Category: Communion

A Terrible Knowledge

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 45 Leave a Comment on %s
Greek Mythology made the curiosity of Pandora the primary cause of suffering in the world. She fails to resist the lure of finding out what is in a box she is told to leave closed. Opening the box, she unleashes sorrow and suffering into the world. We humans are a curious lot. We want to know everything about our business and much about what is not our business. In a world that…

Thanksgiving as Mystical Communion

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 84 Leave a Comment on %s
“This is good. This is bad.” In one form or another, we divide the world into light and dark. It might take the form, “I like this. I do not like that.” What we find easy are the things we see as good and the things we like. If a day is filled with such things, we are likely to be happy. If the day is marked by things we do not…

You Are Not Alone – And Neither Is God

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 56 Leave a Comment on %s
I consider it both a strange mystery and a settled matter of the faith that God prefers not to do things alone. Repeatedly, He acts in a manner that involves the actions of others when it would seem, He could have acted alone. Why would God reveal His Word to the world through the agency of men? Why would He bother to use writing? Why not simply communicate directly with people? Why…

The Village Inside Us – The Whole Adam

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 41 Leave a Comment on %s
Tomorrow is the 10th anniversary of my father’s passing. I have felt the day approaching for a few weeks now. I have also been reflecting on why I feel it so poignantly. The truth is that we know a parent in a unique way, indeed, in a manner that differs even from that of our siblings. What we know is never really the person as they stand, fully themselves. We know them…

Tradition as Communion

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 47 Leave a Comment on %s
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life—the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us—that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also…

The Communion of Friends

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 29 Leave a Comment on %s
You meet someone and like them. You slowly get to know them. Conversation and sharing, listening and learning, a picture or a reality begin to emerge. You think about them when they’re away. You’re aware that you matter to them as well. The thought of anything hurting them is painful. This is friendship. We easily reduce friendship to a set of shared emotions. Why we like someone else, we can imagine, rests on…

Saving Knowledge

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 54 Leave a Comment on %s
I have often used the example of riding a bicycle as an image of knowing God. There’s no difficulty learning how to ride if you don’t mind falling off for a while. But no matter how many years you have ridden, you cannot describe for someone else how you know what you know. But you know it. I also suspect that if you thought too much about riding a bicycle while you…

What Happens When We Sing to God?

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 39 Leave a Comment on %s
“God inhabits the praises of Israel.” (Psalm 22:3) The true nature of existence is best expressed as communion. Though we experience much of our life as unique individuals, the experience of all that is around us remains one of communion. In no way do we actually exist as an independent entity, somehow separate from our environment. We breathe the world; we eat the world; we drink the world; every cell of our…

Thanksgiving Communion

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 25 Leave a Comment on %s
Whom should I thank? The question is normally a matter of polite acknowledgement. A gift was given and received. Who gave it? Whom should I thank? It is inherently the nature of giving thanks that thanks must be given to someone. I cannot give thanks to nothing or no one. As such, the giving of thanks is an act of communion on one level or another. Fr. Alexander Schmemann, in the last…

The Silent Song We Need To Hear

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 46 Leave a Comment on %s
Music has its own “music.” There are the notes written on a page, and the notes played by an intstrument. It is a particular quality of instruments, however, that they not only play a certain note, but that “note” itself plays other “notes.” In general, these other notes are called, “overtones.” When ‘Middle C’ is played on a piano, every other ‘C’ on the keyboard will vibrate gently in harmonic sympathy. Indeed,…