Cross
“In the Feast of the Holy Cross, the hymnography…makes the statement, “The Tree heals the Tree.” It is one of the marvelous commentaries on the life of grace and its relationship to the human predicament. It refers to the relationship between the Cross of Christ and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The latter was the source of the fruit that Adam and Eve consumed that was the source of their fall from grace. The “Tree that heals” is none other than the Cross of Chr
Attitude
“Helping a person in need is good in itself. But the degree of goodness is hugely affected by the attitude with which it is done… If you give aid to others in a spirit of joy, then they will receive your help joyfully. Your assistance will neither demean nor humiliate those you support. Rather they will feel glad to have caused you pleasure by receiving your help. Thus, joyful acts of generosity are sources of blessing to the giver as well as the receiver. They increase our h
Forbearance
“Paul says that we should both forbear and forgive. He writes in Colossians, “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, and patience, forbearing one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive” (Colossians 3:13)….“forbearing” one another means “tolerating” them, that is, passing over their faults…forgiveness is the pardon of the wrongs d