SACRAMENTAL LIVING

“…the Lord calls people to Himself in many different ways. Even a path of protest, mistakes, and wandering, if it is sincere, can lead to Christ…the Church does not reject anyone who sincerely seeks salvation. There is no sin or spiritual blindness that the Lord cannot lead a person out of, if they truly want to come to Him. But it is also a warning: a “comfortable God” is not God, “freedom without obedience” is not freedom, and “love without the cross” is not love. Only thos

“Today the words of the Apostle of love, John the Theologian, knock at our hearts—words that sound like a sword cutting in two all the complexity of our being: He who does good is of God, but he who does evil has not seen God. (3 John 1:11). In these simple words lies the entire optics of the Christian life. We often confuse goodness with natural gentleness, good manners, or merely a fleeting emotional impulse. But the Apostle speaks of something else. Goodness is not a chara

“The character of Christ, who is the Image according to which we are created, is such that human beings are more fully revealed to be what they are as they draw near to Him (or as He himself draws near to us)… The true self, in addition to being the gift of God—His image within us—is also a dynamic movement toward God, whose fulfillment and beauty are “being revealed.” We can describe this process as eschatological. Who I am has not yet been revealed (1 John 3: 2), but is “hi

“When we are emotionally, physically, and spiritually attacked and exhausted, we are distracted from doing God’s work and our energy is literally being sapped away like a tree that has been “attacked and continually sends nourishment to its wounded parts. Rest assured; we all have places that have been wounded. A memory. An experience. A grief that we are still carrying for a loved one. A dream unpursued and a prayer that we believe to be unanswered. And these weaknesses, the

“…I can tell you that being loved by God, and loving Him in return, is the greatest joy given to creatures, and that without it there is no real and lasting happiness for humanity…Because we are commanded to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and are also commanded to love our neighbor, our fellow human beings, as ourselves, it is proper that we should therefore place a special focus on that one unique person who is both our God and our neighbor: I mean, o

“…our concept of human rights would not—and could not—have come into existence without Christianity’s revolution of the concept of the human being….It’s difficult to measure the exact cultural effect of something of this magnitude. But one thing that’s very noticeable is the correlation of the new concept of human dignity with the sudden increase in technological development. Parallel to the weakening and transformation of slavery, Western culture developed an interest in tec

“…when we speak of God as light, for He is not that created light we take as a given in our everyday lives. The light we know casts a certain illumination – but God is the One who creates all lights. Every created light comes into existence out of nothing, for “God said, ‘Let there be light: and there was light’” (Gn 1:3). The light of God, however, is uncreated. This light is not made of photons visible to our physical eyes. God is separate from and entirely other than His c

“This serpent has many tongues and teeth, often very subtle and inconspicuous. Every kind of care for the flesh, self-gratification—these are the tongues of this poisonous snake. But the most important of them is self-love, when a man thinks and cares too much about himself, about his own comfort.” (St. Seraphim Zvezdinsky) “Thinking of ourselves first leads us to believe the lies Satan whispers. He tells us that happiness comes from things, property, and sensual activities a

“…the first man to enter Paradise was the repentant thief (cf. Luke 23:42–43).” (Rev. Dr. Oliver Subotic) “I wanted to share this story told by St. Paisius, to show how even scandalous sin does not cost someone salvation, if they are repentant and longing to be free from sin, and longing to be near God. Gosh I wish I could find the original for this story, but this is how I remember it going. He said that there was a monk at his monastery who got drunk every day. He drank vod

“All creation takes its deepest being from Christ. Saint Dionysios the Areopagite described God as “beyond being” and therefore able to be “the being of beings.” Creation itself shines with the light of theophany, not because it is God, but because it is suffused with the love of God for it and for us.” (Timothy G. Patitsas) “…there is an impassible chasm between the uncreated and created. The Fathers believed that the tri-hypostatic God (Trinity) is the only reality that has