SACRAMENTAL LIVING

“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple (Lk 14.26). This is the extreme and terrifying warning against all passionate attachments stronger and more powerful than one’s passionate attachment to Christ alone. And the greatest passion of all which keeps one from the love of God and the love of one’s neighbor is the sinful passion for oneself. Sinful sel

“You can know life only through life itself. In other words, the practical application of the Scriptures builds up our relationship with God. We learn from the Bible about Christian life and find the basis for deep faith, because, So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God (Rom. 10:17).” (Priest Anthony Rusakevich) “St. John of Damascus’s remark: Let us draw from the fountain of this garden [the Scriptures] perennial and purest waters springing into life

“…love for a person does not at all mean blindness and thoughtlessness; it does not at all mean some sort of self-deception. The loving person sees the inadequacies, vices, and weaknesses of another, but above all this observation stands another, higher knowledge—namely: that a human being is something immeasurably greater than the sum total of his vices, sins, and inadequacies. Every human being is a child of God, who unconditionally deserves love. And all the darkness that

“Words have something of a sacramental relationship with the reality they represent. Or, to be more precise, they have an iconic...

“The material success of modern technology creates an allusion of greatness. To a great extent it only bears witness to power and wealth....

“Christ then appears through shut doors in the midst of them and tells them one thing: ‘Peace be with you.’ For these to be the first...

“God is He of Whom no questions would arise within us if we weren’t sinful, if we hadn’t fallen from Paradise, as chicks fall from their...

“People always seem to be thinking too literally, and Jesus is always moving them from the literal to the spiritual level—to seeing...

“I truly felt the presence of God, and this feeling was reflected in my love for going to church… And I didn’t have this religious life...

“If a man were to see himself in a mirror in a fit of anger, of rage, he’d be horrified and wouldn’t recognize himself with such a...