Faith Encouraged
"I Reasoned Like a Child"
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“He who desires to worship God must harbor no childish illusions about the matter but bravely renounce his liberty and humanity.” This comes from a Russian anarchist named Mikhail Bakunin who died in 1876. But does the worship of God require a renunciation of liberty and humanity? Well, yes and no. Yes, in the sense that if I am to worship God truly and with a mature seriousness, I will have to…
The Morning Offering
The Next Generation
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How do we keep our youth in the Church? We are living in an age that has witnessed changes on a massive scale as never before. The way we communicate has changed with the coming of the internet, with information available that would have required a library and advanced degrees to access in the past. Ideas and information are available…
Shepherding our Little Flock
True. Helpful. Kind.
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“Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.” – Ephesians 4:29 Over the past year I have run across these words, on a few separate occasions, as suggested guidance for how we think about what we are going to say before we say it. When you look them up there are all sorts of variations on…
Growing the Church
Monasteries and the Modern Social Imaginary
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In the posts that were to have followed the previous one, I had intended to discuss two additional aspects of human interaction and the ways in which they impact the Church. On the one hand, there is public discourse, which is essentially difference-overcoming dialog or discussion that takes place in our common spaces and works toward consensus-based policies that benefit the majority. While this activity is essential to the wellbeing of society…
Faith Encouraged
The Church, The Whole Church, The Body of Christ
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The old saying is “You can pick your friends, but you’re stuck with your relatives.” Oh, the volumes that have been written about dysfunctional families! Family dynamics is one of the most interesting aspects of psychology to me because when I look at my own family I see a tapestry of joy, love, confusion, pain, good choices, bad choices, and a whole lot more. In other words, like most families, we have…
The Morning Offering
True Wealth
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The one who is spiritually wealthy needs nothing more The spiritually wealthy person is someone who is happy with what they have and needs nothing more. The spiritually poor person is one who has everything but is never happy. The spiritually rich person is one who is always satisfied with their state in life. The spiritually poor person always wants…
No Other Foundation
Snake Handling
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Every religion has odd things on its fringes, things that make most of its adherents cringe and wince, and which they are not eager to share with outsiders. These things are not so much dirty little secrets as examples of pathology, unwell people who express their psychological illness in religious terms. Every religion is keen to put its best foot forward and to present itself to the world in a way which…
Glory to God for All Things
God Within Us
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Popular New Age thought postulates that everyone has a “god within.” It’s a pleasant way of saying that we’re all special while making “god” to be rather banal. But there is a clear teaching of classical Christianity regarding Christ-within-us, and it is essential to the Orthodox way of life. We should not understand our relationship with God to be an “external” matter, as if we were one individual and God another. Our…
Faith Encouraged
Made Perfect BY Suffering
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Our American nation is suffering a time of chaos, fear, anger, and, yes, even the scourge of hatred. And this suffering can lead us to despair. But the message of the Orthodox Christian Faith is that suffering can actually form and shape us into Christ-like persons IF only we wouldn’t waste these moments of suffering. The Christian understanding of life and salvation can be summed up in this quote from Elder Sophrony…
The Morning Offering
Our Faith in a Polarized Age
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Do not adapt your faith to your life, but your life to the faith As Orthodox Christians we have no need of either fanaticism or bigotry to protect our faith. We who believe that Orthodoxy has the fullness of truth should not fear dialogue, because truth has never been endangered by dialogue. By contrast, when in our day we witness…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Why Do the Demons Afflict Us?
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Eastern Christian Insights
Becoming Our True Selves Through Faith in Christ: Homily for the Fifth Sunday After Pentecost and the Fifth Sunday of Matthew in the Orthodox Church
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Romans 10:1-10; Matthew 8:28-9:1 The many challenges that we face today should open our eyes to uncomfortable truths about what it means to be a human person in the world as we know it. The pandemic shows that we remain subject to death and disease in ways that no one can fully control. Our social and economic crises reveal that no nation or culture embodies the fulfillment of the collective life…
The Morning Offering
Darkness
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Avoiding this present darkness For those who embrace the enjoyment of partying and entertainment, all in an attempt to avoid the hardships and life struggles that make great souls, they will have failed to embrace the essential element that makes this life journey salvific. They will have avoided their service of love by enduring those difficulties that unite them to…
The Morning Offering
A Healthy Soul
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We must not react, but must be at peace Each day brings on new challenges regarding the health of your soul. Those moments when a family member or coworker makes a remark that are meant to anger you, are those times you need to guard your heart. When those around you are gossiping about someone, that is an opportunity for…
Father Bill's Blog
206. Father Thomas Hopko and his Fifty Five Maxims of Christian Living
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Someone said “Everybody listens to advice. Nobody ever takes it”. But, oh, I hope you take this advice from the Protopresbyter Thomas Hopko. So my advice is: Put his Maxims in an icon on your computer screen, labeled in capital letters so you will see it and open it often. Or print out the Maxims and put them in your daily prayer book, or in your icon corner. Because this is good. But first,…
Faith Encouraged
Garbage In; Garbage Out!
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The old computer coder adage is “Garbage in – Garbage out.” It meant that if the computer programmer got his code wrong, then it just stands to reason that the program wouldn’t work properly. What is true for computer programming is true for all of life. That’s why the Faith teaches us to actively pursue the ability to discern! The gift of discernment, the wisdom to see clearly, only comes when we…
The Morning Offering
The Prayer of the Heart
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Taste the presence of Christ within 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 where you can go deep into the heart and connect with God. That place where you can close off…
Raising Saints
Planning for Fall in the Days of Coronavirus
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Disclaimer: I don’t have the answers. I have the questions, perhaps, but I’m still working on answers. 2020. This year has been like no other. And like all of the other Sunday School Directors out there, my attention has moved from figuring out Virtual Vacation Church Camp to planning for the Fall 2020 Sunday School Semester, which promises to REALLY be like no other. For me, Sunday School planning is usually about…
Faith Encouraged
Our Intoxicated Age
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Faith Encouraged
Mamma Mia!
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I have that song from “Mamma Mia!” stuck in my head today! But the story is so fun. Amazing how family always ends up affecting us more than we realize! One of the strongest memories that I have as a boy growing up is my own mother reminding me that my behavior reflects on her and how she did as a mother to me. Bringing shame on my mother through bad behavior…
The Whole Counsel Blog
On Tollhouses
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Easily one of the most contentious issues among newcomers to the Orthodox faith, in particular on the internet, is the concept of “aerial tollhouses.” Though variously elaborated, the core idea is that when the human soul departs the body at death, as it journeys toward the intermediate state where it will await the resurrection, either Paradise or Hades, it passes through metaphorical ‘toll booths’ staffed by demonic spirits who in some way test the soul for various sins. Among devotees, matters of fine dispute such as the number of these tollhouses and the nature of each become subject to further discussion and debate. This sort of literalization of the metaphor would be an example of one extreme. The opposite extreme,…
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 we struggle with depression. It is during periods like this that depression can take on a life of it’s own, and we feel helpless and overwhelmed. Depression is sometimes a matter of a chemical imbalance that may…
Glory to God for All Things
The Story of the World We Live In
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Some ten or so years ago, my wife and I were hunting for a long-ish audiobook to entertain us as we made a 10-hour drive. A novel was one possibility, but none came to mind. As it was, we chose a book named “Salt.” It was an account of the world in terms of salt – its use, its production, its vital importance to human life, and its place in the shaping…
Faith Encouraged
I Saw Satan Fall Like a Star
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John Kennedy once said “It is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for war.” The context of his statement was in the heart of the “Cold War” between the United States and the Soviet Union, but the sentiment actually applies very well to the spiritual warfare we are all called to fight internally to have Christ formed in us! Look at our lesson today from Luke 6:17-19,…
The Morning Offering
The Poor
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The saints serve as our guides in serving the poor In many parts of the American countryside one can find the remnants of poorhouses (sometimes called workhouses), institutions run by local county or state governments as a means of dealing with the issue of the unemployed poor and homeless. These poorhouses were often located in rural farming communities, and could…
Faith Encouraged
Placebo Religion
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Have you ever thought about all those people Jesus healed during His ministry here on earth? They were so happy, grateful, and changed. In some cases (the illness of leprosy) they were now free to rejoin society, be reunited with their families, and finally, get their life back. They went on to live their lives. Some became great saints of the Church. And every one of them eventually died. Hey, why do…
The Morning Offering
Concealing Our Sins
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When we conceal our sins from our confessor A number of people have privately shared that they were hesitant to confess certain sins for fear of being embarrassed before their priest. One woman said she couldn’t handle the idea that a man would hear the details of her sinful actions, and wondered what the priest would think of her after…
