Raising Saints
WIN a FREE Audiobook: Blueprints for the Little Church!!!
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Blueprints for the Little Church: Creating an Orthodox Home is now available on audiobook (in addition to the real physical book and ebook versions)! If you prefer to listen to your books read aloud, you’re in luck. You can win a free audiobook of Blueprints! There are three ways to enter, and you are welcome to enter three times (once via each method): 1- Use the contact form here on the blog…
Father Bill's Blog
170. What does the Orthodox Church teach about the Afterlife? Part Three
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Finally we come to the end of this series. I’ve found so much to talk and think about that I began to wonder, at my age, whether I’d live long enough to finish it – and then find out for myself if I had known what I was talking about! But I’m still here. So, we continue. Yesterday I realized that I’ve ignored the most obvious thing we believe about death: In…
A Lamp for Today
"Of Whom the World Was Not Worthy"—the Righteous of the Old Covenant
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Hebrews 11-12, Exodus, Judges, 1 Kings 17, Daniel Great Lent is a time when we particularly concentrate upon the Old Testament. This makes sense, since it is a time of repentance, and St. Paul tells us to look at the Old Testament story of Israel as a way of seeing negative examples that should act as warnings for us. In particular, he refers to the rebellion of the Hebrews in the desert…
Faith Encouraged
Clean Friday - O My People, Your Leaders Mislead You!
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When I was a teenager, the older generation was very upset about our modern music! And the movies that Hollywood was producing that we loved, they were sure was ruining our lives and causing us to be violent or promiscuous or rebellious? Sound familiar? So, the question is does music and movies and video games cause violence and rebellion or do they simply reflect the violence and rebellion? And the answer is…
The Morning Offering
Keeping the Fast
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Keeping the fast for all the right reasons The Lord condemned the Pharisee, not because he fasted, but because his motivation was based on pride. The Pharisee wished to be seen by men, and he had no fear of God. He dared to stand before the Lord in pride and arrogance, while the Publican stood afar off, beating his breast,…
The Whole Counsel Blog
Why the Law was Given, and by Whom
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At the beginning of the story of salvation, God made promises to Abraham. These promises were really a reaffirmation of the purpose for which humanity had been created in the first place before the coming of rebellion, sin, and death. The story of Abraham begins in Genesis 12, following on the three rebellions, the three “falls” of Genesis 1-11. Once mortal life ending in death had achieved its purpose, Christ would defeat it and release humanity from its hold. In the same event, his rising, he would also defeat the evil powers and principalities who had dominated the nations since Babel. Death and the hostile powers stand as opposed to humanity’s destiny in Christ as spoken to Abraham. Those promises,…
Glory to God for All Things
Look Who's Talking
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Everyone is familiar with that “voice in the head.” By this, I mean the negative voice. It is mean, judgmental, angry, jealous, envious, salacious, just bad. Sometimes it goes quiet. Sometimes it is so overwhelming that it drowns everything else out. One simple question we can ask: “Who’s doing the talking?” This voice is not the product of reasoning. We have not weighed, measured, compared and reached a conclusion that “he deserves…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
The Revelation of Forgiveness
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Time Eternal
50% off Under the Laurel Tree Today Only!
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Faith Encouraged
Clean Thursday - He Rises to Terrify the Earth
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Why does the Bible say that God is angry? Especially when you read me write that we can’t make God angry. And even more, if we can change God’s mood, we claim to have power over God. And that idea, dear friends, is ludicrous on its face! So, what does the Bible mean when we read that God gets angry? Let’s look at our lesson today in Isaiah 2:11-21: The haughty looks…
The Morning Offering
The Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts
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Communing from the Body and Blood of the Master during the period of spiritual combat The Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is attributed to Saint Gregory the Dialogist († 604), Pope of Rome, but in actuality, it is not the work of one individual, but is a composite work coming down to us from Holy Tradition. The Liturgy of the…
Raising Saints
Triumph of Orthodoxy
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This Sunday will be the first Sunday of Great Lent, on which we celebrate the Triumph of Orthodoxy. In our parish and in parishes around the world, we will process with icons held high, celebrating together the rightful return of icons to the church so many years ago. As you know, icons were removed from our churches in the 8th century, and then fully restored in the 9th century. The Sunday of…
Faith Encouraged
Clean Wednesday - Let Us Walk In The Light of the Lord
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Let’s face it, we had it great in Paradise! It was the perfect place to get to know God and each other. It was set up specifically for that purpose. But, alas, we had to leave that paradise because of the mortal danger of eating from the Tree of Life unprepared and enslaved to our rebellion. God, in His infinite love for us put us away from that danger until He came…
The Morning Offering
Why Attend Church?
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Can’t God’s temple be duplicated at home? Over the years I have met people who have chosen not to join a church, choosing, rather, to “worship” at home. Some have convinced themselves church is a waste of time, and feel they can be close to God while staying home on a Sunday morning. Others believe none of the churches teach…
Time Eternal
When Shall We Be Joyous? #TemporalTuesdays
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Faith Encouraged
Clean Tuesday - Faithfulness Vs. Unfaithfulness
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The Holy Scriptures have some basic meta-narratives that are consistent throughout the scriptures. One of these meta narratives is faithfulness vs. unfaithfulness. From Eden through the Nation of Israel and the Prophets and the kings right up to the Battle of Armageddon, those who are faithful to God and those who are unfaithful have very different ends. And it is this contrast that we are invited to confront in our Lenten journey…
The Morning Offering
Elder Pavlos of Sinai
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Geronta Pavlos of Sinai falls asleep in the Lord I received the following email this morning from Sister Joanna, the nun who accompanied the Elder on his visit to our monastery, back in May of 2012: We rejoice in the knowledge that holy Geronta Pavlos of Sinai, having reposed in the Lord, now enjoys the reward of the enormous martyrdom…
The Whole Counsel Blog
The Promises to Abraham
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The promises made to Abraham form the basis for the entire Biblical understanding of salvation. In addition to his name, Yahweh, God identifies himself throughout as the “God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob.” This is clear even to a very casual reader of the Scriptures. Nonetheless, if asked what the promises to Abraham were, most even educated Christians would speak of the promise that Abraham would have a great many descendants and those descendants would live on a particular piece of land in Palestine. The New Testament in general and St. Paul in particular, however, speak of the promises to Abraham as the beginning of the promise of salvation fulfilled in the gospel of Jesus Christ. The apostle…
Time Eternal
In Anger We Trust? Repentance in the Age of Rage
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It’s been over a month, and I’m still reeling from a comment I read on social media in January. Since yesterday was Forgiveness Sunday, signaling that we have now entered into Lent proper, I’m reflecting on how that single comment has shaped my attitude toward anger and reconciliation. It all started with a meme. What the meme actually…
Behind the Scenes
Facing Forward: Who Is This Conference For?
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Faith Encouraged
Clean Monday - What Our Hearts Truly Hunger For!
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“Vain repetition, that’s all it is!” My friend was absolutely horrified by my shift from my Pentecostal roots to the Greek Orthodox Church. He came to a service where I was presiding as priest and he simply shook his head in disbelief. “How could you do this?” he wondered to me afterwards. All the ritual and read prayers and prescribed movements were seen by him as nothing more that the empty “traditions”…
The Morning Offering
Fasting?
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Why should we keep the Lenten Fast? Fasting is clearly not optional, as Christ said, regarding fasting, “When you fast…” (Matt. 6:16), rather than “if you fast…”. The Lord, when speaking of His disciples, said that when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, they shall fast. When His disciples reported to Him that they had been unable to cast out…
No Other Foundation
Moses and the Ten Words
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Recently I read an interesting critique of American Christianity. It pointed out that in an earlier day the schoolrooms for our children used to feature the Ten Commandments written on the wall, rather than (for example) the Beatitudes. The author thought this rather odd for a Christian nation, and evidence that something was wrong. I grant you that the preference for the Ten Commandments over the Beatitudes does invite comment. One begins…
Eastern Christian Insights
Forgiveness and the Journey Back to Paradise in Lent: Homily for the Sunday of Forgiveness (Cheese Fare) in the Orthodox Church
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Romans 13:11-14:4; Matthew 6:14-21 As we prepare to begin our Lenten journey tomorrow, we remember today how Adam and Eve stripped themselves naked of the divine glory and were cast out of Paradise into a world enslaved by death. They used God’s great blessings to fulfill their self-centered desires, and made themselves miserable as a result. The murder of their son by Abel by his brother Cain provides a vivid portrait…
The Morning Offering
Forgiveness and Love
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The capacity to forgive and the capacity to love The capacity to forgive is directly related to the capacity to love, and it is in our act of forgiving others, that we find forgiveness. For it is in the turning away from our own self-concern, and our own self-will, that we begin to see that our salvation is directly linked…
Glory to God for All Things
Forgiveness - The Hardest Love of All
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I cannot think that any of my readers is a stranger to forgiveness, either the need to be forgiven or the need to forgive. The need to forgive, according to the commandment of Christ, extends well beyond those who ask for our forgiveness: we are commanded to forgive our enemies – whom I presume would rarely want to ask for our forgiveness. Of course, our experience of those who are truly enemies…
The Morning Offering
Cruel Friends
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They drive me to the cave of God’s mercy Because we are all created in God’s image and likeness, we are responsible for the way we impact others. Often by our very existence we are a source of great irritation and anxiety for other people. The only way we can change that is by loving them, and praying for them.…
