A Light So Lovely
Being in Communion: The New Nicodemus
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What a strange time. We have never been so interconnected, so interdependent, so close to one another. And now, we have never been so incapable of dealing (emotionally, financially, spiritually) with a pandemic. In times like these, it’s especially helpful, I think, to read stories that help us make sense of our reality. We are storytelling creatures, our Savior spoke in stories (parables), and we are singularly incapable of dealing cooly, rationally…
Glory to God for All Things
The Community We All Need
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I am publiishing this from the archives of the blog. During a time when many are practice “social distancing” in the face of the Covid19 virus, we do well to think about the nature of what we have lost (temporarily). Individualism feels easy until loneliness begins to set in. I pray this will find you well and be of use. I once read that the Russian instinct, when under pressure, was…
The Whole Counsel Blog
Psalm 51 and Justification
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Any discussion of salvation in general, and that described by St. Paul in particular, will necessarily include the concept of justification. Exactly how justification works was the central argument of the Protestant Reformation in the West. Despite a massive disagreement about its functionality between the Roman church and Protestant groups, they shared, for the most part, a common definition of the term. To be justified was to be made, or declared, to be righteous. Righteousness was something that was possessed and must be possessed in order to enter into eternal life. It must be possessed in complete perfection. Righteousness, therefore, formed a certain bar that needed to be cleared in order to receive eternal life from Christ. In the Roman…
Faith Encouraged
Learning Leads to Strength
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I have a friend who is a biologist and she is also an atheist. She’s an atheist because she’s convinced there is no such thing as “free will.” And she believes this because of her science. To her, every choice we think we make is actually just certain chemical reactions to different stimuli. I know, sad, isn’t it. And yet, I know some theologians who would agree with her about “free will.”…
The Morning Offering
Lord Jesus Christ
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Let us taste the presence of Jesus Christ within us 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 place wherein you…
A Light So Lovely
New Blog Series: Being in Communion
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The world is going mad around us. Who knew that it wouldn’t be the zombie apocalypse, but a virus with a mortality rate less than some flu epidemics? People are fighting in store aisles for toilet paper. Some lovely human beings are trying to financially capitalize on the sufferings of others by buying (and reselling) tens of thousands of bottles of hand sanitizer. And the best, culturally, that we seem to be…
Behind the Scenes
Spiritual Reading and Listening in This Time of Stress
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Raising Saints
Virtual Sunday School
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I have been talking with some other Sunday School enthusiasts about how we can create a virtual Sunday school classroom, a place where you and your children can come every Sunday morning for a little video, some conversation and activities. If so many schools are moving to online classes, maybe Sunday school could do that too? Stay tuned. I’ll be putting up a link on this blog, once we know what that…
No Other Foundation
A Guest Post by Matushka Donna Farley: Lenten Distancing
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Church closed. Community members scattered widely. Weeks without normal daily and weekly routine, without spiritual instruction, without icons to venerate, without Sunday eucharist, without community agape meals. This was the deliberate practice of the monastery of Abba Zosima in the sixth century Palestinian desert, every Lent. On the Sunday of Forgiveness, the brethren would prostrate themselves to each other and ask forgiveness and receive a blessing from their abbot. Then each would…
Time Eternal
A #TemporalTuesdays from St. Patrick
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Enjoy this #TemporalTuesdays thought from St. Patrick’s lorica:
Faith Encouraged
Noah Obeyed God
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It never fails. I’m sitting with a young couple in pre-marital counseling and we get to the part of the service where the husband is commanded to love his wife as Christ loves the Church and the wife is to “obey” her husband. They look at each other. They look at me. Sometimes they smile and sometimes they scowl. It seems we live in an age where the word “obey” is a…
The Morning Offering
Our Period of Lenten Solitude
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In such times of trial it is important to live in accordance with the Gospels After further consultation with other monastery leaders and personal prayer and searching on the matter, we as a community have felt it to be important to make the Church services available to those who wish to come and pray to our Lord. The city of…
Faith Encouraged
Bitter, Necessary Medicine
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My best friend in the world died of a brain tumor many years ago. Anyone who has either struggled with cancer or knew someone who did, knows the radical nature of cancer treatment. The chemotherapy is literally poison used to kill the cancer. But it’s still poison. Many have wondered if the cure is worse than the disease. And yet, modern science sees us surviving cancer at higher percentages every year. So,…
The Morning Offering
Watchfulness
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Watchfulness and the guarding of the heart Watchfulness has been described by Elder Ephraim of Philotheou as “the axe which shatters the large trees, hitting their roots. When the root is struck, it doesn’t spring up again.” A conscientious attention to our thoughts is an important tactic in spiritual warfare, and is necessary if we are to have effective weapons…
No Other Foundation
“You Are Gods”
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A dear friend of mine suggested that I might be interested in the Biblical exegesis of Mike Heiser (of whom I had never heard), so I looked up some of his works available on Amazon. Amazon allows one to peruse the initial chapters of the books they offer for sale, so I was able to look at the first chapters of Heiser’s The Unseen Realm. There I learned that “a watershed moment”…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
The Holy One and His Holy Ones
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The Morning Offering
Dark Times
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What should a Christian’s response be to dark times As an Orthodox Christian, I do not believe God makes us suffer. However, I know that God sometimes allows me to suffer as a means of delivering me the salvific medicine that can bring about healing of my fallen nature. God knows I sometimes need to suffer in order to turn…
Eastern Christian Insights
Becoming Radiant with Light in a World Paralyzed by the Fear of Death: Homily for the Second Sunday of Lent in the Orthodox Church
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Hebrews 1:10-2:3; Mark 2:1-12 Lent this year is not what any of us had anticipated. Prudence about our own health and concern for the elderly and those with underlying conditions will lead to changes in our habits and routines. Some of us will have to adjust to new schedules at work and school. Many events and trips have been cancelled. At least until further notice, the schedule…
Raising Saints
Our Global Great Lent
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What an interesting Great Lent we have this year! Just as Clean Monday arrived, COVID-19 became an international news story, a global concern. As we move deeper into the Lenten season, we are asked to retreat from our noisy lives, to avoid entertainments and parties, to spend more time quietly at home… actually, the Church calls us to do that every year, but this year, the WHO and the CDC are calling…
Raising Saints
Podcasts for the Days of Self-Isolation
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Kristina Wenger and I were recording this week’s episode of Tending the Garden of Our Hearts, and I realized that unlike so many of my activities, podcasting won’t miss a beat in this period of social distancing and self-isolation; at Ancient Faith Radio, we’re already working from home, recording in our closets, and communicating with you digitally. Glory be to God! We’re already set up for this brave new world. So, if…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Is God Behind COVID-19?
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I am going to go ahead and say yes. But stick with me here, okay?
Nearly Orthodox
Love in the Time of Covid-19
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Dear Ones, Wow, it’s been far too long since I last wrote. I’m sorry to have been so absent. How’s everyone? Hanging in there in troubled times? Truth be told, I’ve been in a sort of self-imposed social distancing over the last year though it has nothing to do with Covid-19. I’ve always been ahead of the curve. Trendsetter. That’s me. In all seriousness, though, I wanted to write today to…
The Morning Offering
Turning Direction
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Having encountered Christ our life turns direction In the story of the Magi we read of three wise men who, having seen a star in the east, travel to a desert cave, wherein they find the Child, laid in a manger by His Virgin Mother. Once they had beheld the Christ, this encounter with the Messiah filled them with life-transforming…
Father Bill's Blog
171. The Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great - The Anaphora, Part One
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Our series on the Divine Liturgy resumes. On Lenten Sundays we celebrate the Liturgy of Saint Basil, so I’ve been saving his Anaphora for now. As you’ll remember, “Anaphora” (αναφόρηση) means “offering” – the final part of the Liturgy when we offer the Holy Gifts, the Bread and Wine. Basil here gave us the most succinct summary I know of our Orthodox understanding of salvation history. It’s also a gorgeous piece of writing. Previous…
Faith Encouraged
Fire BURNS!
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I was a fire bug when I was younger. Fire fascinated me, that is until one day when I burned myself play with fire. It’s amazing how instructional pain can be if you let it! But why is it we keep insisting on learning life’s lessons the hard way? Why do we so consistently find ourselves ignoring wisdom for the prideful notion that “the rules don’t apply to me?” I’ll tell you…
The Morning Offering
Why Do You Judge Your Brother?
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Doing combat against the critical spirit within yourself Fearing the loss of control, we construct a wall of defense around us, keeping authenticity at bay. Fearing rejection, we see ourselves as unlovable, and blame others. Knowing we are inauthentic, we flee from the truth by becoming critical of others. We lie to ourselves, and to others, hiding our insecurity and…
Time Eternal
In Faith and Love: A Layperson's Thoughts on Drawing Near during a Pandemic
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Yesterday, the World Health Organization announced that COVID-19 (formerly known as the novel coronavirus) is officially a global pandemic. What does (or should) this mean for those of us in Eucharistic faith traditions like Orthodoxy, for whom receiving Communion (with our actual, microorganism-harboring mouths) is central to the lived reality of faith and fellowship? Since the Church is…
