SACRAMENTAL LIVING

“How greatly almsgiving contributes to prayer. If you want to pray you have to become a generous person. Generous in the whole meaning of the word. If people say a kind word to someone else, or offer them something or give alms, this condition moves their soul to prayer. It’s well established that, when the generous stand in prayer, their prayer flies to God, who accepts it….People who are not disposed to almsgiving are like trees that bear no fruit. In other words, no matter

“Life in the home is in the Lord; the family is a little church and is to live in the baptismal and eucharistic life of the Church. Duties are reciprocal, everyone having the same standing before the same Master. All authority is for the sake of loving service (all authority is humbling) and all submission is to God (all submission is glorious)…The family is a spiritual unit: if one member is a Christian, the whole family is set apart by God's grace.” (Orthodox Study Bible, E

“…salvation is something plainly visible – salvation can be seen by all humans. Salvation is thus not merely a theological concept or something experienced by the heart or mind or even an event to be experienced by the many. Salvation is visible because it is a relationship with the Son of God…everyone in the world can see God’s salvation…And we are always to be seeking and searching for God because with the Lord we have a relationship that never ends, never grows old, never

“One thing that should be clear from reading the New Testament is that there is no instant perfection. Rather, we strive, struggle and toil in this world to grow in faith and love. ‘Perfection’ will only be had in that day when Christ becomes all in all and this world as we know it is transfigured into God’s Kingdom. In life, we are to expect struggle and to strive for spiritual growth, becoming more Christ-like with each test and struggle.” (Fr. Ted Bobosh) “…the gifts of th

“Self-importance, according to St. Basil, is a spiritual disease that “matures,” that gets stronger over time. It is a disease that becomes “rooted by habit in the mind” for those who suffer from it. It begins, in my experience, after life thrusts us into a position of authority or importance. At first, we are timid and uncertain, we know our weaknesses, we know we can only try to do our best. However, almost right away, others begin treating us differently. Others seek our a

“Christ does not simply die on our behalf, or instead of us, He becomes sin in order to destroy sin (2 Cor. 5:22). Christ is without sin, and yet He becomes sin. There is nothing “noble” in such an action; nobility would be a deeply unjust accusation. It is self-emptying love…This act of self-emptying is known as kenosis. It is the ultimate act of love, the ultimate act of self-giving, self-forgetting…We are Baptized into the self-emptying love of Christ, for this is the only

“If civil authority receives its power from God, then the Roman government’s execution of Jesus is a sign that God disapproved of Jesus and His messianic claims. But then, there is Christ’s resurrection which reveals that Christ in fact is God’s chosen Messiah and Son, and that the actions of the Roman government and Jewish leaders was in fact opposed to God’s will. What becomes clear is that God was choosing an unusual way to accomplish His will and was showing that the norm

“…do we understand how God takes care of us? Many of us have great misconceptions about this. God has provided for us by being the “book-ends” to our lives. He is the alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. We know God as the creator of all, that we have been given life in this world, and we know that God has our departure from this world and what comes after covered. He does not provide for us by controlling everything that occurs in-between. Our lives that occur in

“Christians are told by the authors of the New Testament to rejoice and be people of hope. However, living in the same world as nonbelievers, Christians still experience, like everyone else, moments of doubt, despair, despondency….The opposite of hope is despondency and despair. According to the spiritual tradition of the Church, the state of despondency and despair is the most grievous and horrible condition that a person can be in. It is the worst and most harmful of the si

“A strange illness has appeared in our days – the passion for distractions. Never before was there such a desire for distractions; people have forgotten how to lead a serious life for the good of others; they have no spiritual life and are bored. They exchange the profound content of a spiritual life for distractions! What madness! It is here that pastors must deploy their strength: they must re-introduce into life its lost meaning and give back to the people the knowledge of