Tag: Repentance

Morality and Truth in a Secular Age

· Hieromonk Gabriel
It sometimes seems that each new day brings with it another assault on traditional Christian morality from yet another front. The dust had barely begun to settle after the Supreme Court of the United States descried a hitherto undetected right to gay marriage hidden somewhere between the lines of the Constitution, when immediately the forces of radical secularism began the fight to promote and normalize the transgender ideology. To give some context…

The Perfect Law of Liberty

· Hieromonk Gabriel 2 Leave a Comment on %s
Freedom and the Gospel Commandments I wrote several week ago about the salvific and life-giving nature of the Gospel commandments. I argued that those who would dispense with them out of a misguided sense of compassion for modern man are in fact dispensing with the very medicine by which modern man can and must be healed. So often we view the commandments as burdensome rather than as therapeutic, as obligations rather than…

Against Modern Legalism

· Hieromonk Gabriel
For all of its godlessness, this modern age hungers more than any other for love, compassion, and mercy. It hungers too for God (though often without realizing it), perhaps all the more strongly since no other age has banished Him more thoroughly from all its affairs. Yet so many modern people think of the God of the Bible as a vengeful, wrathful, angry deity, a god of hellfire and brimstone, a god…

The Rise of Antichristianity

· Hieromonk Gabriel
For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. Then that lawless one will be revealed… II Thessalonians 2:7-8 I wrote that this site is intended, in the words of Fr. Seraphim Rose, “to give one a perspective on those things which are happening in the world today which we come across in our daily experience, every…

Abortion and the Graveyard of Europe

· Hieromonk Gabriel
Last weekend, Ireland voted overwhelmingly by referendum to repeal its constitutional ban on abortion. Once a country virtually synonymous with Christian faith and piety, Ireland has now become the first nation on the face of the planet to embrace by popular vote the murder of infants by their own mothers. In a very real sense this vote was nothing other than a referendum on Christianity. The constitution of Ireland begins with the…

The Meaning of Life

· Hieromonk Gabriel
Throughout all the ages of human history, mankind has been ceaselessly occupied with a single question: why? What is the meaning of life, what is the purpose of birth and death, of love and of suffering? Why have we appeared in this world which is so full of both beauty and misery? Men and women of every culture and nation, of every philosophy and religion, have sought for countless centuries to find…

Pope Francis, Homosexuality, and the Love of God

· Hieromonk Gabriel
A furor has erupted recently over a statement Pope Francis reportedly made about homosexuality during a private conversation with a victim of Catholic clerical sexual abuse in Latin America: Juan Carlos, that you are gay does not matter. God made you like this and loves you like this and I don’t care. The pope loves you like this. You have to be happy with who you are. The reactions in society at large…

American Apostasy

· Hieromonk Gabriel
Here’s a question for you: which of the following two statistics, each indicative of the apostasy engulfing our nation, is more disturbing? A) Over the last 14 years, 11% of Americans have abandoned Christianity — 35 million people in terms of the US population level in 2017. B) 72% of the American people as of 2017 identify as Christians, yet 73% believe that divorce is morally acceptable, 69% believe that extramarital sex is morally…

The Desert and the City

· Hieromonk Gabriel
The important conversation I have been having with a reader about finding Orthodox community in the modern world continues, and his most recent response is again so important that I thought that I should repost it from the comments section and reply to it here: Father, bless! Thank you for your responses. You’re right that I was referring in a glancing way to Dreher’s Benedict Option, and I appreciate your perspective and counsel.…

The Signs of the Times

· Hieromonk Gabriel
As we continue to celebrate Paschaltide, our enemy’s rage at his cosmic defeat and his hatred for Christians continue to become ever more palpable. The signs of the times are becoming ever more obvious. In California, a bill has been introduced in the state legislature that would ban books advocating the traditional Christian teachings on marriage, gender, and sexuality, as well criminalize therapy intended to help persons who are experiencing unwanted sexual…