Author: Nicole M. Roccas

No Pregnancy in Heaven: Infertility and Theological Anthropology

· Nicole M. Roccas
I’ve been doing a bunch of guest posting on other blogs regarding the intersection between infertility and faith (you can find an ongoing archive of these posts here). One that Time Eternal readers may be particularly interested in was a reflection I wrote for Orthodoxy & Heterodoxy that explored what it means to be human from the vantage point…

A #TemporalTuesdays post about the prayers of Hannah

· Nicole M. Roccas
I’m giving thanks because today’s the official launch date for my new book, Under the Laurel Tree: Grieving Infertility with Saints Joachim and Anna! In honor of this momentous occasion, I selected today’s #TemporalTuesdays quote from it. The sermon I quote is from Vol 1 of St. John Chrysostom’s Homilies on the Old Testament (Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2007).…

Under the Laurel Tree: All about My New Book

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Hi friends! Just wanted to pop in and let you all know that my next book, Under the Laurel Tree: Grieving Infertility with Saints Joachim and Anna, will be released TOMORROW October 29, 2019! To be part of the launch week festivities, I encourage you to subscribe to my personal blog, where I’ll share links, guest posts, and giveaways.…

A Mini-Lecture on “Eternity and Time” by Dumitru Staniloae

· Nicole M. Roccas
We’re in the thick of the fall semester at the Orthodox School of Theology! This semester, I get to co-teach my favorite course, Sanctification of Time: Orthodox Liturgy of the Hours and Liturgical Year with the co-director of our program (and my priest, friend, fellow time enthusiast) Fr. Geoffrey Ready. The aim of this course is to explore…

Telling Time in Einstein’s Dreams

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I recently finished reading Alan Lightman’s Einstein’s Dreams, a bestselling novel from 1993 that walks through a series of fictionalized dreams Einstein had about time, inspiring the theory of relativity in 1905. Luckily Einstein’s Dreams reads as though it were the work of a lyricist or poet, not a physicist–it’s a stunning portrait of everyday life in time,…

Work as a Path to Prayer in St. Basil’s Longer Rules

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This semester, I’m excited to be co-teaching a course called the Sanctification of Time at the Orthodox School of Theology in Toronto. It revolves around the various liturgical and prayer cycles of the Church and how they are lived in time. One of the first texts we are reading is an excerpt from  St. Basil’s Longer Rules on…

Autumn in a Greek Orthodox Village

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Nearly a year ago, I borrowed my priest’s copy of Juliet Du Boulay’s wonderful but hard-to-obtain book, Cosmos, Life, and Liturgy in a Greek Orthodox Village.  My priest is probably reading this right now, just as he must wonder everyday with scorn why he ever let me borrow that blasted book if I’m going to take so long…