Without Me you can do nothing (John 15:5).If we be true to our calling as the children of God, we must live in imitation of Christ. We must imitate His meekness and humility. We must love others just as did He. We must be willing to be transformed, and made
Category: The Morning Offering
Christ the Saviour Cathedral, Moscow, Russia Seeking out Healing in the Life of the ChurchOrthodoxy offers a very precise way in which to enter into communion with God. It is a way that must be learned, for simply “becoming Orthodox” will not lead the seeker into an inner life that
Lecturing at Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA It is only human to become despondent when we have failed in keeping to our moral, ethical and spiritual standards, succumbing, instead, to temptation. Our Orthodox Faith teaches that we must be compassionate towards others, loving, quick to forgive, exemplar in our Christian
Hesychasm Versus Aristotelian Scholasticism The 14th century dispute between Augustinian theologian Barlaam of Calabria, an Aristotelian scholastic, and Saint Gregory Palamas, whom he accused of heresy for his hesychasm (the Orthodox teaching on mystical prayer), was important because it demonstrated one of the major differences between the Latin West, and
The Web of Economic Slough and Imagined Security Our world is going through a period of economic slough, with many families having suffered great loss. Mortgage foreclosures have displaced many from their homes, with increased numbers of children attending school, counted among the homeless, and hiding their plight from their
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
Suffering with a Co-Suffering Saviour When faced with tragedies, we must trust in God, and not react, resent, or lose our peace. These things can happen for our purification, and prepare us for the world to come. Since we live in a fallen world, there is death and suffering, but
Brother Theofil constructing a gate The Banishment of Self-Indulgence As we struggle against the passions, we must learn to be patient with the difficulties and hardships that come our way. If we are to banish self-will, we must first learn to banish self-indulgence. Any struggle for virtue must include a
Asking for Miracles in our Smugness and Pride Asking for miracles in order to believe, betrays a sort of smugness on our part, sort of like asking for an expensive gift from a perspective friend, before considering their overture for friendship. It could hardly become a true friendship, if it
The Gospel of Christ, and Politics It is deeply disturbing to me to have witnessed the politicizing of Christianity in this nation. The conjoining of politics and faith have led to a polarization of our nation that has not been seen since just prior to the Civil War. In our