Glory to God for All Things
The True Agent of Change
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As inhabitants of our modern culture, we find ourselves trapped in a world of “cause and effect.” It is a physical explanation of the universe that has, for all intents and purposes, become a universal metaphor, dominating religion and the most personal aspects of our lives. We see ourselves as the agents of change – or responsible for many of the disasters that litter our lives. Those who “succeed” imagine that they are…
The Morning Offering
Hospice or Hospital?
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Abbot Tryphon serving the chapel service at Trinity Lutheran College Spiritual Pain Control or Spiritual Healing? Since the Church is a hospital for the soul wherein we come for healing, it is important that we take full advantage of all the resources the Church offers us for such healing. Frequent confession, where we bare our sins before God with the…
The Morning Offering
Taste the Presence of Christ
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Way of a Pilgrim Bookstore () Taste the Presence of Christ Beside You We all need a good dose of silent prayer each and every day. Finding that perfect place in your home that can become your cave, or prayer closet, will afford you that sacred space wherein you can go deep into the heart and connect with God. That…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Meeting the World: Taking the Gospel into our Times and our Places
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The Morning Offering
The Noonday Demon
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The Giving of Ourselves over to Depression There are times when we are tempted by what has been called the Noonday Demon, and give ourselves over to depression. This tendency can often find life in an almost chronic habit of complaining. We complain about our health to the extent that it becomes the chief focus of our life. Money worries…
The Morning Offering
The Internet
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A cold, sunny day at the monastery The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly There is a lot of good that can be discovered on line. A number of years ago I was charged by my archbishop with the task of addressing our Diocesan Pastoral Conference on the subject of Fasting According to the Early Church Fathers. Only after having…
Praying in the Rain
Masks
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“For just as on the stage actors enter with the masks of kings, generals, doctors, teachers, professors, and soldiers, without themselves being anything of the sort, so in the present life poverty and wealth are only masks” (St. John Chrysostom’s second homily on the rich man and Lazarus). I have been rereading St. John’s homilies contained in the little volume by St. Vladimir’s Seminary called “On Wealth and Poverty.” One of the…
The Morning Offering
The Eternal Banquet
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The Importance of Frequent Communion Eternity is an everlasting banquet (the Divine Liturgy) that takes place in the heavenly realm. Every time we participate in the Divine Liturgy we are transported into a place where there is neither time nor space, and participate in that very banquet. As we receive the Holy Mysteries (Christ’s very Body and Blood), we receive…
The Morning Offering
Why ask the Saints?
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Jesus is the Sole Mediator between God and Man Most Protestant churches strongly reject all saintly intercession, citing passages such as 1 Timothy 2:1-5, which says that Jesus is the sole mediator between God and man, as well as Deuteronomy 18:10-11 which seems to forbid invoking departed souls. They also point to the fact that there are no examples in…
The Morning Offering
Coptic Christians
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Continue to Suffer The declaration of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russian regarding the continued attacks on the Coptic Orthodox Christians of Egypt The Russian Orthodox Church views the events in Egypt with pain and sorrow. Again blood has been shed and Christian temples destroyed. On the face of it, this appears to be an expected manifestation of the…
Glory to God for All Things
The Nativity Fast - Why We Fast
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November 15, marks the beginning of the Nativity Fast (40 days before Christmas). The following article offers some thoughts on the purpose of fasting. +++ Fasting is not very alive or well in the Christian world. Much of that world has long lost any living connection with the historical memory of Christian fasting. Without the guidance of Tradition, many modern Christians either do not fast, or constantly seek to re-invent the practice,…
The Morning Offering
God's Saving Mercy
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Mt. Rainier and a Sunrise as seen from the Ferry We are not Compelled to Love God We are not compelled to love God, having been created with free will. God does not, nor can He, compel His creatures to love Him. Mutual love requires, by it’s very nature, freedom to either respond in love, or not. Yet when we…
The Morning Offering
Works vs. Faith
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John Barnard and Father Thomas Moore of Columbia, S.C. Not saved by works but by faith Saint John Chrysostom (349-407): “For Scripture says that faith has saved us. Put better: Since God willed it, faith has saved us. Now in what case, tell me, does faith save without itself doing anything at all? Faith’s workings themselves are a gift of…
The Morning Offering
Mary the Mother of God
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The Place of the Holy Virgin in our Lives The Holy Virgin is a stumbling block for many protestants looking into Orthodoxy. The idea that this woman described in the Gospels in such humble terms could be called Mother of God seems unbiblical to them. She was never called Mother of God in the Bible, they say, so why would…
Praying in the Rain
Tender-hearted God
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[I wrote the following on the flight from Arkansas to Dallas, after saying good by to my daughter and her children] Last Sunday, Fr. George at St. Anthony Church in Tulsa spoke about God’s tender-heartedness. His text was one of the Orthros prayers that the priest prays while the chanter reads the six Orthros Psalms. The prayer beseeches God’s mercy based on God’s own tender-heartedness. I have been thinking about this…
The Morning Offering
Saints
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Photo: Bill Rockwell (OCMC), Abbot Tryphon, Father Iulian Negru, Missions Director for the Muloavia and Bucuvina Archdiocese in Romania, and Ancuta and Floyd Frantz, missionaries in Cluj, Romania. The Role of Saints in our Christian Lives Growing up Lutheran I always believe the veneration of saints by Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians was a form of idolatry. They were idolaters…
The Morning Offering
Tuesday November 8, 2011 / October 26, 2011
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I believe the words of Metropolitan Hilarion are of such grave importance that I am choosing to post this article from Interfax for all to read. Please contact your congressman and ask that the United States government speak out in defense of our Coptic brothers and sisters. The US and the other western nations need to make it abundantly clear…
Glory to God for All Things
Living the Life of the Publican
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For many people in our culture, the idea of private confession is neither attractive nor comforting. We prefer “to put our best foot forward,” and make the best impression on others. Everyone is aware that everyone has faults. Those who have grown up Protestant may have been frequently reminded, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). In the polite Southern Protestant culture in which I…
The Morning Offering
Sin as Illness
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Graduate Students from Seattle Pacific Univerity Church as Hospital of the Soul Our Orthodox Faith defines sin as an illness that is in need of healing, not as a crime that requires punishment. The Church is a hospital for the soul whose therapists (priests) first sought therapy and then became the therapists. As a healing institution the Church is a…
Nearly Orthodox
home...
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Another Sunday, another Divine Liturgy to experience in yet another Orthodox church. I wasn’t going to go. I thought I’d stick with St George and the Dragon. Something gnawed at me, though, and each time I thought about going back I was uneasy. I had questions, I had reservations. I was pretty sure they were all about me and my shortcomings. I’d dialogue with myself about this all day long. Won’t wear…
The Morning Offering
Faith Without Action
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Abbot Gerasim and Abbot Tryphon A Faith Without Action is Dead Although eternal life can not be attained by works, for no one can do any good but by the power of Christ, faith without works is dead. Transformation is necessary for any of us to enter into God’s kingdom and requires us to cooperate with God in our salvation.…
The Morning Offering
Re-Adjustment
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I thought there would be a grave beauty, a sunset splendour In being the last of one’s kind: a topmost moment as one watched The huge wave curving over Atlantis, the shrouded barge Turning away with wounded Arthur, or Ilium burning. Now I see that, all along, I was assuming a posterity Of gentle hearts: someone, however distant in the…
Glory to God for All Things
And Now for Something Completely Different...
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[vodpod id=Video.2162156&w=425&h=350&fv=%26rel%3D0%26border%3D0%26] The God Gene, posted with vodpod
The Morning Offering
Vision and Mission
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Click on photos to enlarge. Where there is no vision, the people perish (Proverbs 9:18). I was privileged to be an Observer for the Orthodox Church in America’s All American Council, held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Bellevue, WA. It was a particular blessing to be in attendance as it afforded me an opportunity to spend time with many…
Glory to God for All Things
Face to Face
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There are few joys of a blogosphere writer greater than to meet face-to-face with his readers. Such has been my experience at my time at the 16th All-American Council of the Orthodox Church in America. To embrace someone who can say that my articles on the death of my parents helped them to endure the death of their own parents is beyond anything I can express in words – for the love…
Nearly Orthodox
momentum...
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I’m headed down to Nashville next week. I’m hoping for a week to catch up with friends, do a lot of writing and to visit St John’s. And it’s an interruption in momentum. Stupid momentum. I’m hoping to visit one more community before I go. This one is very small, much like St John’s. I’m a little wigged about it. Small crowds make me nervous. I can hide in big crowds, in…
The Morning Offering
Compassion
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Love Involves Suffering If we are indeed to love one another we must be willing to suffer with others. The Lord tells us that we must “Bear one another’s burdens, and so be filled with the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2). When we learn to love others our compassion is such that we are willing to suffer with them. Their…
