SACRAMENTAL LIVING

“What Is purity of heart? What is it? A pure heart is, first of all, one and whole. It overcomes all the contradictions between the soul, the spirit and the body, between the mind, the will and the emotions. Full agreement between the will of God and the will of man reigns in it. All its thoughts, desires and feelings are harmoniously directed towards a single goal—the fulfillment of Christ’s commandments. In such a heart there is no place for hostility, hypocrisy, double-min

“What Is purity of heart? What is it? A pure heart is, first of all, one and whole. It overcomes all the contradictions between the soul, the spirit and the body, between the mind, the will and the emotions. Full agreement between the will of God and the will of man reigns in it. All its thoughts, desires and feelings are harmoniously directed towards a single goal—the fulfillment of Christ’s commandments. In such a heart there is no place for hostility, hypocrisy, double-min

“What about psychological peace? Meditation starts from thought and mind discipline. People try to master the self-control of the intellect to bring a peaceful feeling to their brain, nerves and muscles. It psychologically works. It can be achieved. Even Saint Sophrony of Essex explains that he was able to reach such levels of concentration to the point where he saw the light of his nous. This light and peace however, are not uncreated—they are created. Even if we were to exp

“ On the day of Christ’s birth, the regular events of human history began to be penetrated by eternal events: the Incarnation, the redemption on the Cross, the Resurrection, the Ascension, and the sitting at the Father’s right hand…the Nativity was not properly the beginning of the Life of Christ, but rather a bodily extension of His eternal spiritual presence. His Incarnation was only the means for His entry into the world in order to carry out the strategy designed by God f

“Our modernity thirsts for fun and is quite refined at coming up with ways to amuse ourselves. But having fun doesn’t mean having joy. Fun is often just the feverish fluttering of the wings of a soul stricken by despair. Joy lives by the invincible certainty that its object can never be forcibly taken away—not today, not tomorrow, never. Modernity has lost faith in the very possibility of such joy. Thus, we must remind it all the more insistently that such joy is possible in

“…for the Fathers, water is not merely water: It is chaos and destruction, the power of floods and tsunamis, and the abode of monsters; and it is also life and regeneration, rebirth in Christ, and even the Holy Spirit, who pours forth like a fountain from the Father…The noetic life that inherits the Kingdom (that which is birthed in us at Baptism) both hears the wind and sees where it comes from. It enters the gates of hell and walks in paradise. It mines the treasures buried

“The challenge today is not so much that people don’t believe in God; it’s that they don’t believe in a personal God. There is more of a sense that God is “something up there” as opposed to “someone who is here…Without ceasing to be “up there”, God is now also “down here” among us, saving His world from the inside out.” (Sacramental Living Ministries, Fr. Lawrence Farley) “Sky is a thirteenth-century borrowing from Old Norse, referring to the clouds or the region where the cl

“Many of us long for the past because we believe, correctly, that the past uniquely offered something that satisfied a core human need—namely, the need for hope for something better and everlasting beyond this life, which communities steeped in religious tradition, in which faith formed the center of one’s life and permeated every aspect of it, were able to inspire. In short, this past provided the means by which man’s spiritual thirst could be quenched. The tragedy of the pr

“In the Gospels, there are seven instances of someone calling on Jesus for mercy (Mt 9:27; 15:22; 17:15; 20:30, 31; Mk 10:47, 48; Lk 17:13; 18:38, 39). In every case, they receive it.” (Orthodox Study Bible, 3 Maccabees 5:50-51) “…we are struck by the ceaseless care that the Lord Jesus offers to wounded humanity. This essential truth – the truth of God’s mercy – can be easily overlooked amidst the many details of the Gospel. Mercy is priceless! We are to hold it close to our

“The world in which we live is broken and filled with broken people. The evidence is all around us. Every day we are affected by the reality of this context…Our culture is rooted in assumptions of radical individualism. It believes that we are not only distinct and separate from everything around us but also that what we think about something is, largely, the sum total of our experience. Thus, what I think and how I feel are considered sufficient to define “my reality.” There