SACRAMENTAL LIVING

“…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

“The gift of speech is the greatest gift and corresponds to man’s need for expressing feelings, for exchanging thoughts, impressions, and conversations. But nothing can do more harm to one’s neighbor and nothing can so easily destroy as verbosity, which the enemy uses cunningly and especially successfully to catch people in his nets.” (St. Seraphim Chichagov) “We live in a remarkable and frightening time—the age of an information flood. Every day, through the screens of our s

“… ‘The night is far spent, the day is at hand’ (Rom 13:12). Night is the time of darkness, when most crimes are committed. Night is also the sinful state of the soul that does not want to know God and does not strive for salvation. Predators hunt at night, and the enemy of mankind works in darkness, “like a lion roaring after its prey, seeking whom he might destroy.” I am the light of the world, says the Lord. He chases away the darkness of night, and grants people the Light

“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...

“God is He of Whom no questions would arise within us if we weren’t sinful, if we hadn’t fallen from Paradise, as chicks fall from their...

“Attending church is not the same as being united to the Church. Salvation is not granted by presence in a building, but by synergy—the...

“I once confessed to an experienced priest that sinful thoughts were torturing me, and this is what he advised me: “Think of the thoughts...

“…it does not help that our image and sound rich society creates a living space that is extremely noisy. All around us there are...

“The virtue of humility is best captured by our willingness to receive with thanksgiving those things (of whatever size) that come our...

“…our modern culture believes that relationships with other people are merely psychological phenomena – they are all in our head. There...