SACRAMENTAL LIVING

Understanding Christianity as a Way of Life

Fire (Divine and Spiritual Fire)

“God is fire. God is love. God is a self-propagating emotional power, a fire that shares itself. Centuries after Moses beheld the flames of the burning bush, this same fire merged with the tongues of flame at Pentecost, and with the fire that burned within the hearts of the disciples at Emmaus. In saying that God is a fire of love we are certainly stating a truth that plays havoc with many of our ideas, in fact almost all our ideas. (Fr. Lev Gillet) “There is no accident in G

Goodness

“…even good deeds, if they are done apart from Christ, are futile. “God’s all-saving will, consists in doing good solely to acquire the Holy Spirit, an eternal, inexhaustible treasure which cannot be rightly valued . . . Every soul is quickened by the Holy Spirit . . . and mystically illumined by the Triune Unity.” (St. Seraphim of Sarov) “The Kingdoms of this world” [Matthew 4:8] is not a temptation to fantastic wealth...I believe it is similar to the idylls we whisper to ou

Spiritual Capital

“Jesus’ Parable of the Ten Minas stands at the heart of today’s Gospel passage. The parable points ahead to the time of our Lord’s return when each disciple will be assessed. Hence, our Lord urges us to invest the “spiritual capital” He has entrusted to us, for He will look for growth as evidence of what we have gained from the love, grace, and power we receive through the Holy Spirit.” (Dynamis 11/27/2020) “Do you understand, what acquiring money means? Acquiring the Spirit

Joy (Finding and Maintaining)

“It is a form of an affliction where we permit ourselves to indulge in thoughts of unfairness, until we become thoroughly miserable and obsessed by it. It is a pattern that destroys the good fruit of the Spirit, especially the fruits of inner joy and peace…we all worry about ourselves too much and that only he who leaves everything to the will of God can feel truly joyous, light, and peaceful…He who lives according to God's will has no worries. When he needs something, he sim

Faith and Knowledge

“In order to become wise, we must first become fools. The most valuable knowledge of all is the knowledge of what we don’t know. The Fathers followed a path of apophatic theology (theology that cannot be spoken). It is a path towards knowing the Unknowable. However, we cannot know the Unknowable without first acknowledging that we do not know what we do not know. A simple place to begin is to recognize the passions that accompany our opinions. We not only imagine ourselves to

Spiritual Warfare and Thought

“Even if we do not constantly struggle against “murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies” (Matthew 12:19), all of us have evil thoughts! We are all defiled before God…We must earnestly address the impurity in our heart, that secret defilement which spawns both evil thoughts and actions. The impure heart is the greatest barrier between ourselves and God, for it separates us from Him who alone is able to restore in us the power to do good.” (Dynamis

Kingdom of God/Heaven

“The things which are highly esteemed among men include money, power, position, and praise…Jesus emphasizes the virtues required for entrance into the kingdom of heaven: humility, dependence, lowliness, simplicity, obedience, and a willingness to love and be loved.” (Orthodox Study Bible, Luke 16:15, Matthew 18:1-4) “The Lord teaches that we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven unless we revert to the nature of children, that is, we must recall into the simplicity of children t

Joy and Happiness - Part 2

“Joy requires single-mindedness. The world is full of reasons to be sad or distressed, but beauty and goodness also abound. Which to look at? What you see is what you get.” (Mike Mason) "You cannot command yourself to be joyful, but you can choose where to focus. You can choose to focus on the bad things in your life. And if you do, you will be gloomy and depressed. But if you choose to focus on the Lord, you're going to rejoice with God's kind of joy, regardless of what is b

Searching

“If in the things of this life no one can gain a great profit if he should conduct them in and indifferent and chance way, much more will this be the case in spiritual things, since they require greater attention. Therefore, Christ, when He referred the Jews to the Scriptures [John 5:39], sent them not to a mere reading, but careful and observant search, for He said not; “Keep on reading the Scriptures, but keep on searching.” (St. John Chrysostom) “The term "religion" has b

Watchfulness

“Critical for every servant of God, given our unavoidable struggle against the passions, is prayerful watchfulness…God endows each person with many gifts. However, instead of being grateful to God for these gifts, he is often not watchful. He claims them as his own, inwardly boasting. Then the cunning devil, the thief that he is, goes and steals the gifts—infects them with his poison, rendering them useless” (Dynamis 10/4/2019, St. Paisios the Athonite) “Without watchfulness

Forgetfulness

“Forgetfulness is the forgetting of Wisdom's laws concerning virtue, and the beginning of its cure is obedience from the heart to Wisdom. Such obedience is the road to life and peace.” (Orthodox Study Bible, Proverbs 3:1,2) “In the 1981 film Excalibur, the wizard Merlin tells King Arthur and his knights that ‘it is the doom of men that they forget.’ This is true. Due to the virus of sin in us we tend to easily forget all of the wrong things we say or do, while easily remember

Bible/Scripture

“The Holy Bible (or Scriptures, the Old and New Testaments) is the most authoritative part of the Sacred Tradition of the Church. As with today's laws that govern the life of our modern society, these laws are the product of the life of the community; however, once produced, they are placed above and regulate this life. So it is with the Holy Scripture: once established by the Christian community, led by the Holy Spirit of God, then Scripture is placed above and regulates the

Holy Spirit (Stirring up and Rekindling)

“The gift of God is the grace of the Holy Spirit...This grace fills up what is lacking...But it is not automatic. We must stir up and rekindle it.” (Orthodox Study Bible, 2 Timothy 1:6) “Neither the learned nor the illiterate of whatever race or rank come to God led by human reason; but everyone who is converted to God is first stirred by God’s grace.” (Prosper of Acquitaine) “It is needful for thee to be willing and eager to rekindle God’s gift of grace. Even as fire require

True Love

“Love—The more one reads 1 Corinthians 13, the more one has to face the fact that we don’t naturally have that kind of love in us. The only way to get it is to get it from God.” (Foundation Study Bible, 1 Corinthians 13:1-13) “Truly profound, sincere, and unified Christian religiosity will not be reborn so easily or quickly only because of confusion or fear. It will only be reborn from sincere sorrow at being estranged from God's bosom, only through love that is renewed throu

Grace (Dependency On and Transformation)

“If Jesus is our Lord, our Savior, and the Son of God, then in Him we see God, and know God. In Him we see God’s Love and know God’s Love. In Him we see God’s forgiveness and know God’s forgiveness. In Him we know God’s grace, God’s unbounded Love and experience God’s transforming grace and power. In Him we become sons and daughters of God and can call God Father. In Him we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit that testifies to our heart that we are truly sons and daughters an

Joy and Happiness - Part 1

“…we have a misleading idea at the very head of our Constitution: the pursuit of happiness. One can not pursue happiness; if he does he obscures it. If he will proceed with the human task of life, the relocation of the center of gravity of the personality to something greater outside itself, happiness will be the outcome.” (Alexis de Tocqueville) “Modern western man has some basic misconceptions about the nature of happiness. The origin of the word is instructive: happiness s

Walking in the Spirit

“The way of life in the Spirit, the way of faith and love, is expressed through service to God and one another (Galatians 5:13)…A walk in the Spirit comes from life in the Spirit.” (Orthodox Study Bible, Galatians 5:13-15, 25) “Acquiring the Spirit of God is the true aim of our Christian life, while prayer, fasting, almsgiving and other good works done for Christ’s sake are merely means for acquiring the Spirit of God…Of course, every good deed done for Christ’s sake gives us

Holy Spirit

“What God requires is true faith in Himself and His Only-begotten Son. In return for that the grace of the Holy Spirit is granted abundantly from on high….Besides labor-filled prayer there is also Grace-filled prayer. Seeing our efforts, our desire to become one with Him, discarding all worldly desires, He releases us gradually from the cares of this world and from attachment to worldly things and brings the soul into a state of humility and simplicity. The soul no longer tak

Heart

“…I begin my day with prayer and some beneficial reading, opening my heart to the divine energies of the Holy Spirit. This is a sort of re-charging of my heart in the morning, which helps it stay on course.” (Sr. Dr. Vassa Larin) “The heart, the seat of a person’s will and emotions, is the place where spiritual renewal begins. There God plants love and patience, traits that will produce a harvest of good works.” (Foundation Study Bible, 2 Thessalonians 3:5) “Christ actually r

Loving Others

“God loves us more than a father, mother, friend, or any else could love, and even more than we are able to love ourselves…We need to understand as human beings that our personal value and the value of our so-called accomplishments is first and foremost rooted in God’s love for us.” (St. John Chrysostom, Father David L. Fontes, PsyD) “The challenge then is to take our sense of Godliness and transfer it over to every encounter with every person we meet today, to see God in the

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