SACRAMENTAL LIVING

“In the Divine Liturgy of the Orthodox Church, the litanies (petitions) end with “… let us commend ourselves, one another, and our whole life to Christ our God.” The word “commend” is sometimes translated as “commit,” as we have defined it. But the word “commend” adds a deeper sense to the dedication of our work to God. To “commend” means to place it in God’s hands. When we put all that we in the Lord’s hands, then we no longer need to be anxious about how it will turn out. W

“… the acquisition of wisdom is always conditional, for God makes wisdom available only when two major “ifs” apply to us: “if [we] call upon wisdom. and search for her as treasure” (Proverbs 8:3, 4). God reveals wisdom but we must undertake the work… Take heart, for the “if” clauses are followed by God’s promise that we will then “understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God” (vs. 5).” (Dynamis 3/13/2023) “…wisdom is not merely the result of a long life of ex

“What leads to the inner decision to ignore Wisdom’s call? Since the issues that Wisdom raises “are the issues of life” (Proverbs 8:34), it really depends on how we define life. The Lord Jesus says, “I am…the life” (Jn 14:6). If we exclude Christ from our consideration of any aspect of our lives, then we are operating on an entirely different ground from that of the Lord. Life’s issues might then seem to encompass nothing more than health, wealth, status, ideology, or the boa

“It is possible we could have forgiven someone cognitively (with our thoughts and even verbally) but not forgiven them emotionally. Sometimes this occurs because we fear the wrong or hurt happening again and don’t let our guard down. Also, we might, due to our faith convictions, embrace the concept of forgiveness and thus readily extend it verbally, but under the surface we still harbor resentment. Sometimes we do this intentionally and sometimes we are not conscious that we

“Many people, because they’ve written God and Christ out of their lives, think that their existence has been enclosed within the stifling framework of this world.” (Protopresbyter Georgios Dorbarakis) “… a world of almost suffocating immanence, a flattened human universe where the escapes are boredom and distraction, not ecstasy and rapture. Hell is self-consciousness, and our late modern, TV-ized (now Twitter-ized) world only ramps up our self-awareness to an almost paralyzi

“Being renewed by God’s power, we become partakers of the divine nature. This does not mean we become divine by nature. If we participated in God's essence, the distinction between God and man would be abolished. What this does mean is that we participate in God's energy, described by a number of terms in scripture, such as glory, life, love, virtue, and power. We are to become like God by His grace…” (Orthodox Study Bible, 2 Peter 1:4) “…the apostle [Peter] writes, “… that y

“The God of love and peace became incarnate in history and, like a glowing landmark, made a clear distinction between pre-Christian darkness and Christian light, between pre-Christian hatred and Christian love, between the pre-Christian miasma of the ‘stench of death’ and the Christian hope of the resurrection. If life today is characterized by the pre-Christian features just mentioned, the fault for that lies within ourselves. The Birth of Christ doesn’t mean the enforced do

“Another reason for the dullness of mind is the over-familiarity that breeds complacency. It is possible to go from one Christmas to the next without growing in our understanding of the incarnation of the Son of God. In that case, our mind is like a knife that keeps cutting the same thing until it loses its edge. The remedy for this loss of sharpness is not a novelty. Rather, we should pay more attention to what is sung, prayed, and proclaimed and probe more deeply into its m

“ ‘Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, ’What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.’ (Mat

“When we read the Scriptures, we may find that only certain of the biblical saints have personalities similar to our own. We may find it difficult to glean any similarity in our lives with that of certain other saints.  This is all OK. There are a variety of gifts which God gives to His saints – each saint doesn’t have all of the spiritual gifts which God gives, but may have only a couple or even one. There are a variety of personalities which God needs to accomplish His plan