SACRAMENTAL LIVING

“…the claim that all shame is toxic is just a trope of the desacralizing Enlightenment-style thinking about the soul…Proper shame is not easily defined, but we can begin by saying that it is the glow of a worshipping and healthy human soul. Secularism, on the other hand, is the attempt to strip the world of all religious meaning and to put man in God’s central place. Secularism tries to stop us from worshipping, and in order to do that it has to stop us from feeling healthy s

“While Rome postured and threatened Jesus, telling him that it had the power to kill Him or release Him, He patiently waited for the crucifixion He knew would come. “You could do nothing had it not been given to you from above,” He tells Pilate. God is in charge of the outcome of history, plain and simple. He has, however, entered into history itself, not as its Master and Builder, but as its Savior. That salvation is a way of life, to walk the way of the Cross.” (Father Step

“The gospels give us our meaning and our identity and every other identity that we have comes second to our identity as Christians. When we begin to compromise our identity in Christ, when we begin to compromise the way that we live and we begin to live a life of rebellion against the teaching of Christ and His Church then we find that our foundation cracks and before long we find ourselves on the outside looking in, completely unable to understand the Christian faith. We bec

“Our yearning for renewal knows no limits. Even the seemingly mundane things can reflect, like in a drop of water, something truly great… An encounter with God always results in renewal. It has been this way for centuries, throughout the history of Christianity… What is spiritual renewal? It is when you are no longer weighed down by the burden of past traumas and mistakes, your present is filled with joy, and you anticipate the future without fear. We are happy people, becaus

“Sometimes the only and best way to enter into the cell of your soul is to disconnect from the outside world and simply immerse yourself in silence. It’s precisely in silence that we’re able to hear the voice of God. It may seem scary at first; the silence may frighten and irritate us, since we’re so accustomed to noise, music, conversations. But it’s only in silence that you can sense God and the peace of Christ. But the inner silence that we acquire through prayers and sobr

“Christ is the New Adam. He comes to repair the damage inflicted on life by Adam, to restore man to true life, and thus he also begins with fasting. ‘When he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, he became hungry’ (Matthew 4:2). Hunger is that state in which we realize our dependence on something else – when we urgently and essentially need food – showing thus that we have no life in ourselves.” (Fr. Alexander Schmemann) “To understand fasting as simply abstaining from meat and d

“God is free and cannot be expected to behave in a predictable manner (known to us). We can expect certain things according to His promise, but even those things remain largely hidden. For example, we can trust that He is always at all times and in all things working for our salvation, our true communion with Him and healing from the ravages of our brokenness. But we are creatures who dream of being gods, though entering by a false door. Rather than being raised up and confor

“I am so cautious when it comes to a certain strain of Christian thought that glorifies suffering as a good in itself. Too often, I have heard people say to other grieved people that God is ‘using’ their suffering to accomplish some end, as if it were a hammer with which he intended to nail them into godly place. This is the instrumentalist view of suffering: that it’s somehow a pragmatic necessity in God’s plan, something he intends in order to accomplish his ends. If you’ve

“Christ then appears through shut doors in the midst of them and tells them one thing: ‘Peace be with you.’ For these to be the first...

“One who determines to serve the Lord will be tested and face temptation (see 1Co 10:13). Thus, we prepare our soul for this challenge to...