Glory to God for All Things
Of Thy Mystical Supper
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On this day the Church remembers Our Lord’s institution of the Sacrament of His Body and Blood. The Liturgy is that of St. Basil’s, which is used on all the Sundays of Lent as well. It is one of the most complete statements of the faith, despite its brevity (compared to Catechism or a book). Printed here is a portion of the Anaphora of St. Basil’s Liturgy, in the translation of Archbishop Dmitri…
Glory to God for All Things
The Lamb - Slain from the Foundation of the World
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It was granted to him [the beast] to make war with the saints and to overcome them. And authority was given him over every tribe, tongue, and nation. All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. If anyone has an ear, let him hear. These are strange verses from the…
Glory to God for All Things
He Who Has Ears to Hear
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I am convinced after years of preaching and listening to preaching that the bulk of Scripture has become lost to our ears. We hear it, but fail to “hear” it. And I do not mean this merely in the moral sense (doubtless we fail to be “doers” of the word). Rather, I am aware of a kind of dullness, of seeing a very narrow set of things that become the lens through…
Glory to God for All Things
The Bridegroom Comes
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Behold, the Bridegroom comes at midnight, and blessed is the servant whom He shall find watching; and again, unworthy is the servant whom He shall find heedless. Beware, therefore, O my soul, do not be weighed down with sleep, lest you be given up to death and lest you be shut out of the Kingdom. But rouse yourself crying: Holy, holy, holy, are Thou, O our God. Through the Theotokos, have mercy…
Glory to God for All Things
Reaching Holy Week
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Holy Week has long been my favorite time of year. I remember coming to it rather slowly in my college years. My wife and I were active Episcopalians at the time (while in college we volunteered to be in charge of the junior youth group – some 60 teenagers – that qualifies as being “active”). For whatever reasons I had never paid much attention to Holy Week before. There was Palm Sunday…
Glory to God for All Things
A Last Minute Word to Catechumens
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“Are we really going to do this?” Those were the words I greeted by dear wife with upon waking in our hotel room on February 15, 1998. We were in Columbia, SC, for the purpose of being received into the Orthodox Church by Father Peter Smith (then Rector of Holy Apostles in Columbia). Along with us were our four children, the oldest being 17 and the youngest age 7. This day that…
Glory to God for All Things
The Incarnation: Cause of All Things Made, And Caused by None
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The title of this post is a chapter heading in George Gabriel’s Mary the Untrodden Portal of God. Gabriel occasionally strikes hard at the West and the book would perhaps be strengthened with a less combative approach to the differences of East and West in the faith (my own opinion), but I liked the book and found Gabriel addressing many things, well foot-noted, that are not found in many other places. I share…
Glory to God for All Things
That You May not Grieve as Others Do Who Have No Hope
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Most of the services and words of Holy Week are the ones I expect – I’ve heard them before and though something will leap out at me as though I had never heard it (this always happens), I still feel somewhat secure that I know what is coming. In the Orthodox calendar, Holy Week begins on Lazarus Saturday, the day before Palm Sunday. The services bear some similarity, as is appropriate, to…
Glory to God for All Things
The Boundary of Death
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Having spent two-and-a-half years as a Hospice Chaplain, I had opportunity to be present to over 200 deaths (that does not include the many I have witnessed in my years in ordained ministry. As you sit with someone who is dying, there finally arises a boundary beyond which you cannot go: death itself. I can pray for the “departure of the soul from the body” (the priestly service done at the time…
Glory to God for All Things
In Accordance with the Scriptures - Part 2
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Another candidate for consideration within the New Testament (particularly the New Testament as Interpretation) is the Johanine Corpus, the writings of St. John. I am particularly intruiged by its development of a theology of “glory.” Glory is not new to the Jewish Community. The glory of God inhabits (or once inhabited) the Temple. I would grant, in a mood of generosity, that early Christians might describe Christ as “glorified.” What becomes utterly…
Glory to God for All Things
The Grace of Repentance
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From Archimandrite Sophrony’s On Prayer There, on the Holy Mountain, my life found its right track. Almost every day after the Liturgy I knew a feeling of Easter joy.And strange as it may seem, my constant prayer like some volcanic eruption proceeded from the profound despair that ahd taken over my heart. Two seemingly totally incompatible states met together in me. I am recording facts. I did not understand myself what was…
Glory to God for All Things
In Accordance with the Scriptures
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This short phrase, “in accordance with the Scriptures,” occurs rather politely in the course of the Nicene Creed. It does not mean that what is described is described “according to the Scriptures,” that is, in a literal sense, but rather that these matters – on the third day rose again from the dead in accordance with the Scriptures, are matters that happened in fulfillment of the Scriptures themselves. It is, first off, a…
Glory to God for All Things
And the Word Became Flesh
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Revealing to you the pre-eternal counsel, Gabriel came and stood before you, O Maiden, and in greeting said: “Rejoice, earth that has not been sown! Rejoice, burning bush that remains unconsumed! Rejoice, unsearchable depth! Rejoice, bridge that leads to Heaven! Rejoice, ladder raised on high that Jacob saw! Rejoice, divine jar of manna! Rejoice, deliverance from the curse! Rejoice, restoration of Adam; the Lord is with you!” From the Vesperal Stichera of…
Glory to God for All Things
Whither the Episcopal Church?
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Retired Bishop Wantland of Eau Claire’s statement, in response to the recent rejection by the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops of the demands by the other Primates of the Anglican Communion is staggering: The Episcopal Church is no longer a Catholic body. It is no longer even a Christian one. Itis simply an embodiment of a corrupt, historically inaccurate, spirit of this age. And if the Anglican Communion does not see the Episcopal…
Glory to God for All Things
The Challenge of Atheism
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I will quickly confess that I am not a philosopher. I am not trained in the subject and always struggled in the few doctoral classes that were in the area of “Philosophical Theology.” Thus, this will not be a philosophical response that settles matters for believers viz. atheism, or settles matters viz. Orthodox Christianity for atheists. It is just some observations. That the world would be better off if everyone were an…
Glory to God for All Things
The Mother of God - Telling the Whole Story of Salvation
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This Friday and Saturday the Orthodox Church focuses its liturgical attention on the ancient hymn known as the Akathist, the “the hymn we sing unseated, i.e., Akathismos” (what hymn would you sing while seated methinks?). St. Romanos the Melodist was the author of the first Akathist, written in honor of the Theotokos (“Birthgiver of God”). It has its own particular poetic form. Many of the Saints now have Akathists written in their…
Glory to God for All Things
St. Mary of Egypt
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One of the most remarkable stories of the early Church, read each year on this day in Lent during the Canon of St. Andrew, is the Story of St. Mary of Egypt. I know of nothing better to do this day than read it (or attend a service in which it is read – I did the latter this morning). Do yourself a favor and ponder the mercy of God. The Story…
Glory to God for All Things
The Problem of Church
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My title may sound a bit strange – for I do not mean to say “the Problem of the Church” – but simply the problem that something exists called “the Church” creates for modern Christianity. My thoughts are occasioned by a question posed to one of my recent posts. I assumed that the person posing the question was an evangelical or protestant of some sort – for the statements that were questioned…
Glory to God for All Things
Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth
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Learning to read the Bible (since we now have them so readily available) is a difficult thing. We pray always for the Bishops of the Church that God will “grant them to the Churches, long lived…rightly dividing the word of Truth.” Rightly dividing the word of Truth, or properly interpreting the Scriptures is quite difficult. The modernist approach of the historical critical method can be useful for some things, but has never…
Glory to God for All Things
The Truth of an Icon
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Icons are lovely objects – directing our hearts towards God – sometimes miraculous and truly “windows to heaven.” But I want to be somewhat theological today and write about the “truth” of an icon. Icons are peculiar, when painted according to the most traditional patterns. They are not just “ahistorical” they are positively non-historical. We can look at an icon and see any number of events depicted that do not belong to the…
Glory to God for All Things
Boundaries Which God Has Set
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I have written previously of boundaries and their essential nature in our spiritual lives. This can be described by the boundaries we experience within ourselves (certain ones must be maintained) or the boundaries we experience in an Orthodox Temple (such boundaries serve to teach us about ourselves and the Truth of our relationship with Christ). One boundary which is perhaps the most essential, and yet contrary to much modern thought, is the…
Glory to God for All Things
The Ladder of Divine Ascent
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There is something about charts, methods, tables and the like that always make me react in a negative manner. There is a form of rationalism that, for me, simply screams, “This is the work of man.” A Linaeus can invent a table for classifying nature – and I’m sure that biologists find it very helpful. But there is something irrational at the same time about nature in which everything resists classification. The…
Glory to God for All Things
The Breastplate of St. Patrick
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I arise today Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity, Through a belief in the Threeness, Through confession of the Oneness Of the Creator of creation.I arise today Through the strength of Christ’s birth and His baptism, Through the strength of His crucifixion and His burial, Through the strength of His resurrection and His ascension, Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom. I arise today Through…
Glory to God for All Things
Signposts
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I have spent my day traveling by car to the heart of South Carolina where my parents are now living, having moved to an “Assisted Living” Center recently. I have a brother nearby. “Going home” to South Carolina has become a sort of barometer of sorts for me in the past 20 years (it’s how long I’ve been gone). There have been vacations, funerals, weddings, graduations – all the events that mark…
Glory to God for All Things
Reverent Audaciousness
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From Fr. Sophrony’s We Shall See Him as He Is Divine Love begets reverent audaciousness. Thus a handful of Apostles, hitherto faint-hearted, after the descent of the Holy Ghost were filled with courage and took on the whole of the rest of the world in spiritual struggle. Nearly all of them suffered martyrdom. When the governor of Patras threatened St. Andrew with crucifixion the latter made the marvelous reply, “If I feared…
Glory to God for All Things
Pray for Catechumens
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In this season of the year it is traditional for Catechumens to be preparing for reception into the Church. My experience is that for anyone preparing to be received life gets a little tougher. I suspect the enemy to be the culprit behind this and therefore think it all the more incumbent on all Orthodox to remember and pray for Catechumens. The Fathers wisely gave us such prayers for every liturgy (though…
Glory to God for All Things
Icons and the Heart
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My maternal grandparents’ home had an array of popular religious art: Jesus knocking at the door (as discussed in the previous post’s comments), the guardian angel and the children, prayer in the garden of gethsemane. They were country Baptists, and yet religious art (I suppose some would call it kitsch) was an important part of the home. My first encounter of the Theotokos was with a Raphael Madonna that was the frontispiece…
