SACRAMENTAL LIVING

“I am so cautious when it comes to a certain strain of Christian thought that glorifies suffering as a good in itself. Too often, I have heard people say to other grieved people that God is ‘using’ their suffering to accomplish some end, as if it were a hammer with which he intended to nail them into godly place. This is the instrumentalist view of suffering: that it’s somehow a pragmatic necessity in God’s plan, something he intends in order to accomplish his ends. If you’ve

“I am always leery when asked about various spiritual undertakings. Whether it’s a rule of prayer or a rule of fasting, the true struggle is never found in doing what is extraordinary. It is, rather, the very difficult matter of enduring what is given to us. God, in His providence, allows us all that is necessary for our salvation. Grace is primarily found within the ordinary faithfulness of our life.” (Father Stephen Freeman) “Notice the Archangel Gabriel’s words to the Theo

“And truly, we ourselves are not at all strangers to the roaring winds and crashing waves of the storm of this temporal life. We live in what many now term “the attention economy.” We are surrounded on all sides by the most powerful corporations and the most advanced technology in the history of the world, all cleverly preying on our psyches to keep our attention constantly fixed on the desires and cares of this world. From morning till night, we are assaulted by advertisemen

“Christ then appears through shut doors in the midst of them and tells them one thing: ‘Peace be with you.’ For these to be the first...

“Some forms of loss that are often ignored, or are not as readily identifiable as loss, are divorce (our own or our parents’), traumatic...

“So we see dramatized in Genesis the bitter “fruit” of an approach to the interpretation of spiritual realities that attempts to be...

“In shame, the only thing we accept is our failure and the idea that we deserve perpetual punishment….The shame we are speaking of is a...

“Ultimately, none of us are defined by our past, but rather we are defined by what we become in Christ. This is why we can declare...

“We have within us the beginning of the Divine—the ability to recognize the uncreated God, sensing His presence in our lives and trusting...

“Our Lord Jesus Christ warned us that we will hear all kinds of bad news from around the world, and Christianity may go into decline. Far...