When you want to start some good work or other, first prepare yourself for the temptations you’ll be facing. Because it’s a habit of the enemy, when he sees people beginning a good task with fervent faith, to hinder them with various terrible temptations, in order to frighten them and distance them from their good intentions.
Rev. Patrick H. Reardon The purpose of these remarks is to inquire what sort of guidance theology may give us with respect to choosing a philosophy. More specifically, I want to take the highest knowledge available to man, the knowledge of God, as a starting point for investigating how the human mind should go about pursuing other and lower forms of knowledge. It is probably best that I declare that my approach to this inquiry will be entirely apophatic. I entertain no serious hope that theology will tell us which brand of philosophy is best. I will be content, rather, if we can discover, on theological grounds, those kinds of philosophy we Christians would do well to avoid. And I do this ...
We appeal to God for the healing of our souls and bodies only as a last resort. God’s healing is always a miraculous act, and we are afraid of facing the manifestation of the almighty power of God. Although the healing we receive from God is a gift, we also know that its implications are many and everlasting. There is a price tag on divine healing, and the price is a complete change of life. It is indeed a serious price – for change does not come easily. For this reason, divine healing can only take place when it is really wanted. It also requires a total submission and a full commitment to the relationship of faith with God’s divine power. In ...
Do Something With Your Life As Christians, we are called to go into the world a little more sensitive, a little more different than when we arrive on this planet at conception. We are called to eternal life in the Kingdom of God with Jesus Christ and to lead others to that same destination. If that hasn’t been accomplished then the main objective of our lives has not been realized and is for not. In the Christian believer’s life there are no coincidences. Each of us is here not by chance, but by God’s Providence. We have been called to be blessed and to be a blessing to others. Yet, the flip side of this coin is that each of us is ...
I am not a Luddite. I am sitting in front of a computer screen, I have an iPhone in my pocket, and I watched the news this morning on the television. I enjoy a good film now and then, and I have been known to binge watch a favorite television show. I make a playlist for road trips, time at the gym, and even household chores. It is not an entirely rare occurrence for Presvytera to take my Nook out of my sleeping hands at night. Despite being a world away and living many centuries ago, I feel that Abba Isaac’s voice is eternally contemporary and has a great deal of relevance for the world in which we find ourselves. Concerning ...
Rev. Patrick H. Reardon We come now to God’s revelation to us in the Holy Spirit. For the purpose of this inquiry, it is neither possible nor necessary to examine this theme in all its amplitude, for Holy Scripture tells a good many things about the mission of the Holy Spirit. I propose, rather, to consider the mission under one aspect only. Namely—the Holy Spirit’s transformation of man’s knowledge, a theme developed in both the Pauline and Johannine sources of the New Testament. We may begin with St. Paul, who addresses this matter in the Epistle to the Romans, in a passage strikingly similar to the Galatians text that we have already seen: “For you did not receive the spirit of ...
In the end, there’s always a temptation before us.
Some Non-Orthodox Christians tend to read more into the Holy Bible than is really there; they want the Bible to be the perfect solution to all of life’s problems. On the other extreme are non-Christians who advocate the Bible is less than what the Church teaches; they continually look for faults in the Bible and disregard its precepts. To arrive at a more balanced view, what follows is an apophatic explanation of what the Bible is not according to the Traditional teachings of the Orthodox Church. Orthodoxy has a long apophatic theological tradition of describing what God is not so that we don’t foolishly limit God’s being and behavior into mere human conceptions. Likewise, the Holy Bible is not. . ...
God cannot be forced by anyone; neither does He impose His will on His creatures endowed with reasoning. Likewise the man with the gift of God does not want to impose power over any mortal, neither that his spirit be under the power of another. He imitates Christ Who overcame the world through His humble love and drew unto Him all who freely desire to follow Him. The freedom that the man born of the Spirit seeks is neither political nor social but spiritual and of the heart. The more he becomes sanctified, the more he becomes free. Holiness is not an ethical principle but is purely spiritual and ontological. The holy person is not someone who manages to have perfect ...
(c) 2016 || www.studiomathewes.com You never figure it out completely. You have to be purposeful every day. A difficult season may not leave fast enough, or require a tough lesson. A happy season may leave too soon, and make you cling to the past. You can prepare for it, like the seasons of the earth, through prayer, reading, and asking for others’ wisdom. …but most of all, through prayer. Source: familylifeministry.atlanta.goarch.org
The phenomenon of heresies has been present from the first steps of the Church towards preaching the Gospel to the world. It’s a phenomenon which, from as early as the Apostolic Age, has been considered an expression of the mystery of lawlessness (II Thess. 2, 7). In the New Testament and in the works of the Holy Fathers of the Church the basic parameters, as well as the severe soteriological consequences of this phenomenon are described (I Tim. 1, 9; II Peter, 2. 1). Hereafter, we shall attempt to note some of the characteristics of the phenomenon, which have appeared in a variety of heresies over time. a) It’s well-known that the Church, as the body of Christ, is a mystery which ...
The Church has always respected the efforts of science and has shared the concern of all people for the extension of life. But the extension of life should aim at increasing the time for repentance and spiritual progress, because however long we extend life for, at some point it will end, since biological life• is a one-way street. Christian theology sees people holistically and, apart from their bodily health is also interested in the health of their souls, which is why it supports the contribution of medical science in this matter. Besides, for Christian theology, support for patients such as those with incurable illnesses is as important as the cure. This view is in sharp contrast with utilitarianism, which modern society ...
Death is a bridge that brings us to Christ. As soon as we close our eyes, we’ll open them in eternity. We’ll be brought before Christ. In the next life we’ll experience the Grace of God more intensely.
Sharing, Silence, Suffering If the Mother of God at the moment of the Annunciation is a true icon of human freedom, of authentic liberty and liberation, then her actions and reactions in the events that follow shortly afterwards in St. Luke’s Gospel illustrate three basic consequences of what it means to be free. Freedom involves sharing, silence, and suffering. Freedom involves sharing. Mary’s first action after the Annunciation is to share the good news with someone else: she goes with haste to the hill country, to the house of Zechariah, and greets her cousin Elizabeth.8 Here is an essential element in freedom: you cannot be free alone. Freedom is not solitary but social. It implies relationship, a “thou” as well as an ...
Icon of Jesus Pontius Pilate’s cry has been echoed down the ages and it seems that it has a particular resonance today when, intellectually speaking; only science seems to offer the kind of objective truth once claimed by theology itself. In some ways this shift has been accelerated by our shrinking world and the challenge of meeting those of other faiths. Of course, Christians knew of the existence of other religions in times past, but they were rarely encountered on home soil and could be just as easily be dismissed by the collective description “heathen” or perhaps “pagan.” Today when your next door neighbour is likely to be a Muslim – at least inEurope- it is less easy for many ...
The Orthodox Patristic tradition and modern pastoral psychology consider self-absorption to be a source of many psychological and spiritual problems. Elder Sophrony, at Essex, called the internal and event he external state of egocentric people demonized spirituality which engenders all the passions and sins. The same saintly Elder, who lived in our own times, considered pride to be the root of all evil, as did the ancient Church Fathers. This ontological truth has practical consequences in our everyday lives, if we think that we’re the centre of other people’s attention. Saint Païsios the Athonite was asked: ‘Elder, if you have the feeling that everybody’s interested in you and your doings, how can you get rid of it?’ He answered: ‘That’s from the temptation ...
“UNBIND HIM” John was coming home after being away for the past five years. You might think the family would be planning a great party and feast to celebrate the return of their son. Instead the family was in turmoil about how to handle his return. You see John had been branded with a capital “F” on his forehead for he had become a Felon. This wasn’t a literal “F” but the family knew that everyone would see it. These past five years of his life had been spent in the deep darkness of prison. Some of the family wished he were moving to another town so they wouldn’t be embarrassed by him. Other family members wanted him home, but didn’t ...
In continuation of the article by Professor Ilias Voulgarakis on Sin and Love, it might be worth looking at what the English mystic and recluse “Julian atte Norwich” (ca. 8 November 1342 - ca. 1416) had to say on much the same subject in the Revelations of Divine Love: “A constantly recurring feature of all the revelations which filled my soul with wonder as I diligently observed it, was that our Lord God, as far as he himself is concerned, does not have to forgive, because it is impossible for him to be angry. It was shown that the whole of life is grounded and rooted in love, and that without love we cannot live. So to the soul, privileged by ...
