SACRAMENTAL LIVING

“The love of beauty and our desire for it are the most fundamental parts of our being. This is particularly true if we use the word “beauty” in the fullest sense of its meaning. Beauty encompasses being and truth as well. It is God’s word for His creation (usually translated as “good,” the word in Scriptures also means “beautiful”). That which is beautiful and good is reflective (iconic) of the God who created it. All of creation longs for union with this Beauty and groans fo

“Once, the monk John the Short told the desert father Poeman that he had asked the Lord to take away his passions. John said that the Lord answered his prayer, and he was at peace: the warfare between flesh and spirit in his heart was over. Poeman replied, “Go and ask the Lord to stir up in you a new battle against the passions. Fighting against temptation is good for the soul.” When the passions attacked John once more, he did not pray for the end of the fight against them.

“...you don’t have to be a monk or nun on a deserted island to have contemplative prayer in your life. It is something all believers should ask God to give them in their prayer life.” (Father David L. Fontes, PsyD) “The other Sunday, a friend of mine who is a pastor took an informal survey of his congregation during the homily. “How many of you struggle with your prayer life?” he asked. Every hand in this parish of nearly three hundred shot up! The priest admitted that prayer

“…by prayer, we practice the habit of keeping God “before our eyes.” Eventually, our constant awareness of the Lord’s presence in prayer permeates our hearts and pervades our minds so that everything we say becomes a kind of prayer and worthy of God’s holy ears.” (Fr. Basil) “God knows the needs of His people. Man prays in order to unite his mind and heart with God. He prays in order that God’s will would be done in his life. He prays so that whatever he needs from God would

“The ethic of Limitless Love demands that we should be able to recognize the presence of God in the very sin that the sinner commits…You must not think I mean that God approves of the sin or encourages the sinner. I simply mean that even in an act of sin God is, to a certain extent, present…Everything that happens—the bad act as well as the good—has its roots in the being of God. Only because God gives us our being (or rather lends it to us) are we in existence at the very mo

“… when we deal with suffering it can be difficult to understand and convey why things are happening. St. Paul writes of suffering (and remember, he suffered a lot), “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” (Romans 8:18). This can be difficult to remember or to find consolation from when we are in the midst of trials.” (Melissa Tsongranis) “It is, of course, one thing to say that our

“The godly suffer, in part, so that having experienced God's comfort they in turn can comfort others. Thus, Paul shows the fallacy in his opponents' idea that Christians should never suffer and should be concerned only with their own salvation.” (Orthodox Study Bible, 2 Corinthians 1:6) “If as the sufferings of Christ abound so also comfort abounds through Christ, let us welcome the great encouragement of Christ’s sufferings and let them abound in us, if we indeed yearn for t

“Trauma is a word for the damage we suffer in extreme circumstances…This experience is as old as mankind itself. Trauma sometimes leaves people emotionally and even physically crippled. Among ancient peoples, the trauma of life was met with liturgy – rituals, both public and private that sought to restore them to their right minds, to appease the wrath of the gods or the spirits of their enemies. The collective psyche of a whole people was set right through various actions an