Thomas Sunday, April 19, 2015 Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. Christ is risen! Here we stand, at the end of Renewal Week, also called Bright Week, and it is Thomas Sunday. We gather with the eleven disciples in that room with the doors shut, and theā¦
I took this photo today during a brief walk with my family and posted it on Facebook. One commenter captioned it thus: Aslan is on the move. With as much suffering as has come during this Lent for me and for many in my flock, it is good to remember that Aslan is, indeed, “on the move.” Spring is coming after the winter. Theā¦
The Lord said to those Jews which had come to him: “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes him who sent me, has eternal life; he does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. Truly, truly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voiceā¦
What a jumble of highs and lows this week has been. On Sunday morning, we celebrated the great Triumph of Orthodoxy, being invited to “Come and see” our Lord Jesus Christ. On Sunday night, just as I was drifting off to sleep in front of too-late Netflix watching, I learned of the death of my friend Fr. Matthew Baker. On Monday, I couldn’t thinkā¦
Ccontinuing on some of the thoughts I mentioned in my Tuesday post on the occasion of six months since my mother’s passing, I wanted to explore some of these issues further in a more general way, meditating on a few related questions. I’ve actually gotten a couple of private notes from folks concerned that, from what they read, I was “repressing” my emotions regardingā¦
Today is six months since my mother’s passing on August 24 from a suddenly appearing aggressive brain cancer. I normally wouldn’t focus on stuff here that’s so personal, but perhaps my working out of some of these things may be helpful to folks in similar situations or who know people affected in this way. Even though it’s been half a year, it’s still hardā¦
I recently came across this article, which tells the story of a 29-year-old young woman who has decided to end her life by her own hand rather than letting an aggressive brain tumor (the same kind that took my mother’s life) do its work. It’s suicide, but a lot of people in the Facebook comment thread where I encountered the article did not seemā¦
Seeing my father’s name on this stone next to my recently departed mother’s reminds me that I used to be horrified at the morbid idea of having a tombstone with the name of a living person on it. It just didn’t seem right to be reminded of one’s death so baldly, literally to set up a monument to a future loss of life. Butā¦