SACRAMENTAL LIVING

“Being renewed by God’s power, we become partakers of the divine nature. This does not mean we become divine by nature. If we participated in God's essence, the distinction between God and man would be abolished. What this does mean is that we participate in God's energy, described by a number of terms in scripture, such as glory, life, love, virtue, and power. We are to become like God by His grace…” (Orthodox Study Bible, 2 Peter 1:4) “…the apostle [Peter] writes, “… that y

“…love is to be actively expressed through tangible behavior. Hence when Saint Luke quotes Deuteronomy 6:5 [you shall love the Lord our God from your whole heart, from your whole soul, and from your whole power], the passage serves as the prelude to the parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:25-37) – a story that demonstrates how love for God is to be expressed to others in a tangible way. Crucial to a correct application of the Shema and the great commandment to love is the ve

“Another reason for the dullness of mind is the over-familiarity that breeds complacency. It is possible to go from one Christmas to the next without growing in our understanding of the incarnation of the Son of God. In that case, our mind is like a knife that keeps cutting the same thing until it loses its edge. The remedy for this loss of sharpness is not a novelty. Rather, we should pay more attention to what is sung, prayed, and proclaimed and probe more deeply into its m

“God is not just Father of the divine Word, but stepfather to all who are baptized. God is not just a friend in Christ, but the stepbrother of all who are baptized. Through the Spirit and in Christ, persons, children and adults alike, increase in God’s own image, an image that illumines the full meaning and purpose of the offices of child and parent.” (Vigen Guroian) “God is there for us like the parent of an anxious child. Many parents can relate to having to send their kids

“We can speak of “human nature,” but it does not exist as a thing-in-itself. Human nature is only revealed in the uniqueness of a human person.” (Father Stephen Freeman) “The Lord Who rose from the dead in order to make us participants in His eternal life showed mercy throughout His earthly ministry to people who suffered from death and disease in the world as we know it. In doing so, He provided signs of His fulfillment and restoration of the human person in the image and li

“How greatly almsgiving contributes to prayer. If you want to pray you have to become a generous person. Generous in the whole meaning of the word. If people say a kind word to someone else, or offer them something or give alms, this condition moves their soul to prayer. It’s well established that, when the generous stand in prayer, their prayer flies to God, who accepts it….People who are not disposed to almsgiving are like trees that bear no fruit. In other words, no matter

“The deep calling of our lives is to find the fulfillment of our potential as those created in the divine image to become like Him in holiness. The God-Man has fulfilled this vocation and made it possible for all to share personally in His restoration and fulfillment of the human person. That is why our calling is nothing short of becoming ‘perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect’ (Matt. 5:48)…Holiness transcends the values of tolerance, social justice, and brotherh

“There is a generalized sense in our culture…that with the eclipse of the transcendent, something may have been lost…Divested of the transcendent, this world is invested with ultimacy and meaning in ways that couldn’t have been imagined before.” (James K.A. Smith) “It seems thousands of years removed from us, but it was not so very long ago that life was marked out by religious feasts. Although everyone went to church, not everyone, of course, knew the exact contents of each

“As we live in this life, we are constantly tempted towards the divisions that threaten us. We see the world as “them and us.” These believe; these don’t. These care; these don’t. These behave; these don’t, and so on. The divisions are frequently quite insignificant. These divisions are primarily the symptoms of our failure to love. The people surrounding Christ were consistently scandalized by His persistent comfort and ease with those identified as “sinners.” No doubt, many

“…our goal is not to make the world into paradise, but rather to prevent it from becoming hell. Each of us can work to make holiness present in our lives – which means not so much becoming morally perfect as it means allowing Christ into our hearts and homes so that each of us is transformed by the Gospel commandments. We do not need to be sinless, but we do need to be repentant to have Christ in our lives. The Kingdom of God is not established on earth through governments, l