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Trinity: Creative Continuation

01/29/2018

Daniel Walsh, who was Thomas Merton’s primary philosophy teacher, says he’s not sure if the human person can even legitimately be called a creation, because we are a continuance of, an emanation from, a “subsistent relation” with what we call Trinity. Wow! This is getting very wonderful and also very dangerous. [1] He taught that the human person must see itself in continuity with God, and not a fully separate creation. We are “chosen in

Let’s Get Physical

01/26/2018

By Father Stephen Freeman If you go to the self-help section of a bookstore, any bookstore, you see row upon row of books, all promising another method to change or fix how you think, feel or imagine. It is as though we were certain that our lives would be great if only we could think feel or imagine better than we do now. Even Orthodox titles can hold a certain promise: Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives

Stillness and Silence: Speaking of Silence (Part II)

01/25/2018

The elders knew that words have great power to harm and distract or to give life and edify. Since human speech affects the lives of others in such profound ways the abbas and ammas valued silence as a steward of both hearing and speech. They took the power of words very seriously and, as illustrated in the incident about Abba Ammoes and his disciple, guided the patterns of their relationships to ensure appropriate use of

Inner Stillness: Contemplation as Transformation

01/24/2018

SPIRITUAL AUTHORS TELL us that we need to spend some time every day being still, either seated or standing. They encourage us to have a “prayer word”-the Jesus Prayer, the single name “Jesus,” some other short prayer, or silence. Our quest for a spiritual life pivots on quiet time and intimacy with Christ. Our quiet time can be part of our personal prayer rule as directed by our spiritual father. The usual directive is to

Society: Charity and Good Works (Part II)

01/23/2018

Charity, then, is the natural outgrowth of a soul pursuing love over and against anger. When we are committed to love, we do good. Yet, charity is about more than the one giving it. The exercise of charity and good works is one of the most important means by which we take responsibility for the anger and brokenness of other people, and seek to guide them, and not just ourselves, toward genuine love in accordance

Trinity: Let the Flow Happen

01/22/2018

Think of your own experience: how many people do you know, including yourself, who are really in this divine dance with an appropriate and balanced degree of self-love and self-giving? It is the very definition of psychological maturity. Even so, we all make a lot of missteps as we learn the dance. Insofar as an appropriate degree of self-love is received, held, enjoyed, trusted, and participated in, this is the same degree to which love

Doubt and Modern Belief

01/19/2018

By Father Stephen Freeman Why do people in the modern world find belief so difficult? Obviously, many find ways to believe in God and do so with great zeal, but others, even those who describe themselves as believers, admit either to doubts about God or about many traditional teachings of the faith. The more “miraculous” teachings, the Divinity of Christ, the Virgin Birth, Walking on the Water, Rising from the Dead, etc. present difficulties for most

Stillness and Silence: Speaking of Silence (Part I)

01/18/2018

Abba Poemen said, “In Abba Pambo we see three bodily activities; abstinence from food until the evening every day, silence, and much manual work.”26 A brother asked Abba Poemen, “Is it better to speak or to be silent?” The old man said to him, “The man who speaks for God’s sake does well; but he who is silent for God’s sake also does well.”27 Stillness provides an environment for silence. Abba Poemen understands silence as

The life of Saint Anthony the Great, the Anchorite of Egypt, and The Father of All Monks

01/17/2018

On January 17, we commemorate the venerable and God-bearing Father Saint Anthony the Great. Our venerable and God-bearing Father Saint Anthony the Great was born into a wealthy family in upper Egypt about 254 AD. Also known as Anthony of Egypt, Anthony of the Desert, and Anthony the Anchorite, he was a leader among the Desert Fathers, who were Christian monks in the Egyptian desert in the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. The Orthodox Church

Society: Charity and Good Works (Part I)

01/16/2018

Perhaps the most obvious spiritual opportunity offered to us by society is that of performing good works. This opportunity is, in fact, so obvious that we will only devote a very short section to it here, and thus the length of this section is in inverse proportion to the significance of charity and good works in the Christian life. As for the subject, we will pay particular attention to acts of charity, taken as a

Blog

Trinity: Creative Continuation

Let’s Get Physical

Stillness and Silence: Speaking of Silence (Part II)

Inner Stillness: Contemplation as Transformation

Society: Charity and Good Works (Part II)

Trinity: Let the Flow Happen

Doubt and Modern Belief

Stillness and Silence: Speaking of Silence (Part I)

The life of Saint Anthony the Great, the Anchorite of Egypt, and The Father of All Monks

Society: Charity and Good Works (Part I)

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