox saints who’ve been given the honor of being called, “theologians”. Saint John the Theologian, and Saint Symeon the New Theologian, to give two examples, were declared Theologians by the Church, because of their theology was the outcome of their having encountered the Living God. Theologians, in the strict sense of the word,…
Nearly Orthodox
on transition...
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My daughter began her High School work this year. She’s still homeschooled but now she has a fixed curriculum and reports to a teacher for each subject. We figured this was the best way to build her transcript and hopefully her study habits for college. I knew it would be a bit rough at the start, she’s been fairly on her own where things are concerned for the last 8 years more…
Glory to God for All Things
One-Storey Universe on Kindle
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For those who own an Amazon Kindle (I got one for Christmas), my book, Everywhere Present: Christianity in a One-Storey Universe is now available. The price is discounted when compared to the paperback. Conciliar Press, its publisher, is increasing the number of titles available in Kindle format. I welcome this new means of sharing my work. I am grateful for the support I’ve had for the first printing of the paperback –…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Lecture at Cornell University, Feb. 14
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Glory to God for All Things
The Strength We Find in Weakness
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Abba Poemen believed that the only time you could observe a person’s true character was when that person was tempted. From the Sayings of the Desert Fathers +++ There is obvious wisdom in the saying about Abba Poemen: it is not our strengths that best define us, but our weaknesses. In our culture, where virtual reality – both of the entertainment world and the political world – are defined by carefully managed…
The Morning Offering
The Sunday of the Publican
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and the PhariseeThe icon of the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee shows both men in the manner in which they enter the temple to pray. The Pharisee goes to a very prominent place where others will see him. The positions of his hands indicate that he is addressing God by speaking of his stature and accomplishments. In contrast,…
Praying in the Rain
Wheat, Tares And The Age To Come
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I’ve been thinking about the wheat and the tares. I’ve been thinking that the parable describes the condition of my own heart. There is a point, at the sowing, when accepting and rejecting seeds (logismoi, thoughts) is possible. With attention and training and by the Grace of the Holy Spirit, one can often recognize the seed being sown by the evil one and reject it before it grows–or grows very much. However,…
The Morning Offering
The Divine Liturgy
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The Trapeza () Communion with God is Restored The Church is that place where heaven and earth are united, and where we can live as we were meant to be, as before the Fall. The Church’s Divine Liturgy is that place where the disunity that came with the Fall is put aside, and communion with God is restored. Our participation…
The Morning Offering
Physician of Souls
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A beautiful sunny day at the monastery. God is not a Prosecutor, but a Physician The Scriptures, the works of the Early Church Fathers, and the liturgical texts of the Church, all attest to the fact that the Ancient Church did not teach that Christ’s Incarnation was intended to be a propitiation of divine righteousness. Rather, Christ came as a…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Canticle for the Meeting of our Lord
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Canticle for the Meeting of Our Lord Long years ago I heard the Voice of God— foreshadowing to me the news of Christ, that death I would not see ’til I had seen th’awaited coming of the Son of Man. “Behold, the Virgin shall conceive,” I read, Isaiah’s vision did foretell the One to bring salvation to old Israel, His flesh and blood to…
The Morning Offering
Gratitude
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A Grateful Heart is Fertile Ground When you strive to interact with members of your family, with friends, coworkers, and all others, with respect, humility, and dignity, you lay the groundwork for the abundance of Grace needed to quicken your heart for the things of God. The soil is prepared for the planting of seeds that allow you to respond…
The Morning Offering
Prayer
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The Cure for the Disordered State Man is living in a perpetual state of disorder, far from the ordered life God intended for him. The cure for this disordered state is to be found in prayer. It is in the foundation of prayer that we seek out the healing that will restore us to the image that God intended at…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Two Lectures Available Online
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Two of my lectures from the recent Meeting the World series are now fully online, courtesy of Ancient Faith Radio: Meeting the World: Taking the Gospel Into Our Times and Our Places: Part 1, Part 2 A Peculiar People: Orthodox Christian Identity in a Hostile World: Part 1, Part 2 Three more will be available in the next several weeks, each broken into two…
The Morning Offering
The Saints
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Our Friends in High Places We Orthodox are known for our veneration of the saints, recognizing as we do the truth that there is no separation between the Church Militant, here on earth, and the Church Triumphant, in heaven. In the Divine Services we are not gathered together alone as mortals, but we are joined in our worship before the…
Glory to God for All Things
Where the Gospel Begins
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Where does the Gospel begin – how do we tell the story of Christ? This question may seem too obvious to require an answer. However, it is increasingly relevant in what some describe as a “post-Christian” era. This reality came home to me years ago, during the first year of my ordained ministry. A woman began attending the Church where I served and presented herself for Baptism. Our conversation quickly turned to…
Praying in the Rain
On Humility And Transformation
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Once, when we were on the way to Orthodoxy, the leaders of our community were taking a retreat at a Benedictine monastery. One of the monks casually asked me what I was looking for: what did I (a Protestant) hope to find at a Roman Catholic Benedictine monastery. At the time I had read the Rule of St. Benedict several times and one word particularly bothered me. It was a word for…
