SACRAMENTAL LIVING

“The love of beauty and our desire for it are the most fundamental parts of our being. This is particularly true if we use the word “beauty” in the fullest sense of its meaning. Beauty encompasses being and truth as well. It is God’s word for His creation (usually translated as “good,” the word in Scriptures also means “beautiful”). That which is beautiful and good is reflective (iconic) of the God who created it. All of creation longs for union with this Beauty and groans fo

“There is a generalized sense in our culture…that with the eclipse of the transcendent, something may have been lost…Divested of the transcendent, this world is invested with ultimacy and meaning in ways that couldn’t have been imagined before.” (James K.A. Smith) “It seems thousands of years removed from us, but it was not so very long ago that life was marked out by religious feasts. Although everyone went to church, not everyone, of course, knew the exact contents of each

“Give us this day our daily bread.”…Daily is a misleading translation of the Greek epiousios, which is literally “above the essence” or “super substantial”….In the Lord’s Prayer we are not merely asking for physical health, but for [daily] spiritual nourishment.” (Orthodox Study Bible, Matthew 6:11) “Give us bread today for the coming day,” or “Give us today the bread we need for today.” The term ἐπιούσιος (epiousios) does not occur outside of early Christian literature…so it

“Human biological life is a gift from the Creator, not the negative consequence of sin. St Paul’s words about the first Adam becoming a ‘living being’ can be interpreted to mean a ‘biological being.’ Adam was created with a physical, even mortal nature like all other biological creatures, but had the potential to be a spiritual being. But as St. Paul notes, the physical/biological was first. The spiritual nature needed to be developed by humanity, but sin is the roadblock to

“The Church is not merely a refuge from the troubles and sorrow of the world, though it can be that. Its real purpose is to equip us to go out of the church and into the world to be witnesses to the Gospel (Luke 24:48), to be a light to the world (Matthew 5:14), and the salt of the earth (Matthew 5:13). We don’t go to church to escape the world or to withdraw from it. When Jesus prayed for us to His Father, he petitioned: I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but

“We go to church… in order to have our eyes opened to see the goodness which God bestowed upon creation… We begin to see God revealed in and through God’s own creation… It is this vision which we lost through sin – it is not the case that the world is totally depraved because of sin but rather that we have lost the ability to see and to have our proper place in creation.” (Fr. Ted Bobosh) “We see the world of God’s creation spread before us, its splendor awakening us to offer

“In a medieval world, the “order” of things was thought important: kings and commoners, high-born and low-born, masters, yeomen, and apprentice, etc. The whole of the universe had an order (hierarchy) that included the angels, human beings, and all creatures. The point was not oppression or suppression, nor to “keep people in their place.” Rather, the order of things served the purpose of union with God.” (Father Stephen Freeman) “Order reflects the nature of God’s holiness.

“We perform all our behaviors from mixed motives. Virtually all our “good” deeds have an admixture of altruism and self-centeredness. We are aware that we are likely to receive some benefit or acknowledgment from our good works. We can’t avoid a tinge of selfishness. But in praying our experiences we can become aware that the power going out from us to effect good for others is a power beyond us. The power to do good deeds is a power that originates well beyond us. We begin t

“…every material reality has a spiritual aspect to it, that the seen and the unseen are deeply intertwined… If we had stood at Golgotha on the day of the Crucifixion, our material eyes would have seen Roman soldiers nailing Jesus to the Cross. But our eyes of faithfulness would have seen the young Warrior, ready to do battle, about to use this Weapon of Peace, the Trophy Invincible, as His means to enter into Hades, smash down its doors, and to defeat the devil and death. If

“Reading the Scriptures, studying the church fathers, attending worship, praying, and meditating are all good and godly things. But they are not ends in themselves. When we engage in these holy activities, our sincere and fervent goal should be to encounter the Lord Jesus Christ. We may be the most informed and even enthusiastic students of the Word. We may be devoted to the teachings of the church. We may excel in Christianity as Paul excelled in Judaism. But all that we thi