SACRAMENTAL LIVING

“All creation takes its deepest being from Christ. Saint Dionysios the Areopagite described God as “beyond being” and therefore able to be “the being of beings.” Creation itself shines with the light of theophany, not because it is God, but because it is suffused with the love of God for it and for us.” (Timothy G. Patitsas) “…there is an impassible chasm between the uncreated and created. The Fathers believed that the tri-hypostatic God (Trinity) is the only reality that has

“…passion is an internal tendency a person struggles with (taken from the Latin word for suffering). It is not the transgression itself, or even the associated temptation, but rather a proclivity toward both. In general, the passions represent the disordered spiritual condition of an individual….The Church Slavonic word for “passion [strast, страсть]” is translated as “suffering.” From this comes, for example, the word “passion-bearer [strastoterpets, страстотерпец],” that is

“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

“We must never forget that Christ was Himself the Word of God, in the sense that He was expressive wisdom itself, whose expressions carried the force of actions. His utterances were at one and the same time word and action. The activity of His body was the direct consequence of the activity of His mind.” (Matthew the Poor) “A true and faithful practice of the Christian faith should be grounded in the body and in the givenness of life. Biology is not our enemy nor is it someth

“In Christianity, hamartia means “estrangement from God,” or more accurately “failure to achieve one's destiny,” correspondingly the verb harmartanein means “to fall short of one’s destiny” - the original meaning was “to miss the mark.” These words were later translated as “sin,” “to sin.” The primary objective of human life is to unite with God; so any action or even thought that estranges us from God is a sin. As St. Paul tells us, “The sting of death is sin" (1 Corinthians

“Christ points later in St. John’s Gospel as He gives up His life on the Cross, saying, “It is finished” (John 19:30). The Greek verb here used by St. John is the same verb used in Genesis 2:1 at the completion of the work of Creation, leading to God’s rest. Christ, therefore, rests in the Tomb on the seventh day of the week, fulfilling the Sabbath. In three days He completes the work of Creation, rising again on the first day of the week. The Sabbath was, thereby, fulfilled.

“How do we experience God? Do we hear voices? Do we sense a presence? Are there physical sensations involved? Should we see light or feel warmed? Some may be surprised to hear that our belief in God is not based in an interior human experience. Such things stretch across an incredible variety (such is the nature of human experience). However, none of these are definitive, none of them meet the standard of canonical authority, and none of them make the stuff of persuasive reli

“…for the Fathers, water is not merely water: It is chaos and destruction, the power of floods and tsunamis, and the abode of monsters; and it is also life and regeneration, rebirth in Christ, and even the Holy Spirit, who pours forth like a fountain from the Father…The noetic life that inherits the Kingdom (that which is birthed in us at Baptism) both hears the wind and sees where it comes from. It enters the gates of hell and walks in paradise. It mines the treasures buried

“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

“God created this entire visible world so that, through man, He might become all in all. This is the human person’s specific mission: to be the link between God and the world, a link between all things, by uniting his spirit with God.” (Fr. Dumitru Staniloe) “It is the meaning of human existence that must be dealt with and not the regulation of human behavior and the legalistic prohibition of human actions, especially when these are dogmatized as ‘the norm.’…The creation of m