Love and support your priest and bishop, just as they love you Bishops and priests are often expected to do far more than is humanly possible. Bishops, as fathers to their people, are expected to be superhuman. Judged if they are not. Parish priests feel pressures that are found in
Category: The Morning Offering
The energy of the mind inside the heart In the patristic tradition the heart is the center of our self-awareness. This self-awareness is the energy of the mind inside the heart, something the holy fathers referred to as our “noetic faculty”. There is an important distinction that must be noted
Short prayers used in personal devotion Many Church Fathers taught the use of the “arrow prayer”, deliberately short prayers for personal devotion that were easily remembered, and could communicate one’s love for God, while seeking His help. They were like arrows being shot into the air, wholeheartedly demonstrating our sincerity
Despondency and sorrow lie in wait for those who have not found strong faith in God When this Covid-19 pandemic arrived, and we were all told we needed to place masks over our faces, and stay home, most of us believed the lockdown would be of short duration. Now that
The role of obedience in the acquisition of humility In the Christian life there are two paths to salvation and whichever road you choose must be embraced with your whole being. The married state and monasticism both have as their primary means of aiding in your salvation the acquisition of
Why do we Orthodox worship God liturgically? Because us Orthodox see our services as transcending time and space, we worship God in a way that reduces the personality of the pastor or the musicians, and come together to do the “work of the people”. All believers are seen as united
I clearly need to let my readers know that I believe the Covid-19 virus is real, and that I believe each of us has a duty to protect ourselves and our fellow human beings generally speaking. But I also believe that the greatest danger facing our world is not the
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The hermit’s contribution to the world The personalism of Orthodox asceticism in the life of a hermit is inseparable from the life of the Church. Saint Seraphim of Sarov tells us that if we acquire the Holy Spirit a thousand around us will be saved. Hermits, although distancing themselves from
Staying afloat in the ocean that would consume us The pandemic shutdown that has had a major impact on our lives sometimes makes us feel like we are treading water in an ocean. Being separated from our friends and loved ones makes many of us feel lost and hopeless. During