Without winter there will be no spring Like many of my readers, I’ve experience much pain and sorrow over this past year. But a beloved bishop friend gave me this sound advice: “The grass is greener where the manure is thickest.” The devil, warring against us, would have us believe
Category: The Morning Offering
As the Living Word, God was born into our midst As the Living Word, God became one of us, taking on the condition of our flesh in every way, yet remaining sinless. In doing so, God has invited us to come out from the darkness that is our fallen nature,
Where the temporal and the eternal are connected We can be rich in liturgical correctness and wealthy in traditions, but if we do not have love and mercy, we are in reality bankrupt. Our Lord Himself made love and mercy the chief criterion whereby we will be judged on the
Taste the presence of Christ within you We all need a good dose of silent prayer each and every day. Finding that perfect place in your home that can become your cave, or prayer closet, will afford you that sacred space where you can go deep into the heart and
December 25th or January 7th? Regarding the Church Calendar (also known as the Old Calendar, or the Julian Calendar), I am grateful that our monastery is part of a jurisdiction that has remained true to the Traditional Calendar. The move to the Papal Calendar was, to my mind, divisive, and
God is in control of the forces of nature The massively destructive and deadly hurricanes that have ever increasingly been plowing into the east coast of the United States should not surprise to any of us. How could we expect there should not be consequences for a nation that has
A Grateful Heart is Fertile Ground When you strive to interact with members of your family, with friends, coworkers, and all others, with respect, humility, and dignity, you lay the groundwork for the abundance of Grace needed to quicken your heart for the things of God. The soil is prepared
Living the evangelical life in imitation of the angels Monastics are an integral part of the Church and should not be seen as independent of the Church Universal. Monks are bound by the same Gospel as other Christians and need to avail themselves to the missionary and pastoral needs of
Avoiding hypocrisy in our journey to God It is very easy to live our lives in hypocrisy if we are not mindful of the pitfalls of the spiritual life. We can become Pharisees without even noticing, if we let our Christianity be artificially lived. Living our lives as though we
The role of godparent is an awesome responsibility It is always a good idea to revisit the important role godparents play in the life of the newly baptized child. Godparents are also expected to play an important role in the religious and spiritual life of adult converts who’ve been received