SACRAMENTAL LIVING

“Do we refuse to forgive? God, too, will refuse to forgive us. As we treat our neighbors, so also does God treat us. The forgiveness or unforgiveness of your sins, then, and hence also your salvation or destruction, depend on you yourself. For without forgiveness of sins there is no salvation. You can see for yourself how serious it is…Our Lord Jesus gives us the teaching regarding forgiveness. He tells us that forgiveness is an integral part of the kingdom of heaven, and the

“It is not incorrect to describe our relationship with the passions as an addiction. The fathers described the passion-driven life as a constant swing between pain and pleasure. We experience boredom as a pain and seek to replace it with pleasure, which will only yield more pain later on. This movement, as it dominates our experience, draws us away from the opportunity to grow in noetic experience. As such, it tears us away from God other than as an entertaining idea or a con

“Mankind is carried away by other aspirations and goals, created for its own detriment and ruin. There are people who don’t pray at all, who don’t feel the need for it, who don’t understand the point of praying and don’t believe in the possibility of being heard by God; and many people do pray, but rarely and always reluctantly, with compulsion and difficulty. Thus, there are very few people who live by fervent, strong, sincere, noetic, and unceasing prayer, according to the

“Seeking the Kingdom of God isn’t a retreat into the wilderness or a complete renunciation of the world; withdrawing from the world for...

“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...

“The heart of worship is the offering of praise and thanksgiving to the God who has given us life and sustains all things in their...

“St. Maximos the Confessor writes about three “incarnations” of the Logos: Creation, the Scriptures, and the God/Man, Jesus Christ. The...

“I once confessed to an experienced priest that sinful thoughts were torturing me, and this is what he advised me: “Think of the thoughts...

“Paul tells us in Galatians 6:2 to ‘bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.’ The law of Christ is to love God and love one another as He has loved us. This love is a voluntary sacrificial love. We are to bear our cross, to overcome pride with humility, and accept help from others when our cross is beyond our capacity to bear alone. Perhaps more importantly, we are to help others bear theirs when they cannot bear it alone, and to do so out of Christ like

“Have you seen how, with creation, when God wished to make creation, with how much harmony and godly wisdom everything was put together,...