Tag: love

Family Life and Spiritual Warfare

· Fr. Michael Gillis 5 Leave a Comment on %s
Someone recently wrote me the following: Can you please give us a word regarding the topic of “how to overcome thoughts of pride in our hearts that inevitably come after labouring on good works for our families and people around us.” I have been struggling with that lately. How is it that we can reach a point where we don’t count and remember the good we have done for others? I would…

Love and Self Righteousness

· Fr. Michael Gillis 15 Leave a Comment on %s
Dear Holy Nativity Faithful, Last summer (2021) there were some pretty strict rules in place in the province of British Columbia, Canada, regarding masking and the number of people that could be in a church at the same time.  These rules loosened in the fall, but now the province is about to return to stricter rules, but now with a new twist. The new twist is this: if everyone in the church…

Love In A World Of Uncertainty

· Fr. Michael Gillis 3 Leave a Comment on %s
St. Isaac the Syrian said that only the tomb is the “land of certainty”.  Writing to hermits living in the desert, St. Isaac wanted to free them from the delusion that they could be certain about anything in this world.  I wonder if St. Isaac was reflecting on the words of St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 8: “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.  If anyone thinks he knows anything, he knows…

What Does Success in Bodily Warfare Look Like?

· Fr. Michael Gillis 9 Leave a Comment on %s
Some of the most accessible and practical wisdom from the ancient Christian desert tradition can be found in the letters of Sts. Barsanuphius and John.  They lived in Gaza (Palestine) in the early sixth century.  Over 800 letters are preserved for us, and in these letters we get an inside look at what spiritual guidance looked like in the desert monasticism of those early years.  And although much is different in the…

Why We Have To Suffer

· Fr. Michael Gillis 4 Leave a Comment on %s
There is something within me that just doesn’t want to believe Jesus, that doesn’t want to believe that the hard things Jesus said apply to me.  “In this world you will have tribulation,” He said (John 16:33).  Why is it that every time I face something hard, something painful, something unfair, why is it that I think something is wrong?  I can’t  just accept that this painful trial, this tribulation, is the…

A Priest’s Rights

· Fr. Michael Gillis 2 Leave a Comment on %s
I’m finally home from my running around all summer.  It feels good to be (mostly) home for the next nine months. One of my trips early this summer was to a clergy symposium.  The speaker was Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos.  I was amazed and blessed by both his presence and his teaching.  It wasn’t that His Eminence Hierotheos said much that was particularly new or unknown—certainly not if you have read some of…

Knowledge As The Infancy Of Love

· Fr. Michael Gillis 3 Leave a Comment on %s
In homily 47, St. Isaac introduces his famous three degrees of knowledge, which I have spoken about at length before.  Today, I’d like to take a closer look at some aspects of the first degree of knowledge. St. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 8:1 that knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.  Because Paul sets up this contrast between knowledge and love, it’s easy to assume that they are somehow opposites, or tensions…

Holding Thorny Hands

· Fr. Michael Gillis 8 Leave a Comment on %s
A couple of weeks ago, a disturbed young man got onto the metro train in Vancouver and began acting erratically and shouting and cursing.  As people in the car began moving away from him, one woman did the opposite.  A seventy-year old woman moved toward the man and reached out her hand and gently held his hand.  She just gently put her hand in his.  The man immediately calmed down, and then,…

Stillness and Love: Shunning Your Neighbour To Love Your Neighbour?

· Fr. Michael Gillis 2 Leave a Comment on %s
St. Isaac the Syrian’s homily 44 is one of his several very difficult homilies.  It is difficult not because it is hard to understand.  Exactly the opposite is the case.  It is quite straight forward and easy to understand.  I understand it, and I am offended by it.  Homily 44 is a letter written to another monk who loves stillness exhorting him to guard that stillness by avoiding contact with others.  St.…

Learning To Love The Lover Of My Soul

· Fr. Michael Gillis 2 Leave a Comment on %s
One the contemporary Elders, and now recognized Saint, who has helped me the most over the past decade or so has been Saint Porphyrios of Kavsokalivia.  The book, Wounded by Love, is about his life and some of his sayings.  It’s a book that I have read several times, and each time it has inspired and corrected me.  The broad inspirational appeal of Saint Porphyrios can be partly seen in that my…