The struggle against the passions and our victory in Christ As we struggle with anger, gluttony, with judging others, sexual impurity and a myriad of others passions, it is easy to feel overwhelmed and powerless. We find ourselves feeling defeated and tempted to give up the battle. Sometimes we even
Christ came to heal us of our self-centeredness The communal nature of salvation is directly traced to the fact that God created us, not in isolation from one another, but involved in an interpersonal relationship with His love, and with all other humans. Because we are all created in God’s
When we work on strengthening our relationship with God, our love increases for all those around us. By increasing our faith we diminish the estrangement between ourselves and others, while increasing the bond between ourselves and God. This is our true vocation, that we decrease while Christ increases. As we
Correcting the stumblings of others Christians, above all men, are forbidden to correct the stumblings of sinners by force…it is necessary to make a man better not by force but by persuasion. God gives the crown to those who are kept from evil, not by force, but by choice. –Saint
Sharing Orthodoxy with the world around us Everyone who knows me is aware of my passion for missionary work. My blog, The Morning Offering, was begun as a pastoral and missionary tool. My use of facebook, with over 25,000 “friends” on my Abbot Tryphon page, has been vehicle for my
How do we keep our youth in the Church? We are living in an age that has witnessed changes on a massive scale as never before. The way we communicate has changed with the coming of the internet, with information available that would have required a library and advanced degrees
Natural disasters and the human condition God does not cause natural disasters, we do. We have fallen short, and there are consequences. Before the fall there was no death, no suffering, no earthquakes, no hurricanes. After the fall we did not inherit the sin of the First Born, but rather
Don’t let your acts of charity become self-worship Food is a common problem for many people, for food so often fills a void, and becomes a way of comforting oneself when faced with the stresses that are a part of our modern age. Yet food is not the only addiction
Ancestral sin resulted in our inheriting death The fact that we Orthodox do not accept the doctrine of original sin as espoused in the West, does in no way suggest that we do not need to be born again (born anew). We believe, as did the Early Church Fathers, that
When fasting becomes false piety I once knew a new convert to Orthodoxy who proudly related to me how he had kept the Fast strictly while visiting family for a major holiday feast. He kept strictly the fast to the point of eating virtually nothing, since even the vegetables had