SACRAMENTAL LIVING

“One test of spiritual attainment is peace. Those who are truly advanced in the Spirit have peace of mind and share the peace of God… “Wherever God is — there is peace. And the opposite is self-evident: where there is envy, enmity, impatience, self-love — there is the devil. Wherever the devil is — there, everything is ruinous, proud and hostile.” (Fr. Basil, St. Anatoly of Optina) “How do we attain peace? We put aside all…pride and hostility and destructiveness. And we acqui

“…our own sometimes shaky self-esteem, neediness, and failure to believe that we are really unique in the eyes of God often prevent us from loving and nurturing the presence of God in ourselves. This, in turn, makes it difficult to reach out to others.” (Robert J. Wicks) “Knowledge of Christ, constantly supported and nurtured by the grace of God, grows quietly but steadily and becomes a unique and precious characteristic of an authentic Christian. As he/she grows and matures,

“ ‘…Christ died for the ungodly’ (Romans 5:6). The ungodly are all of us. Because of sin, everyone stands in alienation from God, and we do not have the capacity to become righteous on our own. Because of God's love, Christ died for our sins to bring us the gift of righteousness…Christ is the offering for all sin—voluntary and involuntary—which demonstrates God's incomparable grace toward us.” (Orthodox Study Bible, Romans 5:6, Hebrews 10:26-27) “There is no one who will save

“Effective witness requires that we first learn to rely on the Spirit to help us….You can’t witness effectively by relying on your own strength, because fear will keep you from speaking out for God. Only by relying on the power of the Holy Spirit can you live and witness for Him.” (Foundation Study Bible, Acts 1:8, Life Application Study Bible, Micah 3:8) “Let us take heed about this: what we are called to is not simply preaching in the sense of communicating some information

“Money is a good servant but a bad master. We can employ it for the good of others, or we can let it master our thoughts and desires. We can use it in our short lives on earth to accomplish great things for others and for eternal rewards. Or we can attempt to keep control of it in our lives which are passing away and have nothing in the world to come.” (Fr. Ted Bobosh) “While some are called to live a life of absolute poverty, the majority of us must meet our family and socia

“To undertake this reverse orientation and remain ever true to Christ, our hearts must be committed to Christ first and foremost. In the original Greek text of verse 5, the word aplóteti (“sincerity”) connotes “singleness, simplicity, being uncompounded, pure, or even sound.” The Lord requires this of us, for “no one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and ma

“The world’s present mood is not conducive to prayer and meditation. Mechanism and speed dominate all departments of our present day civilization. We race through life and we hardly have time to read the signposts and to learn whether or not we are on the right road of life. No wonder that so many lives end in ruin and misery. Even in our leisure we are dominated by action and controlled by schedule and thus can hardly experience total relaxation of body and complete serenity

“God and man then possess in common an uncreated energy and life, the One being the Source, and the other the vessel of grace.” (St. Gregory Palamas) “We know that Jesus emphasized faith. To the woman with the issue of blood whom He healed, He said: “Your faith has made you well” (Mark 5:34). To the blind beggar He met on a street in Jericho and also healed, He said: “Your faith has made you well” (Mark 10:52). Jesus tied personal faith in Him to the efficacy of healings. But

“Because they can easily deceive others, those who put on a show of virtue or religion are more dangerous than those who are evil outright. Thus, we must be all the more cautious among those who are outwardly virtuous.” (Orthodox Study Bible, Matthew 7:15) “Deception is a major phenomenon of our own times. There have always been deceivers. But deception has become a far more integral part of modern life…Looking over the landscape of modern life, we see that the human communit

“The opposite of autonomy is theonomy. This is the belief that the fulfillment of human existence, while it begins in this world, is nonetheless entirely dependent on grace and communion with God.” (Vigen Guroian) “That communion and participation in the life of the other is possible is one of the single most contradictory challenges to the modern world-view. We are not utterly individual in our existence nor in our experience. We are beings whose lives are best expressed and