SACRAMENTAL LIVING

“…this is how the path of religious life begins. As the holy fathers write, the soul passes through three stages: slave, hireling, and son. The stage of the slave—a person does not yet love God, but fears hell. He keeps the commandments because he has been horrified by the description of fiery gehenna. This is faith expressing the religious instinct of self-preservation. The stage of the hireling—a person already hopes for reward. He fasts in order to receive the Kingdom of H

“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

“Our Lord Jesus Christ told His disciples that He had to leave them in order to send them the Holy Spirit. Ten days after His ascension to the heavens, The Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples, we are told “like tongues of fire.” All of the sudden, they were clothed with the Holy Spirit. They each became individually, temples of the Holy Spirit and they became more. I’m going to tell you something that might sound strange or controversial. They became Christs. Don’t misun

“It is certainly necessary, in pastoral care, to consider the concrete political, economic, and social environments in which the faithful live. In so doing, the aim is, however, not to enable them to conform to the modern way of life, but to help them succeed, in their particular circumstances, in continuing to lead a Christian way of life, which is accomplished often not in conformity and accommodation, but in a form of spiritual resistance. This has been a clear principle f

“Evil has a way of deceiving others. In fact, deceit is one of the great traits of evil. And many times, evil presents itself as just the opposite–goodness and charming. So charming that we are disarmed. So charming that we let down our walls and barriers. And so charming, that we are completely surprised and shocked.” (Jackie Morfesis) “We are capable of choosing between good and evil, however sometimes it takes a great amount of discernment to know what is the good. This is

“The thinkers of the Enlightenment wanted a fixed and miracle-free universe so that science could operate without guidance from religion, which they saw as superstition. But living systems–complex and organic systems–live through cycles of death and life and, in some way that even science should recognize, are always miraculous…What we already believe shapes how we see things. It is why some see a miracle and others only see an event with a natural explanation. It is why mira

“If you can’t defeat a passion, let it take over. If you may not, but really want to, then you may.” Such people tolerate no limits, living by the principle, “Take what is yours”, and therefore any “no” is perceived as a challenge. For them the slogan, “Live without limits,” becomes not just a choice, but an ideology legitimizing selfishness…In the long run, a life without limits does not become a search for happiness, but an escape from yourself—from your responsibility, the

“We are called to be “friends of the bridegroom” and “co-workers with the Lord…God loves His creation and has a special love for humans who are able to interact with Him and to choose to cooperate and love Him. Humans are not created merely to be obedient. God could have created a race of robots if He wanted that. We are not simply “things” in God’s eyes or one more thing among many in creation. Rather God bestows free will upon us humans and invites us to cooperate with Him

“We may abandon God, but He never abandons us. Our actions may cause us to leave His loving embrace, but His love endures…nothing can separate us from God. He is with us, in our health. He is with us in our pain. He is with us in our healing. Yet, regardless of where we are at any given moment, He is still with us.” (Reverend Christopher T. Metropulos, D. Min, Jackie Morfesis) “The presence of the Holy Spirit, then, brings us into the presence of Christ “through faith” (Eph

“…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