Category: The Sacraments

Mystery as Reality

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 54 Leave a Comment on %s
C.S. Lewis once discussed the question of how angels (and such things) could pass through a wall. His response was intriguing: he suggested that they could do so not because they were less substantial, but because they wereĀ more substantial. Just as a rock is more substantial than water or air, so, he posited, an angel (or such) is more substantial than our materiality. Of course, this is completely arguable and unprovable. Butā€¦

The Mystery of “Mystery”

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 27 Leave a Comment on %s
Few words can be more misleading to the modern ear than the Orthodox use of the word ā€œmystery.ā€ Itā€™s a fine New Testament word and is (technically) the proper name for the sacraments in Orthodoxy (though we most often say ā€˜sacramentā€™ in English). Its root meaning is that of something ā€œhidden.ā€ In our cultureā€™s language, mystery is more a matter of a who-done-it or a reference to something so puzzling or beyondā€¦

A Secular Kingdom…Where Christmas Never Comes

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 32 Leave a Comment on %s
  Two people are working at a soup kitchen, feeding the poor. One of them is a Christian, the other an atheist. The Christian is doing what he does out of obedience to Christ, in order to serve Christ ā€œin the least of these my brethren.ā€ The atheist is doing what he does because he thinks that generosity is a good thing and that the world would be a better place ifā€¦

Sacrifice and Worship

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 41 Leave a Comment on %s
In the 1970ā€™s, the BBC did a series, “The Long Search,” in which Ronald Eyre explored various religions. To my mind, it remains the best such series Iā€™ve seen. When it came to Christianity, the series wisely presented three separate treatments: the Orthodox, the Catholics and Protestants. In its program on Orthodoxy, Eyre traveled to Romania, which was then under the boot of Ceausescu and official ā€œatheism.ā€ The persecution only allowed theā€¦

Clothed in the Image

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 49 Leave a Comment on %s
  Begging my readersā€™ patience, I will take a small anthropologist tour through our culture. What I want to draw our attention to is the place of the image. We are not only fascinated with looking at images, we place them on our bodies as well: t-shirts, tattoos, hats, shoes, pants ā€“ in short, everywhere. There is nothing unusual in this. Were we to examine primitive tribes, we would notice a vastā€¦

The Struggle Against the Normal Life

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 79 Leave a Comment on %s
  Within the Christianity of our time, the great spiritual conflict, unknown to almost all, is between a naturalistic/secular world of modernity and the sacramental world of classical Christianity. The first presumes that a literal take on the world is the most accurate. It tends to assume a closed system of cause and effect, ultimately explainable through science and manageable through technology. Modern Christians, quite innocently, accept this account of the worldā€¦

The End of Time Is Probably Not What You Think

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 203 Leave a Comment on %s
I grew up near the end of the world. It was a generally accepted notion that we were living in the “end times,” meaning that Christ would soon return. We were taught that believers would be “raptured” out of the terrible things that would unfold and be with Christ in heaven. We were also taught that the end of the world would come about in a terrible world-wide conflagration. We hid underā€¦

The Greatness of a Lesser World

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 20 Leave a Comment on %s
Be an ordinary person – Fr. Thomas Hopko’s Maxim #18 Nothing could be more ā€œcozyā€ than Tolkienā€™s description of the Shire. Many think the Shire is an idealization of rural England, and, no doubt, it certainly resembles it. Though the English do not seem to live in holes, they, nevertheless, do like their gardens. And though their major cities resemble major cities elsewhere, rural villages are like nothing so much as themselves.ā€¦

The Sacrifice of Worship

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 79 Leave a Comment on %s
When God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac (Genesis 22), there was no questioning on Abrahamā€™s part about what was intended. He understood precisely what was involved in such a thing. There was wood to be gathered, an altar of stones to be constructed, the victim to be bound, and then the slitting of its throat with the gushing forth of blood, all consummated in the burning fires of the now-completedā€¦

Democratic Madness

· Fr. Stephen Freeman 100 Leave a Comment on %s
Dostoevsky’sĀ The DemonsĀ tells the story of a revolution within the context of a small village and aĀ handfulĀ of personalities. The strange mix of philosophy and neurosis, crowd psychology and fashionable disdain for tradition all come together in the madness of a bloodbath. It is a 19th century Helter Skelter that presciently predicted theĀ century to come. Our own version of the same sickness plays out with less bloodshed though withĀ similarĀ passion. This article attempts to describeā€¦