SACRAMENTAL LIVING

“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

“Christ displays little interest in miracles; He is more concerned with the matter of our salvation”…Faith based on miraculous works alone is insufficient for salvation; this kind of incomplete faith quickly turns to scorn should the miracles cease (John 19:15).” (Dynamis 8/13/2023, Orthodox Study Bible, John 4:48) “The work of God’s providence surrounds us at all times, though our hearts are frequently out-of-tune with the eternal hymn of its working. We are deeply aware of

“…God Himself takes on human form to reveal man’s vocation and meaning as divine. From this moment onward man is free. Nothing stands over him, for the very world is his as a gift from God to fulfill his divine destiny….Tragically, too many people do not hear this voice of Jesus as the voice of Love Incarnate calling us to repent, to sacrifice, to have sacrificial love in order to have the greatest joy, to have our deepest desires fulfilled, to find our true selves, to fulfil

“But Holy Scripture speaks sufficiently simply—it speaks about how man accepted evil…, accepted evil according to his freedom, which God had given to him. God did not limit man’s freedom, but where there is choice there is always freedom, and if there is no choice, there is no freedom. Man according to his own personal freedom, as we see, in violation of the family hierarchy, transgresses God’s commandment, goes outside of God’s commandments…The limits of freedom really were

“Our life consists of decisions and their implementation. Man is a decision-making being, and he acts or does not act in accordance with his decisions. Indecision is also a decision, just as inaction is also an action. There are no fruitless decisions and actions. After all, everything has its own result: a barren fig tree has one, and a ripe vine has another. All decisions and actions—both active and passive, whether we want it or not—have a direct effect on the course of ou

“You can know life only through life itself. In other words, the practical application of the Scriptures builds up our relationship with God. We learn from the Bible about Christian life and find the basis for deep faith, because, So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God (Rom. 10:17).” (Priest Anthony Rusakevich) “St. John of Damascus’s remark: Let us draw from the fountain of this garden [the Scriptures] perennial and purest waters springing into life

“There’s a lot of fear circulating these days. Fear in the secular realm, and fear, I think, in the Christian too. We are cowed by the violence and brutality of a fallen world. We’re drawing in, we’re identifying what we’re against. That’s natural. We were made for safety and joy, and the wild danger and grief of the world is not natural. And in a way it is necessary: I am not saying that evil must not be countered or truth spoken. But I think we are in danger of slipping int

“…we often lightly pronounce sentence and form an idea about someone based upon… not even the knowledge of different facts of his biography, but much more often upon hearsay, conjecture, and our own opinions supported by nothing, yet influencing us so powerfully that we consider our opinions the sole and precise truth about one or another person. But this is not at all correct—not in 99 cases out of 100, but in all 100 cases. Therefore, if we speak about a negative, disagreea

“…love for a person does not at all mean blindness and thoughtlessness; it does not at all mean some sort of self-deception. The loving person sees the inadequacies, vices, and weaknesses of another, but above all this observation stands another, higher knowledge—namely: that a human being is something immeasurably greater than the sum total of his vices, sins, and inadequacies. Every human being is a child of God, who unconditionally deserves love. And all the darkness that

“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