Tag: Repentance

Finding the Father’s House

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All of us are born into this world with a deep and insatiable longing for Paradise. Perhaps we are not even aware of it. Most of us bury it beneath the mire of our passions; we try to satisfy this pure and holy desire with the trinkets and amusements of this fallen world. We become as ships tossed to and fro, as wanderers amid the wasteland of this life, consumed by a…

A Good Beginning: On Repentance and New Year’s Resolutions

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As we once again approach the beginning of a new year, it is good for us as Christians to take advantage of this opportunity for self-reflection, to prayerfully reexamine how we are living our lives and whether we are doing so in light of the Gospel of Christ. Indeed, just as we Orthodox Christians pray each evening in the words of St. John Chrysostom: “though I have done nothing good in Thy…

“Come and See”

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Today we keep the feast of the Holy Apostle Philip, one of the very first of the Twelve Apostles whom Christ the Savior preeminently called to follow Him. Evidently St. Philip felt the evangelic nature of his apostleship quite keenly, for immediately upon hearing the most sweet voice of Christ calling out to him, he straightway went and “found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found Him of whom Moses in…

The Zeal of the Forerunner

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Today we celebrate the Beheading of the Forerunner, one of only three great feasts of the Church year not dedicated either to the Lord or the Mother of God. And despite the sorrowful nature of this day’s events, nevertheless it remains a celebration — albeit one which we keep with great spiritual sobriety, observing a strict fast even when it falls (as it does this year) on a Sunday. Why do we…

The Forgotten Virtue of Stability

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When people think about the vows that a monk or a nun takes before God (if they think about such things at all), three likely come to mind: chastity, poverty, and obedience. Such vows are quite striking, since in the modern world these three things are no longer generally considered to be virtues common to the life of all Christians, exemplified in monasticism chiefly by the degree to which they are put…

Keeping the Sabbath

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Today is perhaps not the most auspicious day to publish any words. Having just served the Vesperal Divine Liturgy for Holy Saturday, wherein is sung the somber yet supremely beautiful hymn “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence,” I find myself in danger of falling under my own condemnation. So I will at least try to keep my words brief. In the center of the church the Lord, the life of all, lies…

The Way Home

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My brothers and sisters, we have reached today the threshold of Great Lent; tomorrow the “gates of repentance” will once again be opened to us, in answer to our solemn prayers during the Sunday Matins services of the past month. This Sunday has three names. The first is “Cheesefare Sunday,” since it is the last day on which we will eat dairy until the night of the Lord’s Pascha. It is also…

To Love God Above All

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Today we celebrate the memory of the Venerable Herman of Alaska, the patron saint of North America. There is so much that is praiseworthy in the life of this man of God that one hardly knows where to begin. He was an ascetic who dwelt as an anchorite in the forests from the time of his early childhood. He was a zealous missionary who, like the righteous Abraham, left his home and…

Will Beauty Save the World?

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“Such beauty has power,” Adelaida said hotly. “You can overturn the world with such beauty.” –The Idiot, by Fyodor Dostoevsky Perhaps the most famous phrase from Fyodor Dostoevsky’s quite voluminous body of writing is the statement that “beauty will save the world.” Much ink has been spilled concerning this phrase by all manner of critics and commentators, both Orthodox and non-Orthodox alike. And without doubt it is extremely important that we Orthodox…

Strangers in a Strange Land

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Several months ago a landmark Gallup poll found that for the first time in American history, as of 2020 fewer than 50% of Americans belong to a church, synagogue, or mosque. Ever since 1937 when the survey was first conducted, that percentage remained fairly constant at around 70% until the turn of the century, when the number began its plummet all the way down to 47% in only two short decades. And…