SACRAMENTAL LIVING

“Why does adherence to traditions—even the most ancient and beautiful ones—not automatically make a person a believer? And where is the very line that marks the point at which a ritual ceases to be a bridge to God and turns into a façade concealing emptiness, or, even worse, a complete mismatch between life and the ideals that are professed? To begin with, any religion—and Christianity is no exception—has two components: form and content. The form consists precisely of tradit

“We live in an age when consumer culture has been elevated into an absolute. We are persuaded that a person’s worth is determined by how much he has accumulated. The world teaches us to live in a state of constant anxiety—in fear of missing out, falling behind, losing what we have, or becoming poor. As a result, acts of mercy become merely formal. We give what we “won’t miss,” or we make charitable giving part of our public image. But it is precisely against such an attitude

“The enemy of mankind tries in every way to trouble our consciousness and our lives, ultimately to suffocate our souls with pride and malice. We, as Christians, must understand this and wage spiritual warfare, armed with sobriety, prayer, fasting, humility, meekness, and love for Christ.” (Priest Tarasiy Borozenets) “We have to learn, figuratively speaking, to rise above the clouds. When a plane rises above the clouds, it enters a field of sunlight, where everything is so bea

“…salvation is not merely an escape from sin and death. It is that, to be sure. But it is also so much more than that — which is why some of the Holy Fathers teach that Christ would still have become incarnate even if the Fall of Man had never occurred. It is one thing (and an indisputably needful thing!) to put our passions to death…even some of the pagan philosophers put us Christians to shame by their virtue and asceticism — yet these things by no means acquired for them t

“In our everyday speech, the words “to listen” and “to hear” are often used as synonyms. But in a spiritual sense, there is a vast difference between them—one that brings either salvation or condemnation. Listening is a process. You can stand in church, listening to the reading of the Epistle or the Gospel, and even understand the meaning of the words with your mind—yet remain deaf in your heart. External listening without inner acceptance is like looking in a mirror, walking

“The intersection of earth and heaven was evident in the sacramental nature of early Christianity, with the central role of practices such as Baptism and the Eucharist. In these rites, the physical stuff of creation is imbued with heavenly significance, becoming theophanies or manifestations of the divine…When we begin Christian life in baptism, we are plunged into water, returning to the watery chaos that symbolizes non-being. This indicates that the way the cosmos itself wa

“Have you ever interrogated your yearning? I know you have it; we all bear unmet desire. Not just for love or safety, success or approval, though all those earthy, human things gesture to the larger things we’re missing. We desire something we can’t quite name, a deeper satisfaction than we have ever found in any one thing or person in this world.” (Sarah Clarkson) “A spiritual question is whether we are to seek the peace of God, or if we should be seeking the God of peace. W

“We certainly want to believe in the goodness around us and also in the goodness of humanity. And in many cases, this is true, and we see and experience evidence of this daily. Yet, we must not lose our awareness of what moves upon this earth in addition to the light-the darkness. And the darkness of which I speak does not only come at night when the sun goes down. The darkness of which I speak happens in broad daylight. We are at a time when there is no shame in committing a

“…we are content to say that God has no place in our lives. We think we want to be left alone to figure it out for ourselves. We have all seen how well this is working out!...Devotion to God’s will is the peaceful and restful haven in all temptations and sorrows, while reliance on one’s own powers is destructive.” (Reverend Christopher T. Metropulos, D. Min, St. Ignatius Brianchaninov) “The spiritual disease of the last times is the weakening of our will and determination. It

“Thus, we can’t look to Adam or the book of Genesis to see human perfection because Adam was not created perfect; he was only potentially perfectible. We will not find in the book of Genesis how to be a perfect human. Adam did not fall from a state of perfection, rather he failed to develop this potential in himself. Jesus Christ is the perfect human and it is only from Him that we can understand what human perfection means. And Christ was born as a baby who also had to grow