Category: The Morning Offering
The Church Is Forever United With Christ The Church Fathers saw Orthodoxy as a Way of Life rather than a religion. Although the Church has many of the same attributes as religion, this does not mean she is herself a religious institution. Rather, she is a Hospital for the Soul,
Those Occasions When We Mature Into Spiritual Adulthood There are those times in our lives when God seems distant, even absent from us. These are usually times when our faith seems weak and we struggle to believe God really cares for us, or perhaps we begin to question whether God
In Confession We Humble Ourselves Before Another Person It is only out of delusion we believe we do not need others to see, understand, and treat our spiritual sickness. Anyone who believes that he alone can cure his spiritual diseases has isolated himself from a Mystery of the Church and
It Was I Who Was Lost But Have Been Found If we allow ourselves to belittle anyone, either because of their appearance or because of their state in life, we dismiss the truth that God can, in His Divine Providence, transform anyone into a saint. The person who seems to
Humbling Ourselves Before Men We have a fairly clear idea of what humility is, for we’ve all met people who are truly humble. Metropolitan Laurus of blessed memory, the saintly man who’d led the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia as her Chief Hierarch, was such a man. Our brotherhood’s
Planting the Seeds of Faith in the World Around Me Many years ago one of the young monks from our brother monastic community, Holy Cross Monastery in West Virginia, drove me for a day trip to Amish country in Pennsylvania. While wandering around in a large hardware store that sold
Situation Ethics Versus Biblical Morality Situation ethics has become the norm for our times, having replaced the biblical ethics of past generations. In situation ethics as long as no one is hurt one can do as one pleases. Taking drugs, watching pornography and aborting the unborn child, all can come
How to be a pious Orthodox Christian without stoking the flames of pride Many years ago I remember attending a Liturgy at a parish church and noticing a young man standing in the front of the temple, making profound bows, together with frequent, almost exaggerated signs of the cross. My