SACRAMENTAL LIVING

“…God Himself takes on human form to reveal man’s vocation and meaning as divine. From this moment onward man is free. Nothing stands over him, for the very world is his as a gift from God to fulfill his divine destiny….Tragically, too many people do not hear this voice of Jesus as the voice of Love Incarnate calling us to repent, to sacrifice, to have sacrificial love in order to have the greatest joy, to have our deepest desires fulfilled, to find our true selves, to fulfil

“You can know life only through life itself. In other words, the practical application of the Scriptures builds up our relationship with God. We learn from the Bible about Christian life and find the basis for deep faith, because, So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God (Rom. 10:17).” (Priest Anthony Rusakevich) “St. John of Damascus’s remark: Let us draw from the fountain of this garden [the Scriptures] perennial and purest waters springing into life

“…we often lightly pronounce sentence and form an idea about someone based upon… not even the knowledge of different facts of his biography, but much more often upon hearsay, conjecture, and our own opinions supported by nothing, yet influencing us so powerfully that we consider our opinions the sole and precise truth about one or another person. But this is not at all correct—not in 99 cases out of 100, but in all 100 cases. Therefore, if we speak about a negative, disagreea

“Why was the entire dispensation of history and work of Christ necessary? Could not God simply have saved humankind by fiat?...The solution God has provided is to heal our nature from the inside out. By joining His divine, eternal life to human flesh, Jesus Christ has overcome the power of death; hence mortality will be abandoned in the grave when the universal resurrection dawns. If this explanation is not sufficient for the inquirer, ‘Say something like this to reasonable p

“…the witness of Christians generally is seriously hindered in the modern secular world by the great variety of voices that all claim to speak authoritatively for Christianity.” (Dr. Mary S. Ford) “Christ is giving a humbling lesson to His chosen Apostles about how difficult evangelism will prove to be. Even if you are offering people eternal life and entrance into God’s Kingdom, they may not believe you or may not be interested in your offer. Evangelism must be done in love,

“God created this entire visible world so that, through man, He might become all in all. This is the human person’s specific mission: to be the link between God and the world, a link between all things, by uniting his spirit with God.” (Fr. Dumitru Staniloe) “It is the meaning of human existence that must be dealt with and not the regulation of human behavior and the legalistic prohibition of human actions, especially when these are dogmatized as ‘the norm.’…The creation of m

“Trials should be distinguished from temptations. Trials come directly from the God of Providence, while temptations come directly from the evil spirits, although they are allowed by God. Trials are neither saving nor leading to spiritual death in themselves; they are only reasons for the manifestation of human will in relation to what the Lord gives us. The purpose of temptations is spiritual death, although they disguise themselves as something harmless and even good. Tempt

“With one exception, all the major translations of Acts miss an important point about the question of the power and authority of the...

“Let us talk about life. Do you have anyone interesting to talk to about this? If not, then don’t worry as I have very few myself. If you...

“ ‘The extreme greatness of Christianity lies in the fact that it does not seek a supernatural remedy for suffering, but a supernatural...