SACRAMENTAL LIVING

“If we are driven by what people think about us, then we will forget our responsibility to please the Lord and will be tossed around by the waves of trying to be popular….If we always are doing things so that people will like us, we may forsake doing the hard things that God requires of us. The goal is not to be liked by everyone, but to do the good, beautiful and holy thing so that God’s light shines through us.” (Fr. Ted Bobosh) “…we may become the light of the world as we

“One test of spiritual attainment is peace. Those who are truly advanced in the Spirit have peace of mind and share the peace of God… “Wherever God is — there is peace. And the opposite is self-evident: where there is envy, enmity, impatience, self-love — there is the devil. Wherever the devil is — there, everything is ruinous, proud and hostile.” (Fr. Basil, St. Anatoly of Optina) “How do we attain peace? We put aside all…pride and hostility and destructiveness. And we acqui

“It is not uncommon to find people with very sensitive consciences and who seem to have a certain attraction, even aptitude, for the contemplative path, but who cannot come to terms with things that have happened in their past. Not only can they not accept divine forgiveness, they cannot forgive themselves. Consequently their self-esteem is too low to accept the fact that failure is part of the search for God.” (Martin Laird) “…we must use the knowledge of our failures to fue

“The signs of God’s grace surround us and lie within us. But we have our own idols that blind us to all the signs that witness to the steadfast love of God. God is good. Yet the troubles of this world, the suffering of illness and grief, the attractions of this age, the temptations of greed, jealousy, and avarice, and the press of daily affairs conspire to hide the goodness of God from us. And in times of distress, we might even blame the Almighty and All-Merciful for our tro

“The Christian life is not easy, but it actually is simple. When we clearly understand what sin and holiness are, then our choice to turn away from sin and be holy becomes clear, too. As we are tempted to sin, we should remember the words of Jesus, that our sin will bring us into paralysis and worse, because sin is participation with the alien demonic power that destroys human nature. And as we see opportunities to be faithful to the holiness of God, then we see that this fai

“Sin remains an affront to the holy God. It alienates us from God again as if Christ had not reconciled us to our Creator. So it puts us in danger of losing the blessings of eternal life that are given to us by belief and baptism (Mark 16:16). And because we are members of one another, sin affects the whole Body of Christ. Some sins are especially contagious and contaminate the entire community of faith. Therefore, we need not fear anything in this world. But we do need to fe

“Human biological life is a gift from the Creator, not the negative consequence of sin. St Paul’s words about the first Adam becoming a ‘living being’ can be interpreted to mean a ‘biological being.’ Adam was created with a physical, even mortal nature like all other biological creatures, but had the potential to be a spiritual being. But as St. Paul notes, the physical/biological was first. The spiritual nature needed to be developed by humanity, but sin is the roadblock to

“All that we read in holy Scripture for our instruction and salvation demands an attentive ear. You have just heard [Luke 24:13-35] how the eyes of those two disciples whom the Lord joined on their way were kept from recognizing Him. He found them in despair of the redemption that was in Christ, supposing Him now to have suffered and died as a man, not imagining Him to live forever as the Son of God. So He opened to them the Scriptures and showed them that it was necessary fo

“I believe that Christians make a serious mistake when we begin to speak first about God rather than first about Christ and His death on the Cross and resurrection from the dead. It is a mistake because it presumes we know something about God that is somehow “prior” to those events. We do not, or, if we think we do, we are mistaken. The death and resurrection of Christ are the alpha and the omega of God’s self-revelation to the world. Nothing in all of creation is extraneous

“Reading Scripture is an essential way that we allow God to speak to us. We hear His voice in sermons in church. We may hear His voice coming through the encouragement of others. However, the Bible is a way that we can hear His voice at any time, and hear it most completely. A sermon is on a specific passage of Scripture and is heard in church. And a word of encouragement requires another person’s input. The Bible is something we can pick up at any time and at any place to he