By Fr. Stephen Freeman, September 21, 2015 From the screenplay of A Man for all Seasons William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law! Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? William Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that! Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil
The Holy Martyr Longinus the Centurion, a Roman soldier, served in Judea under the command of the Governor, Pontius Pilate. When our Savior Jesus Christ was crucified, it was the detachment of soldiers under the command of Longinus which stood watch on Golgotha, at the very foot of the holy Cross. Longinus and his soldiers were eyewitnesses of the final moments of the earthly life of the Lord, and of the great and awesome portents
By Abbot Tryphon, November 1, 2019 The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly There is a lot of good that can be discovered on line. A number of years ago I was charged by my archbishop with the task of addressing our Diocesan Pastoral Conference on the subject of Fasting According to the Early Church Fathers. Only after having agreed to the task of preparing such a lecture had I realized that the bulk of
If God is creator, and we are made in God’s image or Imago Dei, then we are, in our essence, creators. We are, in our essence, artists. Therefore, when we open ourselves to the expression of creativity, we also open to the movement of the Divine within us. —Christine Valters Paintner and Betsey Beckman [1] Our divine DNA carries the creative impulse of the Creator. In my dear friend James Finley’s words, the human longing for creative expression
To preserve inner peace: First of all, keep your outer senses in order and flee all licentiousness in your external conduct, – namely, neither look, speak, gesticulate, walk nor do anything else with agitation, but always quietly and decorously. Accustomed to behave with decorous quietness in your external movements and actions, you will easily and without labour acquire peace within yourself, in the heart; for, according to the testimony of the fathers, the inner man
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, September 11, 2015 “If math should suddenly disappear, it would set physics back – a week.” Nobel Prize Winner – Richard Feynman Mathematician’s response: But that week would be the one in which God created the universe. Galileo is said to have remarked that the universe is a wonderful thing, written in the language of mathematics. There is a remarkable correlation between things as we see them and math. Particle physicists have
SSCORRE! Saint Sophia Cathedral Online Resources for our Religious Edification TOPIC OF THE WEEK: An Impression of God “If a person wants to get an idea about the pyramids of Egypt, he must either trust those who have been in immediate proximity to the pyramids, or he must get next to them himself. There is no third option. In the same way a person can get an impression of God: He must either trust those who
Holy Apostle James the son of Alphaeus one of the Twelve Apostles, was the brother of the holy Evangelist Matthew. He heard the Lord’s words and witnessed His miracles. After the Descent of the Holy Spirit, the Apostle James Alphaeus and the Apostle Andrew the First-Called (November 30), made missionary journeys preaching in Judea, Edessa, Gaza, Eleutheropolis, proclaiming the Gospel, healing all sorts of sickness and disease, and converting many to the path of salvation.
By Abbot Tryphon, October 30, 2019 How should we approach icons and other holy things? One of the attributes of God is holiness, and is reflected in His people, and in physical objects that have been blessed by the Church for the use of His people in their journey towards Him. Therefore, reverence for these sacred objects and images is the manifestation of the relationship between ourselves and God. “And ye shall be holy unto
The Apostle Paul’s teaching is deeply incarnational, yet this has often not been recognized. Paul sees that the Gospel message must have concrete embodiment, which he calls “churches.” Jesus’ first vision of church is so simple we miss it: “two or three gathered in my name” (Matthew 18:20), “and I am with you” (which is just as strong a statement of presence as in the bread and wine of communion). This is surely why Jesus insists
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