SACRAMENTAL LIVING

“…let’s take a look into the mysterious depths of human existence. The whole tragedy of our fallen world is rooted in one source—our “I,” in which we have since childhood habitually locked up everything, turning our soul into an impenetrable fortress. But authentic Christianity begins at the place where a person makes a great existential breakthrough; where he overcomes the pull of his egocentrism and turns to meet God. At this crosspoint of the vertical of the soul reaching

“One of the clear differences between St. John Chrysostom (and the Eastern Christian tradition) and St. Augustine (and the Western Christian tradition) is that Chrysostom does not see death as a punishment for evil as Augustine did. St. John notes death is part of nature – animals and plants die and they haven’t sinned. So death was in nature before humans sinned. Death is spread throughout the human population, not just because Adam sinned (the idea of original sin is an Aug

“Have you ever interrogated your yearning? I know you have it; we all bear unmet desire. Not just for love or safety, success or approval, though all those earthy, human things gesture to the larger things we’re missing. We desire something we can’t quite name, a deeper satisfaction than we have ever found in any one thing or person in this world.” (Sarah Clarkson) “A spiritual question is whether we are to seek the peace of God, or if we should be seeking the God of peace. W

“We certainly want to believe in the goodness around us and also in the goodness of humanity. And in many cases, this is true, and we see and experience evidence of this daily. Yet, we must not lose our awareness of what moves upon this earth in addition to the light-the darkness. And the darkness of which I speak does not only come at night when the sun goes down. The darkness of which I speak happens in broad daylight. We are at a time when there is no shame in committing a

“Humanity has never run short of ways to distract itself, but in the media age, distraction has become a way of life.” (Sarah Clarkson) “Modern people have a hard time setting their hearts and minds on any one thing. Intervening in our lives is an endless number of media and electronic disruptions. Being “single-minded” may be another thing that contemporary society has left in the past. Many studies have noted the shortening attention span of modern people. The ubiquitous fl

“He [man] is the only being that is distinguished from all else in creation, because he is the only one which can become a god. The phrase “in His image” describes the gifts which God gave only to man in order to complete him as an icon of God, and not to any of His other creatures. These gifts are: a logos related nous, conscience, and individual sovereignty, i.e. freedom, creativity, eros, and the yearning for the absolute and for God, personal self-awareness, and anything

“…true beauty, true spiritual beauty, can never be made artificially. There isn’t enough gold in the world to buy the cleansing, transformation, and remaking of our spirit. The price for that was already paid by the One sent to save our souls and cleanse us from our sins…Perhaps there is nothing so powerful as a testimony of a life transformed. I don’t believe it’s necessary to suffer so deeply that one’s life is crushed seemingly beyond repair, broken into a hundred pieces,

“God creates like an artist rather than a scientist. The language which the Bible and the Fathers employ in describing the creation of the world by God seems to be borrowed from the building of an edifice (Hebrews 3:3-4), ordering and furnishing it, so that it may become cosmos, a well ordered, beautiful thing…There is, of course, major difference between God and a human artist in that the former creates ex nihilo and the latter ex vetere. And yet, when we come to the idea of

“Often, we’re so caught up in the rush of life that even when we’re with loved ones or doing something together, it can feel perfunctory. We rush around, trying to accomplish what we perceive as important tasks. But these very tasks make us insensitive, coarse, and callous, even as we reassure ourselves that this isn’t the case. We might think our outward cheerfulness is a sign of happiness, but that’s far from true. The Holy Fathers teach that one of the primary signs of des

“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