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

“Sons of the world see distraction as innocent, but the Holy Fathers see it as the beginning of all evil. One of the greatest ascetics of old, St. Poemen the Great, teaches that the beginning of evil is distraction.” (St. Ignatius Brianchaninov, Archbishop Averky Taushev) “Quiet, for me, seemed an impossible quality to cultivate without a sense of time as ample. I wanted our lives to be, not crammed with endless activity or entertainment or things, but ordered, roomy, so that

“…we are content to say that God has no place in our lives. We think we want to be left alone to figure it out for ourselves. We have all seen how well this is working out!...Devotion to God’s will is the peaceful and restful haven in all temptations and sorrows, while reliance on one’s own powers is destructive.” (Reverend Christopher T. Metropulos, D. Min, St. Ignatius Brianchaninov) “The spiritual disease of the last times is the weakening of our will and determination. It

“So we see dramatized in Genesis the bitter “fruit” of an approach to the interpretation of spiritual realities that attempts to be...

“It is very interesting that…it is only when God “empties himself” for the life of the world, that He actually takes on being. Before...

“We are lulled into a form of complacency by our culture’s exaltation of “objective” knowledge. We fail to notice that, even in very...

“…we must be careful lest we put roadblocks in front of the Holy Spirit’s work… we can resist the Holy Spirit by stirring up discord in...

“When we separate faith from everything else, we make it into belief. It becomes the assent to the truth of something that cannot be...

“The steward of God actively practices virtue and lives quietly and devoutly as God instructs him through holy tradition. By following...

“Our quest for communion with the everlasting God reorients our vision, directing it toward the eternal destiny of all mankind. We...