Category: Mystical Theology
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I Don’t Know Anything About That
A Hermit advised, “If someone speaks to you about a controversy, do not argue with him. If what he says makes sense, say, ‘Yes.’ If his comments are misguided, say, ‘I don’t know anything about that.’ If you refuse to dispute with his ideas, your mind will be at peace. For years I knew a…
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St. Nikolai Velimirovich – Prayers By the Lake
This video contains text from Prayers by the Lake by St. Nikolai of Zicha, a contemporary Serbian saint. May God grant our hearts to hear them.
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The Truth of Ourselves
Abba Poemen believed that the only time you could observe a person’s true character was when that person was tempted. From the Sayings of the Desert Fathers There is obvious wisdom in the saying about Abba Poemen: it is not our strengths that best define us, but our weaknesses. In our culture, where virtual reality…
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Is a Relationship with God What We Want?
An excellent question was raised in the comments of my previous post – the question being about the nature of relationship. It is commonplace in our modern parlance to speak of a “personal relationship” which is either redundant, or a way of weakening the true meaning of “personal.” I suspect that the modern meaning of…
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The Depths of the Personal
I have written on modern distortions of “personal relationship” in which “private” relationship is one of its corrupted meanings. I have also noted that, properly understood, “personal” always carries a meaning of “corporate” as well. To be in personal relationship with Christ necessarily means that I am in relationship with His Body, the Church. There…
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Grace and “the Inverted Pyramid”
Fr. Sophrony [Sakharov], in his book on St. Silouan, presents this theory of the “inverted pyramid.” He says that the empirical cosmic being is like a pyramid: at the top sit the powerful of the earth, who exercise dominion over the nations (cf. Matt. 20:25), and at the bottom stand the masses. But the spirit…
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Kinder, Gentler
The following quote (of St. Seraphim of Sarov) is framed and mounted in the narthex of my parish. I first obtained the quote from my Archbishop: You cannot be too gentle, too kind. Shun even to appear harsh in your treatment of each other. Joy, radiant joy, streams from the face of him who gives…
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I Am Not A Theologian
It was noted in a comment earlier that this Blog was not nominated (for the Eastern Christian Blog Awards) in the category of theology. I should say quickly that I’m honored to be suggested as a blog worthy of consideration in any category and that there are some excellent theological blogs out there that I…
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Peace
From the teachings of St. Silouan: The man who likes to have his own way will never know peace.
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How to “Read” the Church
If, as I have wrtten, the Orthodox Church itself is the proper interpretation of Scripture – then one might ask, “How am I supposed to read the Scriptures if their interpretation is the Church?” It is a good, even an obvious question, but one which points us to the very thing at hand: the nature…
Michael, Sophia I think your response to Sophia could be very misleading. I respect your deep appreciation for repentance -…