In Christianity the inner self is simply a stepping stone to an awareness of God. Man [sic] is the image of God, and his inner self is a kind of mirror in which God not only sees Himself, but reveals Himself to the “mirror” in which He is reflected. Thus, through the dark, transparent mystery of our own inner being we can, as it were, see God “through a glass.” All this is of course pure metaphor. It is a way
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, August 5, 2015 There are very few categories more basic than life and death. For Classical Christian thinking, they are essential. There has also been a tendency in both theology and philosophy, however, to move away from these fundamental categories and become lost in the complexities of other language. Thinking about the moral life is a prime example. A word like “sin” becomes an obscure subset of legal wrangling and tortured
~ Submitted by Mr. John Bonadeo, July 4, 2019 Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence? Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured. Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.
Godly Meditations from America’s Founding Fathers John Adams: “The law given from Sinai was a civil and municipal code as well as a moral and religious code. These are laws essential to the existence of men in society and most of which have been enacted by every Nation which ever professed any code of laws. Vain indeed would be the search among the writings of secular history to find so broad, so complete and so
By David Bentley Hart, October 2003 I am speaking (impressionistically, I grant) of something pervasive in the ethos of European antiquity, which I would call a kind of glorious sadness. The great Indo-European mythos, from which Western culture sprang, was chiefly one of sacrifice: it understood the cosmos as a closed system, a finite totality, within which gods and mortals alike occupied places determined by fate. And this totality was, of necessity, an economy, a
By Abbot Tryphon, October 20, 2019 Creating a Christian environment in the home Creating a Christian home begins with the icon corner. The “bright corner” becomes the center for every domestic church, and where the family devotions take place. This is also the family’s way of declaring to visitors that this is a Christian home, where Christ is head. Because the husband is a sort of domestic priest (the priesthood of all believers), it is
By God’s divine power, God has given us all the things we need for life and for true devotion that allow us to know God, who has called us by God’s own glory and goodness. In this gift, God has given us a guarantee of something very great and wonderful. Through this gift, you are sharers in the divine nature itself. —2 Peter 1:3-4 Spirituality is primarily about human transformation in this life, not just salvation
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, August 3, 2015 There are many Orthodox bumper stickers and internet memes that seek to portray the excellence of Orthodoxy. Some compare us to the “marines,” others to various kinds of extreme sports. There’s the one that declares the Orthodox Church to have been founded in 33 A.D. I understand such boosterism in a culture where proclaiming the excellence of your football team or other product loyalty is seen as important.
SSCORRE! Saint Sophia Cathedral Online Resources for our Religious Edification TOPIC OF THE WEEK: “Philotimo is the reverent distillation of goodness, the love shown by humble people, from which every trace of self has been filtered out. Their hearts are full of gratitude toward God and to their fellow men, and out of spiritual sensitivity, they try to repay the slightest good which others do to them.” – Saint Paisios Adult/Family: Elder Paisios on Philotimo and Leventia“…Those who have philotimo, because they move within the heavenly sphere of doxology, joyfully accept their trials as well
By Stephen Freeman, August 1, 2015 “Person” is among the most difficult words in the classical Christian vocabulary. It is difficult on the one hand because the word has a common meaning in modern parlance that is not the same meaning as its classical one. And it is difficult on the other hand even when all of its later meanings and associations are stripped away – because what it seeks to express is simply a very
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