SACRAMENTAL LIVING

“Thus, we can’t look to Adam or the book of Genesis to see human perfection because Adam was not created perfect; he was only potentially perfectible. We will not find in the book of Genesis how to be a perfect human. Adam did not fall from a state of perfection, rather he failed to develop this potential in himself. Jesus Christ is the perfect human and it is only from Him that we can understand what human perfection means. And Christ was born as a baby who also had to grow

“There is a character (the Greek word means the impression in soft wax left by a seal) that is being impressed upon us that does not destroy the experience of a lifetime, but transforms it. Even sin itself (which wounds us so deeply) is transformed…We want to be “a better version of myself.” My own experience (particularly as a confessor) has been that, by and large, our struggles are persistent through the years. Quite often, their origins are unidentified, and, apart from r

“The term ‘sacramental’ means here that the basic and primordial intuition which not only expresses itself in worship, but of which the entire worship is indeed the ‘phenomenon’ – both effect and experience – is that the world, be it in its totality as cosmos, or in its life and becoming as time in history, is an epiphany of God, a means of His revelation, presence, and power. In other words, it not only ‘posits’ the idea of God as a rationally acceptable cause of its existen

“The virtue of wisdom differs from knowledge in that wisdom is normally understood as the immediate insight into things, the practical understanding and grasping of what is true and right in its living expression and form. The wise man is the one who sees clearly and deeply into the mysteries of God. He is the one who can give concrete advice in the everyday affairs of life, the one who can point out the will of God to man who is confronted by actual problems and decisions. H

“We need to stop judging people and making assumptions about who they are and who their families were based on the surface. Life doesn’t happen on the surface. Real life happens beneath the surface, in the layers and layers of our being, in our soul…There is a time to reveal and a time to keep things behind the veil. Although I need to share and connect, I do not want my internal life and struggles to burden or tempt others, or to be an indulgence which would tempt me to make

“Our…everyday experiences of time…have been integrated into liturgical time, in order to express and signify God's life in us and our life in Him. Time - day and night, spring, summer, autumn and winter-has acquired a new significance, a new solemnity, a new urgency. Each day has the possibility to be a day of grace and each year to be a year of the Lord….each day and year can be the fitting and decisive moment (kairos) both to remember God and all that He did and continues t

“It’s my deep conviction that a Christian’s home prayer should be at least in some way connected with that of the Church, so you live “in the rhythm of the Church.” (Nun Kallista Golik) “…since you have touched on the subject of the home prayer rule. Firstly, the very word “rule” should not be understood as a duty, but as a model. The Church has collected for us the best examples of Patristic prayers so that we ourselves can learn to pray to God. Penetrating into the Patrist

“The knowledge of God is personal and relational, not academic. God cannot be studied like a lab rat under a microscope, nor is theology a philosophical system, a simple matter of ideas. Those statements which we describe as “dogma” are, to quote Fr. Georges Florovsky, “verbal icons.” All of these things exist as God-given gifts that enable us to enter into union with Christ, in body, mind, and soul. It is a marriage between the self and God.” (Father Stephen Freeman) “Spirit

“Fasts and vigils, the study of Scripture, renouncing possessions and everything worldly, are not in themselves perfection, as we have said; they are its tools. For perfection is not to be found in them; it is acquired through them. It is useless, therefore, to boast of our fasting, vigils, poverty and reading of Scripture when we have not achieved the love of God and our fellow men.” (St. John Cassian) “…there is often no faith in people, but there is a lot of ritualism in t

“Ancient people (and most non-Western societies today) did not think in this way. They acknowledged that there were both physical and spiritual elements to the world, but far from seeing them as separate domains, they viewed them as fundamentally interrelated. The idea is that there is a physical component to all spirituality and a spiritual meaning in all physical things.” (Dr. Zachary Porcu) “Ancient people did not believe that the lights in the sky were angels, whereas now