Tag: Charismatic

Listening To The Least: The Myrrh-Bearing Women

· Fr. Michael Gillis 7 Leave a Comment on %s
On the Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women, it is important for us to reflect on the importance of listening to one another.   Intrepid.  That’s the word I would use to describe the Myrrh-Bearing women.  The Disciples were cowering in fear, locked behind closed doors not knowing what to do.  The Myrrh Bearers, on the other hand, were out before dawn bringing to the tomb the spices that they had prepared in…

Joy And Fear Together: St. Isaac Helps Us Discern Our Trials

· Fr. Michael Gillis
Continuing in homily 42, St. Isaac gives us another warning.  When you find unchanging peace, that is, when everything is going smoothly for you most of the time, then “beware: you are very far from the divine paths trodden by the weary feet of the saints.  For as long as you are journeying in the way to the city of the Kingdom and are drawing nigh to the city of God, this…

Individualism and Charismatic Delusion

· Fr. Michael Gillis 5 Leave a Comment on %s
In an on-going discussion with my inquiring friend today, I respond to two questions.  First, why do traditional Christians call priests father; and second, why do we pray to saints (i.e. why don’t we just go to God ourselves)?  My friend is familiar with contemporary Charismatic Protestant Christianity, so I refer to this below. You know, both those questions are related in many ways. Today we are such individualists that it is hard…

The End of The Line

· Fr. Michael Gillis
One of my parishioners told me last week that a relative of hers is looking into Orthodox Christianity. When I asked her why she was looking, the answer surprised me. She said that her aunt is beginning to read about Orthodox Christianity because, as she put it, “she had rode the Charismatic bus to the end of the line.” I think I know what she means. In my Protestant days, I was…

Parsing Out Charismatic Signs And Wonders As An Orthodox Christian

· Fr. Michael Gillis 1 Leave a Comment on %s
From This To This My Christian experience before Orthodoxy was among the Charismatic and Pentecostal Protestants.  Recently several people from this same Charismatic Protestant background have begun coming to me in order to inquire into the Holy Orthodox Church. Consequently,  I have been given cause to think about what exactly was wrong, or potentially wrong (or perhaps “dangerous” is a better word) with the apparent miracles, or manifestations I experienced in those days.…