Faith Encouraged
We Need True Friendships
·
Ralph Waldo Emerson once suggested that the greatest invention of humanity is friendship. But Emerson is mistaken. Friendship isn’t man’s invention. It is God’s. No matter how hard we try to hide it, our hunger for intimacy, relationships, and communion always “spills” out of our hearts. That’s why we hunger for friends and companions. That’s why, as rare a true love may be, true friendship is rarer still. And yet, we long…
The Morning Offering
THE NATIVITY
·
The Condescension of God and the Deification of Man We Orthodox Christians on the Julian Calendar are now celebrating the birth of Jesus, the incarnation of God on Earth. And this celebration of the Nativity of Christ will mark the spiritual upheaval of the universe, for this solemn day marks the embodiment of God on Earth, and the day God…
Behind the Scenes
Ancient Faith Today with Fr. Tom Soroka
·
Faith Encouraged
You Should Baptize ME!
·
All of us come to moments in our lives that turn out to be crossroads in our future. Many times we can see these moments coming, like a marriage proposal, or that first purchase of a home, or a career advancement, some (maybe even many) of these moments sneak up on us and surprise us with their importance even years after the event. I can think of several moments in my life…
The Whole Counsel Blog
How is the Holy Spirit Like a Dove?
·
Christ’s baptism by St. John the Forerunner in the Jordan is narrated in all four Gospels. One element of the telling of this event found in all four is the descent of the Holy Spirit (Matt 3:16; Mark 1:10; Luke 3:22; John 1:32). In each of these cases, the Spirit’s descent is compared to a dove. Possibly because this comparison is conveyed in traditional Orthodox iconography through the depiction of a literal bird, it is often misunderstood. The text is not meaning to convey that the Spirit turned into a bird or made some sort of bird manifestation. In some less traditional iconography, the Spirit is even depicted as a bird in other generalized settings. Two details, however, are here…
The Morning Offering
The Created and the Uncreated
·
This season of the Nativity of Christ is the perfect time to look closely at what this pivotal moment in human history meant for this material world. That the Logos, the Word of God, joined Himself to our humanity was singularly the most important event in human history. That this was done by God in order to join His Divinity…
Eastern Christian Insights
Christ's Baptism as an Epiphany of the Salvation of the World: Homily for the Feast of Theophany in the Orthodox Church
·
Matthew 3:13-17; Titus 2:11-14; 3:4-7 Today we celebrate that Jesus Christ is truly the Son of God and One of the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity. At His baptism by St. John the Forerunner in the Jordan, the voice of the Father proclaims, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased,” and the Holy Spirit descends upon Him in the form of a…
The Morning Offering
Nous versus Ego
·
The true self versus the false self Reformed theology focuses on forensic justification, whereas the mystical theology of the Orthodox Church focuses on restoration to God through healing of the darkened soul alienated from Him. These are two very different models, but not really equal, because one can have faith in Christ’s sacrifice, but still not be healed and restored.…
The Morning Offering
One Person at a Time
·
Changing the world begins with me The Elder Sophroni of Essex said he believed in changing the world, one person at a time. These words are in agreement with those of Saint Seraphim of Sarov, who said acquiring inner peace causes a thousand around us to be saved. As long as we concentrate on the failings of others, inner transformation…
A Light So Lovely
What Does it Mean to "Accept the World"?
·
In his wonderful book Foundations of Christian Culture, Russian philosopher Ivan Ilyin begins one of his most remarkable chapters with these words: Whoever wants to create Christian culture must accept Christianity, he must breathe it into the depth of his soul and turn back to the world with a new wholeness and freedom. Expressing myself in philosophical language, I would say that such a person is called to actualize within himself the religious “act”…
Faith Encouraged
Fr. Barnabas, WHERE ARE YOU?
·
Greetings and Happy New Year. First off, let me say how grateful I am that so many have wondered where the audio devotional has gone. Even though we tried to telegraph this change starting back in September of this past year, it isn’t surprising that some folks didn’t know what was coming. Sorry. Starting in January of this year we have dropped the daily audio portion of the daily devotional. The challenges…
Glory to God for All Things
The Final Destruction of Demons - Holy Baptism
·
“Final” is not a word you often hear in Christian teaching. Most Christians leave the final things until, well, the End. But this is not the language of the fathers nor of the Church. A good illustration can be found in the Orthodox service of Holy Baptism. During the blessing of the waters the priest prays: And grant to [this water] the grace of redemption, the blessing of Jordan. Make it the…
Father Bill's Blog
160. The Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Grandfather of God, the Foster-Father of God, the Brother of God
·
I know I promised an article about the Magi this week, but between regular Church worship and activities, Christmas gatherings, the New Year, presiding at Saint Basil’s Liturgy on my Name Day the next morning, and a wonderful family visit…I just wasn’t prepared. But I had this Post almost ready to go. So let’s hold the Wise Men off till next year. (Maybe they can wait for a year in Edessa or somewhere?) In…
Faith Encouraged
Make Jesus KNOWN in 2020!
·
Christ is born! There was a day when I actually worked as a “promotions director” for a leading media ministry. My job was to make sure the religious media consumers knew about our radio, TV, and print materials available and to get folks to watch, listen, and read our stuff. I was even a member of the Public Relations Society of America for a short time! Nowadays, it seems that “getting the…
The Morning Offering
The Abuser
·
No one is required by God to remain in an abusive relationship The best way to respond to another person’s anger is not to withdraw, but to move towards them with kindness. There are times when distancing yourself from someone who is angry, is necessary, for there is absolutely no good reason for you to move towards another, when they…
Behind the Scenes
What Is Your New Year's Resolution?
·
Growing the Church
2. Management/Admin.: 2.6 Distribution/Presentation
·
In the world of the marketplace if you have products to sell you will, of course, have to make them known and available to potential customers. Commercial enterprise refers to this as Distribution. This is marketing proper and it involves advertising and branding, tools used to disseminate information about the products being made available. A brand is a combination of visual (logo), verbal (catch phrase), and personal (the CEO) information that allows…
Faith Encouraged
Are you "Born Again?" You Should Be!
·
“You must be born again.” Hey, where I’m from, that scripture is as well worn as John 3:16. In the ’70’s fad of the “Jesus Movement” (anybody who was paying attention at all to the culture of the early ’70’s knows this) being “born again” was all the rage. Billy Graham wrote a book about it and Jimmy Carter, running for President, made being “born again” a household phrase. I remember even…
The Morning Offering
Resisting an Unbelieving World
·
We must resist this world that has collectively slipped into madness In this secular society there are many Orthodox individuals who’ve found themselves sharing their lives with non-Orthodox friends and family members. Sometimes these people are not even practicing Christians, so the struggle to keep to the traditions and practices of the Orthodox Faith can be difficult. Even the blessing…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
16 Realistic Observations about Orthodoxy Online
·
Glory to God for All Things
The Holy Name of Jesus
·
In 1913, a small Russian fleet landed a contingent of soldiers who forcibly removed a group of Russian monks from Mount Athos. This action came at the end of a stormy controversy surrounding the name of God. The monks were known as the Imyaslavsy (“Name worshippers”) and were following ideas that had been promulgated in a text published in 1907. That work, On the Caucasus Mountains, written by the staretz, Schemamonk Hilarion,…
Faith Encouraged
The Whole Fullness of Deity Dwells
·
Christ is born! And Happy New Year! There’s no getting around this. The identity of Jesus Christ is the crux on which human history rests. He’s either merely an itinerant Jewish rabbi that fell afoul of the Roman occupiers; a gifted religious teacher and philosopher and “ascended master”; a figment of the imagination of gullible people; a “great prophet” that had some good things to say; or He’s actually what the Historic…
The Morning Offering
Quietude
·
Quietude, silence and prayer It is in keeping constant vigilance, guarding our senses, and living a life of repentance and self-rapprochement, that we can hope to gain control of our passions and enter into true communion with God. The basic element of such a life has got to include quietude, for it is in states of calmness and inner reflection…
Faith Encouraged
Another New Year! Thank God
·
Most of us will never travel the world to share the message of Jesus Christ to others in foreign lands. In fact, statistics tell us that most Americans will only travel to 8 states in their lifetime, and some Americans will live and die in the state where they were born. And yet… Look at this note we received recently from someone in China: “Thank you,Father, I want to attend your church…
Faith Encouraged
Endings And Beginnings
·
Christ is born! No matter how long any of us live, there’s something about the changing of the calendar that invites us to look at ourselves. Benjamin Franklin once said “Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.” Great quote. And here we are at the end of one calendar year and the beginning of another. Some of us…
The Morning Offering
Other Peoples Sins
·
If we are to win the battle we must focus only on our own sins When we take our eyes off our own failings, shortcomings, and sins, we notice the failings of others. As the sins of others get our attention, our focus turns away from our own struggles with the passions, and we begin to fall further into sin,…
The Whole Counsel Blog
The New Year
·
This week, most of the contemporary world will celebrate the beginning of a new calendar year. In the ancient world, a variety of calendars were used by different peoples to organize time in a manner held to be sacred. This produced different beginning dates for the annual cycle in addition to years of different lengths and often, as with the modern leap year, periods of time inserted as corrections. In ancient Israel through the Second Temple period, two overlapping calendars are in evidence and both are described in the Torah as well as in the practice of the people throughout the era. Corresponding to these two calendars are two different beginnings for the annual cycle. There were, in essence, for…
