SACRAMENTAL LIVING

“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

“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

“Ancient people (and most non-Western societies today) did not think in this way. They acknowledged that there were both physical and spiritual elements to the world, but far from seeing them as separate domains, they viewed them as fundamentally interrelated. The idea is that there is a physical component to all spirituality and a spiritual meaning in all physical things.” (Dr. Zachary Porcu) “Ancient people did not believe that the lights in the sky were angels, whereas now

“In today’s reading we see that Our Lord Jesus Christ has completed His long day of teaching, healing and feeding the multitudes. He dismisses the crowds and then He does something that we would not expect in our human logic. After a long and exhausting day outside, in the elements and with the many people and their many pains and struggles, we would very likely be drained. We would probably want to sit down and rest. We would want to eat and possibly go straight to bed. That

“The world insists: “There is only one life—take all you can from it!” Orthodoxy answers: “Insomuch as there is only one life, you should never take all you can from it!” Since there will be no second chance, the price of each choice skyrockets, and responsibility for it becomes critical and soteriological by nature. To waste this unique gift recklessly in pursuit of illusory happiness does not mean to “take everything”, but to lose everything: to lose “the one thing needful”

“…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

“If you can’t defeat a passion, let it take over. If you may not, but really want to, then you may.” Such people tolerate no limits, living by the principle, “Take what is yours”, and therefore any “no” is perceived as a challenge. For them the slogan, “Live without limits,” becomes not just a choice, but an ideology legitimizing selfishness…In the long run, a life without limits does not become a search for happiness, but an escape from yourself—from your responsibility, the

“Before speaking of the sinfulness of consumerism, it is important to understand: consumption in itself is not evil. Consumption is a natural element of our human life. Man is a dependent and needy being; therefore it is natural for him to take and consume, especially in childhood. But as he matures, man increasingly begins to give to others—to create, to help, to care. A mature person is a responsible, creative personality who loves God and his neighbor and is guided by the

“Today… we often take theology out of the theanthropic mystery of the Church in which it was sung by the Fathers. We transfer it to the field of mere academic discussions, where each person, remaining an individual, an isolated authority, states his opinion and goes his way. The resultant “theology,” however, is not the very theology of the Church…The divine Spirt breathes in the organism of human speech. Thus it becomes possible for man to utter words of God, to speak of God

“Self-deception can be defined as a false belief concerning oneself. It is a repercussion from the wound of rejection. When we think we are right for long enough, but are actually wrong, no one can tell us differently. Because of this, self-deception is a trap. It is extremely difficult for one to extricate himself from deception of any kind, especially when it is being directed from within.” (Frank Hammond) “We ought, however, to be aware that to live in self-deception is sp