SACRAMENTAL LIVING

“…the first man to enter Paradise was the repentant thief (cf. Luke 23:42–43).” (Rev. Dr. Oliver Subotic) “I wanted to share this story told by St. Paisius, to show how even scandalous sin does not cost someone salvation, if they are repentant and longing to be free from sin, and longing to be near God. Gosh I wish I could find the original for this story, but this is how I remember it going. He said that there was a monk at his monastery who got drunk every day. He drank vod

“…the Lord Jesus Christ warns us quite clearly that mercy will be the fundamental criterion when we are judged at the Last Judgment, when it will be asked whether we fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, and visited the sick and the imprisoned (cf. Matt. 25:31–46)…This is not a sprint. It is a long race. A long run. And the race does not end until we meet the Lord on the Final Judgment. It is then that we will be held accountable for everything we have said, thought, don

“… Health comes first!...most people who cite this saying think exclusively of bodily health, which…is undoubtedly very important. This form of health enables us to live a quality life and to carry out our daily activities without hindrance; as such, it represents a gift from God that should be carefully preserved and nurtured…bodily health, however significant and necessary it may be, has its own “expiration date”—sooner or later it will leave us. Ultimately, earthly life it

“God is always giving Himself away. The whole of human existence is rooted in the self-gift of God. We would not have bodies without God calling earth out of the void and forming us from it, we would not have spirits without His breath quickening our dust. We would not have agency, the power to be a free, loving self, capable of response to our Maker if God did not ensure that freedom by sharing ‘the most precious thing He has’ (as von Balthasar says). We were not made to ful

“For a believer, “a good life,” is nothing other than the life of Christ. “Christ within us the hope of glory,” St. Paul calls it. That life is revealed to us in the gospels and its pattern has not changed. All of the virtues are nothing less than the character of Christ being shown forth in our lives. They are formed and shaped within us by the work of the Holy Spirit, but not without our own co-suffering with Christ.” (Father Stephen Freeman) “…it is the whole incarnate lif

“God calls us to faithfulness in whatever situation He places us…Faithfulness to God is never forgotten by the Lord, even if it appears to go unnoticed (Heb 6:10). The true reward is glorification, not in this life, but in the Kingdom to come (Heb 11:39, 40).” (Orthodox Study Bible, Esther 2:20, 23) “People often perceive faith as confidence in the existence of God. But this is the first step of faith, from which you can gradually rise to something higher. For example, faith

“The truth is that any of us can contribute to a breach of unity in the Church, whether intentionally or unintentionally. None of us is above fomenting division by our words and actions…For it was made a Church, not so we who come together may be divided, but so they who are divided might be joined.” (Dynamis 9/30/2024, St. John Chrysostom) “As we live in this life, we are constantly tempted towards the divisions that threaten us. We see the world as “them and us.” These beli

“…this is how the path of religious life begins. As the holy fathers write, the soul passes through three stages: slave, hireling, and son. The stage of the slave—a person does not yet love God, but fears hell. He keeps the commandments because he has been horrified by the description of fiery gehenna. This is faith expressing the religious instinct of self-preservation. The stage of the hireling—a person already hopes for reward. He fasts in order to receive the Kingdom of H

“Our Lord Jesus Christ told His disciples that He had to leave them in order to send them the Holy Spirit. Ten days after His ascension to the heavens, The Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples, we are told “like tongues of fire.” All of the sudden, they were clothed with the Holy Spirit. They each became individually, temples of the Holy Spirit and they became more. I’m going to tell you something that might sound strange or controversial. They became Christs. Don’t misun

“It is certainly necessary, in pastoral care, to consider the concrete political, economic, and social environments in which the faithful live. In so doing, the aim is, however, not to enable them to conform to the modern way of life, but to help them succeed, in their particular circumstances, in continuing to lead a Christian way of life, which is accomplished often not in conformity and accommodation, but in a form of spiritual resistance. This has been a clear principle f