SACRAMENTAL LIVING

“….a child at play is a child engaging in ritual activities. Rituals have rules, meaning, purpose, even repetition. It is not childish – it is merely human…Those who utter phrases such as “empty ritual” (something I’ve heard all my life) forget that it is God who first gave ritual to the people of Israel. This primary story about the faith runs counter to modern intuitions. For we presume that real things and true things are in the mind. It is thought and sentiment that we co

“ 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

“In the Christian context, we do not mean by a "mystery" merely that which is baffling and mysterious, an enigma or insoluble problem. On the contrary, a mystery is revealed for our understanding but we never understand it exhaustively because it leads into God's depth or darkness. The eyes are closed—but they are also opened.” (Metropolitan Kallistos Ware) “The Greek word, mystery, originally meant "initiation," "secret," or "revelation of a secret." Christianity inherited t

“Why was the entire dispensation of history and work of Christ necessary? Could not God simply have saved humankind by fiat?...The solution God has provided is to heal our nature from the inside out. By joining His divine, eternal life to human flesh, Jesus Christ has overcome the power of death; hence mortality will be abandoned in the grave when the universal resurrection dawns. If this explanation is not sufficient for the inquirer, ‘Say something like this to reasonable p

“An evil person is not someone who is nothing but evil, someone with no redeeming features or virtues whatsoever. An evil person is not a...

“Seeking the Kingdom of God isn’t a retreat into the wilderness or a complete renunciation of the world; withdrawing from the world for...

“The comprehension of the Gospel depends neither on mental abilities, nor on philosophical sophistication, nor on any other science, but...

“Heresy comes from a Greek word that means “picking and choosing.” A heretic is someone who picks and chooses which parts of a religion...

“People always seem to be thinking too literally, and Jesus is always moving them from the literal to the spiritual level—to seeing...

“So we see dramatized in Genesis the bitter “fruit” of an approach to the interpretation of spiritual realities that attempts to be...