SACRAMENTAL LIVING

“Being renewed by God’s power, we become partakers of the divine nature. This does not mean we become divine by nature. If we participated in God's essence, the distinction between God and man would be abolished. What this does mean is that we participate in God's energy, described by a number of terms in scripture, such as glory, life, love, virtue, and power. We are to become like God by His grace…” (Orthodox Study Bible, 2 Peter 1:4) “…the apostle [Peter] writes, “… that y

“Faith is critical if we are not to remain earthbound. Divine matters cannot be comprehended with the mind, but we are conditioned in our Western society to believe that the highest level of comprehension is intellectual…the highest level of understanding is not intellectual but spiritual, and spiritual realities are beyond reason, since God’s ways are beyond human comprehension…Intellectual answers are limited and partial at best. It is truly tragic if we willingly remain at

“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

“Freedom is an essential characteristic of the Christian life Christ promised that the truth would set us free…The experience of freedom comes to us when we recognize the connection between the material and spiritual worlds. They are not divorced from one another…Anxiety and obsessiveness are qualities of the world, but our relationship with Christ results in freedom and inner peace…Whoever wants to create Christian culture must try to cultivate in his own heart a child of th

“All of life’s choices have consequences, consequences for ourselves and consequences for the world around us. And when we fall into the extreme passions of sins, these consequences can be very painful and destructive, both to ourselves and to others.” (Fr. Michael Gillis) “Are the choices that people make in their lives based on reason? The “Rational Choice Theory” claims that people choose the options they believe are in their best interest. That is, they select the most re

“Wisdom is discernment to understand things in connection to God and eternal meaning and purpose…“Discernment is key to almost everything in the spiritual life. And the beginning of discernment is…to be humble enough…to realize that we are really bad at it.” (Lea Povozhaev, Fr. Michael Gillis, Sacramental Living Ministries) “…humility expands man’s spiritual powers and introduces him to the realm of freedom. We come to perceive our “gentle and humble in heart” Jesus in humili

“When we separate faith from everything else, we make it into belief. It becomes the assent to the truth of something that cannot be proven by empirical evidence. The Book of James addresses this mistaken thought directly when it says, “You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only” (OSB James 2:24)… Paul speaks of “faith active” in love. This poignant phrase indicates that Paul would agree with James, who wrote against the idea of “faith alone.” He ins

“St. Paul called “that mindset which was in Christ Jesus,” the phronema Christou (Phil. 2.5).”…Our phronema is our mindset, but mental attitude can never be separated from behavior. Our phronema is revealed by our manner of life. Conversely, the way we choose to live shapes and reinforces our phronema.” (Dr. Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou) “At the end of his letters, the Apostle Paul often provides practical applications for his teachings. He follows this pattern in Romans…Sa

“What lies hidden in the designs of God I confess I do not know—I am only a man—but this I know with full certainty, that, whatever it is, it is more just, more wise, and more solidly based on incomparable perfection than all the judgments of people….God’s will is determined by His wisdom which always perceives, and His goodness which always embraces, the intrinsically good.” (St. Augustine, C.S. Lewis) “The story of Isaac blessing his son Jacob illustrates the intense meanin

“In [Genesis 1]verses 26-27, there is a significant pause in the narrative as God reflects within Himself, i.e., among the three divine Persons. Up to this point God simply creates by saying, “Let there be” (vs. 14) or “Let the earth bring forth” (vs. 24). Whatever He names then comes into being. However, in these two verses God first proposes (“Let Us make man” - vs. 26) and then acts: “So God made man” (vs. 27). The use of the pronoun “Us” further reveals creation as the wo