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Daily Meditations

Transfigured Life (Part I)

08/06/2019

The Gospel accounts of Jesus’ Transfiguration differ in some small but significant details. With typically colorful language, St Mark emphasizes Jesus’ garments, describing them as “glistening, intensely white, as no fuller on earth could bleach them.” St Luke adds that “the appearance of his countenance was altered”; and St Matthew declares, “his face shone like the sun.” Each of these narratives makes the point that Jesus manifests what came to be called the shekinah, a

The Scandal of the Transfiguration

08/05/2019

By Father Stephen Freeman, August 6, 2016  My bishop recently shared the story of a young man whom he taught some years ago. He was Orthodox from Estonia. He grew up in the Soviet era and had come to hate all things Russian, including the Orthodox Church. Nevertheless, he saw an Orthodox procession in the streets of his city one year, a procession that included the Russian bishop (whom he also hated and believed to

Most Holy Theotokos, Save Us!

08/02/2019

Orthodox Christians begin and end the liturgical year with celebrations dedicated to the Virgin Mary, whom we venerate as the Theotokos or “bearer of God.” On September 8, the end of the first week of the new year, we commemorate her Nativity or birth; on August 15, we close the year with the feast of her Dormition, her “falling asleep” and translation to heaven. As the hymns of these and other Marian feasts make clear,

The Dormition Fast: Ending another Year of Grace in Our Lord

08/01/2019

The Byzantine Church since at least the 5th century has practiced a period of fasting prior to the feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos. This ancient custom has much to offer contemporary Christians. Christians of the East have always recognized the mystery of Our Lady’s Dormition, her ‘falling asleep’ at the end of her natural life. The passage of Mary the Virgin Mother of God from this life to life eternal is a cause

The Great and Small Supplication (Paraklesis) Services to the Theotokos

07/31/2019

There are two forms of the Paraklesis Canon to the Theotokos: the Small Paraklesis which was composed by Theosteriktos the Monk in the 9th century (or some say Theophanes), and the Great Paraklesis. During the majority of the year, only the Small Paraklesis to the Theotokos is chanted. However, during the Dormition Fast (August 1—14), the Typikon prescribes that the Small and Great Paraklesis be chanted on alternate evenings, according to the following regulations: –

ON THE INSUFFICIENCY OF HUMAN STRENGTH

07/30/2019

THE holy Fathers say with one voice: The first thing to keep in mind is never in any respect to rely on yourself. The warfare that now lies before you is extraordinarily hard, and your own human powers are altogether insufficient to carry it on. If you rely on them you will immediately be felled to the ground and have no desire to continue the battle. Only God can give you the victory you wish.

True Self and False Self: Living in God

07/29/2019

Guest writer and CAC faculty member James Finley continues exploring insights on the true self and false self that he gleaned from Thomas Merton. In ways known only to God, the one seeking God in silence unexpectedly falls through the barriers of division and duplicity to discover, as Merton writes, that: . . . here, where contemplation becomes what it is really meant to be, it is no longer something infused by God into a

The Difficult Task of True Theology

07/26/2019

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, May 19, 2015  Nothing is as difficult as true theology. Simply saying something correct is beside the point. Correctness does not rise to the level of theology. Theology, rightly done, is a path towards union with God. It is absolutely more than an academic exercise. Theology is not the recitation of correct facts, it is the apprehension and statement of Beauty. It is this aspect of liturgical life that makes it

The Purpose and Method of Christian Life (Part XI): Means to the End (Part I)

07/25/2019

Here is how things stand so far. We have observed the five most important virtues through which the fathers in the Conferences teach us to establish the purity of heart that is the go al of Christian life. These are detachment, discernment, discretion, balance, and humility. We have observed that the fathers taught Christians to practice these virtues in order to guide them to their proper telos, which is the kingdom of God. We have

The Search for the ‘Place of the Heart’: Transfiguration

07/24/2019

We were created naked but clothed with light, light that shone upon the world to transfigure it. But at the Fall God clothed us with ‘garments of skins’ (Genesis 3.21) to protect us from a world become hostile. And now, in our fallen state, our own skin has become a barrier setting us apart from the universe, and signaling that the organism hidden within is a machine for consuming everything outside until its inevitable death.

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