SACRAMENTAL LIVING

“To continue growing requires watchfulness, or inner attentiveness (nepsis), which is necessary for replacing the vices with virtues. We must know what is happening inside ourselves. Most of us are in a state of inner sleep (hypnos). We think of ourselves as conscious, but the Fathers call it sleep—an unawareness characterized by self-centeredness. What we need is a detached awareness of what’s happening inside in order to be more aware of the promptings of the conscience.” (

“There is a theme of hiddenness in the teaching of Christ, indeed, across the whole of Scripture. We can see it in the sayings regarding the Kingdom of God in which it is compared to a lost coin or a buried treasure or a pearl of great price. It is something that requires searching out, digging up, or even selling everything in order to have it. The Kingdom of God is something that you don’t know but is worth everything in order to know. To know it, however, we must ask, seek

“The world insists: “There is only one life—take all you can from it!” Orthodoxy answers: “Insomuch as there is only one life, you should never take all you can from it!” Since there will be no second chance, the price of each choice skyrockets, and responsibility for it becomes critical and soteriological by nature. To waste this unique gift recklessly in pursuit of illusory happiness does not mean to “take everything”, but to lose everything: to lose “the one thing needful”

“…the Lord Jesus Christ warns us quite clearly that mercy will be the fundamental criterion when we are judged at the Last Judgment, when it will be asked whether we fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, and visited the sick and the imprisoned (cf. Matt. 25:31–46)…This is not a sprint. It is a long race. A long run. And the race does not end until we meet the Lord on the Final Judgment. It is then that we will be held accountable for everything we have said, thought, don

“God is always giving Himself away. The whole of human existence is rooted in the self-gift of God. We would not have bodies without God calling earth out of the void and forming us from it, we would not have spirits without His breath quickening our dust. We would not have agency, the power to be a free, loving self, capable of response to our Maker if God did not ensure that freedom by sharing ‘the most precious thing He has’ (as von Balthasar says). We were not made to ful

“God calls us to faithfulness in whatever situation He places us…Faithfulness to God is never forgotten by the Lord, even if it appears to go unnoticed (Heb 6:10). The true reward is glorification, not in this life, but in the Kingdom to come (Heb 11:39, 40).” (Orthodox Study Bible, Esther 2:20, 23) “People often perceive faith as confidence in the existence of God. But this is the first step of faith, from which you can gradually rise to something higher. For example, faith

“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

“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