SACRAMENTAL LIVING

“If you can’t defeat a passion, let it take over. If you may not, but really want to, then you may.” Such people tolerate no limits, living by the principle, “Take what is yours”, and therefore any “no” is perceived as a challenge. For them the slogan, “Live without limits,” becomes not just a choice, but an ideology legitimizing selfishness…In the long run, a life without limits does not become a search for happiness, but an escape from yourself—from your responsibility, the

“We may abandon God, but He never abandons us. Our actions may cause us to leave His loving embrace, but His love endures…nothing can separate us from God. He is with us, in our health. He is with us in our pain. He is with us in our healing. Yet, regardless of where we are at any given moment, He is still with us.” (Reverend Christopher T. Metropulos, D. Min, Jackie Morfesis) “The presence of the Holy Spirit, then, brings us into the presence of Christ “through faith” (Eph

“Sons of the world see distraction as innocent, but the Holy Fathers see it as the beginning of all evil. One of the greatest ascetics of old, St. Poemen the Great, teaches that the beginning of evil is distraction.” (St. Ignatius Brianchaninov, Archbishop Averky Taushev) “Quiet, for me, seemed an impossible quality to cultivate without a sense of time as ample. I wanted our lives to be, not crammed with endless activity or entertainment or things, but ordered, roomy, so that

“…passion is an internal tendency a person struggles with (taken from the Latin word for suffering). It is not the transgression itself, or even the associated temptation, but rather a proclivity toward both. In general, the passions represent the disordered spiritual condition of an individual….The Church Slavonic word for “passion [strast, страсть]” is translated as “suffering.” From this comes, for example, the word “passion-bearer [strastoterpets, страстотерпец],” that is

“…the person who “lives in the Eucharist and through the Eucharist,” to recall Fr. Florovsky’s words, (when, of course, that Eucharist is properly celebrated) becomes accustomed to looking not only “upwards” but also “forwards.” In other words, he gets into the habit of placing himself, his works and history itself under the light and the judgment of the Kingdom, always and in everything seeking its ultimate meaning (“ Seek ye first the Kingdom of heaven and its righteousness

“The gift of speech is the greatest gift and corresponds to man’s need for expressing feelings, for exchanging thoughts, impressions, and conversations. But nothing can do more harm to one’s neighbor and nothing can so easily destroy as verbosity, which the enemy uses cunningly and especially successfully to catch people in his nets.” (St. Seraphim Chichagov) “We live in a remarkable and frightening time—the age of an information flood. Every day, through the screens of our s

“In thinking about darkness and light – and their role in our apprehension of the truth – I cannot but think about Beauty, which is a primary place in which the light of God is made manifest among us (if rightly perceived). The heart that is full of darkness cannot truly perceive beauty: the heart which is full of light, cannot help but perceive it. Perhaps a measure of our heart can be found in how we perceive the world around us: is it primarily a place of beauty or darknes

“We must never forget that Christ was Himself the Word of God, in the sense that He was expressive wisdom itself, whose expressions carried the force of actions. His utterances were at one and the same time word and action. The activity of His body was the direct consequence of the activity of His mind.” (Matthew the Poor) “A true and faithful practice of the Christian faith should be grounded in the body and in the givenness of life. Biology is not our enemy nor is it someth

“Many people mistakenly believe that faith is the absence of doubt. In reality, faith is the ability to move forward despite doubts. The Apostle Thomas did not reject faith; he just required personal confirmation to strengthen it—he needed a personal meeting with Christ. His doubts did not make him weak; on the contrary, they helped him come to a deeper understanding. And Christ did not condemn St. Thomas for this—He gave him what he needed. Similarly, everybody should experi

“The question of whether atheism or godly devotion lodges in our soul is answered when we acknowledge the image of God in everyone we meet. We are to seek Christ in everyone, from the holiest of saints down to the most depraved souls…A person of peace is one devoted to God, committed to doing good. Unlike them, “The wicked watches for the righteous and seeks to put him to death” (Psalm 37:32). This means if we are constantly watching others to find fault with them, we are doi