SACRAMENTAL LIVING

“Satan is not evil by nature, but by will and action. In Satan there is no truth whatsoever; he is absolute falsehood and deception. Satan is not just a negation or deprivation of good, but a positive force with free will that always chooses evil….The devil and evil spirits know that God exists and recognize true and devoted Christians, but pious Christians discern the plans of the devil. The devil, however, constantly employs every method of deception to enslave man to satan

“Our modern self-understanding sees people primarily as individual centers of choice and decision. A person is seen as the product of their choices and decisions – our lives are self-authenticated. As such, we are managers. Of course there are many problems with this world-view from the perspective of Classical Christianity. Though we are free to make choices and decisions, our freedom is not unlimited. The largest part of our lives is not self-determined. Much of the rhetori

“Our reading [Proverbs 10:31-11:12] presents a stark contrast between the path of righteousness and the ways of wickedness. Is it, perhaps, too well-defined? Is there no middle ground, a little bit of evil mixed in with the good, a portion of sin blended with a measure of righteousness? St. Paul answers this question with a question: “For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness” (NKJV 2 Corinthians 6:14)? No, our descript

“… the acquisition of wisdom is always conditional, for God makes wisdom available only when two major “ifs” apply to us: “if [we] call upon wisdom. and search for her as treasure” (Proverbs 8:3, 4). God reveals wisdom but we must undertake the work… Take heart, for the “if” clauses are followed by God’s promise that we will then “understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God” (vs. 5).” (Dynamis 3/13/2023) “…wisdom is not merely the result of a long life of ex

“…asceticism is the path to holiness, growth, and stability…If we practice asceticism and strip away our ego, control our ‘false self’, and learn ‘self-forgetfulness’, we each embody the Lord’s Prayer. We have to empty the self (kenosis) in order to become our true self.” (Fr. Lawrence Farley, Fr. Ted Bobosh) “…asceticism “is the struggle of the person against rebellious nature, against the nature which seeks to achieve on its own what it could bring about only in personal un

“…because we fear death we often engage in self-preservation to the point of sin – we are willing to make sure others die so that we don’t. It is not only that sin leads to death (Romans 6:23), but death (or our fear of it) also leads to our sinning (for example committing murder). Just the fear that we might be somehow diminished, or might ‘disappear’, can lead us to be willing to sin against others (to lie, gossip, spread false rumors, discredit, give disinformation, cheat

“No servant can serve two masters,” not because there are two, but the Lord is One.” (St. Ambrose) “ ‘No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon’ (Matthew 6:24). In this life, it takes intensive effort to achieve a financial position which gives us anything resembling complete control. Our life becomes consumed with achieving temporary fiscal secur

“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

“When we assume…that our well-being depends on ourselves or our circumstances rather than on God, then we become constantly vigilant to potential threats to our social and emotional well-being. Like an animal that continually shifts its focus while quickly scanning the environment for threats, our brain scans our experience for actual or potential problems. Then, as soon as we find a problem, we fixate on it…Part of the solution to these survival-based ruminations is to begin