SACRAMENTAL LIVING

“Our experience of God from the beginning is that God is creative. Many scholars think Genesis 1 is meant to be a poem, and the Greek word for ‘made’ is related to our word for ‘poem’, making God the first poet and first to speak lyrically. God speaks poetically as He creates. The creation of the visible universe also suggests to us that God is an artist…creation is an ongoing process which God continues to guide and is not just something that happened once billions of years

“The love of beauty and our desire for it are the most fundamental parts of our being. This is particularly true if we use the word “beauty” in the fullest sense of its meaning. Beauty encompasses being and truth as well. It is God’s word for His creation (usually translated as “good,” the word in Scriptures also means “beautiful”). That which is beautiful and good is reflective (iconic) of the God who created it. All of creation longs for union with this Beauty and groans fo

“How greatly almsgiving contributes to prayer. If you want to pray you have to become a generous person. Generous in the whole meaning of the word. If people say a kind word to someone else, or offer them something or give alms, this condition moves their soul to prayer. It’s well established that, when the generous stand in prayer, their prayer flies to God, who accepts it….People who are not disposed to almsgiving are like trees that bear no fruit. In other words, no matter

“Christ does not simply die on our behalf, or instead of us, He becomes sin in order to destroy sin (2 Cor. 5:22). Christ is without sin, and yet He becomes sin. There is nothing “noble” in such an action; nobility would be a deeply unjust accusation. It is self-emptying love…This act of self-emptying is known as kenosis. It is the ultimate act of love, the ultimate act of self-giving, self-forgetting…We are Baptized into the self-emptying love of Christ, for this is the only

“Acknowledging our emptiness and brokenness, our failures and weakness, is an exercise in confronting shame. It can be quite painful – something we either avoid or cover over with self-loathing. Shame is not self-loathing. Indeed, the energy behind our self-loathing is simply pride (ϕιλαυτία). Self-loathing is consumed with the self and driven by its unwillingness to be that person. Bearing our shame is the willingness to acknowledge the truth of ourselves and our lives as a

“…repentance does not fundamentally mean to feel guilty about our past sins, nor even merely to cease from sinning in the future. Probably we know that the English word “repentance” is a (quite dubious) translation of the Greek word μετάνοια, “metanoia,” meaning literally to change one’s nous — that is, to change our fundamental way of understanding reality…there is a common religious framework that our culture has instilled into our subconscious — and so when we hear Christ

“…secularity is the negation, the evacuation from life, of the experience of the world as sacred reality, as “participant” in divine reality and “participated in” by the divine.” (Vigen Guroian) “Though the secular world denies all invisible spiritual forces, the Scriptures testify to their existence, pervasiveness, and impact on the world.” (Fr. Basil) “It is very simplistic to say that emergencies make people pay more attention to God and reawaken religious feelings. We mig

“Most North Americans view the US as a country built by rugged individualism. But all too often, promoting individualism can hinder a sense of community. Growing up with this embedded cultural heritage, US citizens are taught to keep their noses out of each other’s business and to preserve individual rights at all costs. At best, this societal norm might keep folks from becoming overbearing busybodies. At worst, it promotes isolation and noninvolvement, splinters communities,

“Most believers go through times of spiritual emptiness. They feel that they are in a spiritual “black hole.” Their heart feels hollow. They keep going, but they are running on an empty tank…When we lose our purpose and meaning, we ask ourselves, what is the use? We no longer hope that anything good will come from our efforts. Therefore, above all, Paul prays that hearts of the Holy Spirit would “overflow in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13). We earnestly d

“To come face to face with the living God…is a humbling, wondrous, life-changing experience…In Saint Paul’s case, a face-to-face confrontation with God enlightened his inner being and illumined the darkness of his hatred and self-righteousness. God changed Saul of Tarsus from a mere man into a holy apostle. After his baptism, Saint Paul withdrew into Arabia and avoided the centers of Christian activity. He had faced the Lord Jesus, and he needed time to assimilate all that ha