SACRAMENTAL LIVING

“As children of the darkness that rules through fear, self-interest, greed, and power, our great motivators are survival and self-preservation. But as children of the light who know that perfect love casts out all fear, it becomes possible to give away all that we have for others. As children of the light, we prepare ourselves to become true martyrs: people who witness with their whole lives to the unlimited love of God. Giving all thus becomes gaining all. Jesus expresses th

Quotes of the Day for March 8, 2023 – Thoughts on the spiritual danger of too much inner and outer noise “For those of us in cities and suburbs, any effort to minimize the noise in our lives, to pursue silence and stillness, takes real effort. Modern society is stacked against us, clamoring for our attention in multiple ways, with lots of knobs, buttons, and links to fill the quiet…We have been well trained to expect a constant hum of noise wherever we go.” (Lynette Horner) “

“A relationship with Jesus Christ-this is prayer. When people think about what is required to receive Holy Communion, they almost immediately think of fasting. There are so many things “higher on the list,” including prayer-what good is fasting without prayer? That’s just dieting.” (Fr. Stavros N. Akrotirianakis) “Take fasting. Some people are extremists in this while many others, perhaps most, are not at all so. Saint Isidoros Pilousiotis says that we should be ‘experienced

“In Lent, our focus must be set squarely on Christ and His living icons, not on us. The fundamental calling of the Christian life is to become like our Lord, Who offered Himself up for the salvation of the world purely out of love. If we want to approach Lent in a spiritually healthy way that will enable us to participate more fully in Him, then we too must offer up ourselves for our neighbors….The purpose of our Lenten journey is simply to become more beautiful living icons

“It is possible we could have forgiven someone cognitively (with our thoughts and even verbally) but not forgiven them emotionally. Sometimes this occurs because we fear the wrong or hurt happening again and don’t let our guard down. Also, we might, due to our faith convictions, embrace the concept of forgiveness and thus readily extend it verbally, but under the surface we still harbor resentment. Sometimes we do this intentionally and sometimes we are not conscious that we

“God bless those who clean up the pain and grief of the world without seeking recognition, for their sorrow, too, will turn to joy. May God grant us the grace to relieve suffering as we are able, offer gestures of comfort to those in need, tell the truth with love, and assuage the world’s pain whenever we meet it. And may the Lord say to us, “Come you blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom” (Mt 25:34).” (Dynamis 2/17/2023) “When a person truly loves Christ, he cannot but h

“One of the reasons that we “never get it right,” is that getting it right is the wrong question – the wrong approach to our life, particularly our life in Christ. Where does the language and thought of “getting it right” come from? I would suggest that it comes out of our school-days. It is the language of a math test, a spelling bee, indeed, it is often the language of shame. We imagine that “getting it right” will make us “be right” ourselves. The two, however, are only ki

“The Scriptures are not a manual on how to live a moral life or how to organize the Church as an institution. The Scriptures are the means by which we come to know the Risen Christ, always through the working of the Holy Spirit…A Christian does not come to read the Scriptures alone and isolated, left to his or her own devices to try to come to the right conclusions that will allow him or her to do what is needed to find salvation. A Christian comes to the Scriptures with the

“We are taught by our Lord Jesus to pray that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven. As Christ’s disciples, we are supposed to discern God’s will and do it. However, in life we daily must make countless choices in seemingly mundane matters in which “God’s will” might not be clear or even meaningful to us. We make countless choices and plans every day and as St James notes above we should always have the mindset that we will do these mundane and social activities admi

“As the apostle puts it in James 1:19-27, we must be doers of the Word. It is in our doing that we are brought into the Light of Christ, that we truly hear the Word of Christ, and that we know the Christ among us. What does it mean to “do” the Word? The root meaning of the Greek term “doer” is “performer.” The “doer” is an actor…The apostle uses this allusion to the theater as a metaphor. The “hearers only” of the Word is like the spectators of a play. They enjoy the show. Th