By Father Stephen Freeman Let my prayer arise in Your sight as incense, the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice. Psalm 141 My parish has a fairly steady stream of visitors from outside the Orthodox experience. Among their first questions are ones concerning the use of incense. There is virtually no Orthodox service that does not include the burning of incense, with the priest or deacon making the circuit of the Church
The interior object of stillness is the life and health of each person’s soul. The wisdom of the sayings quoted above summarize the grace made possible in stillness: mindfulness of one’s sins; avoidance of the futility of material pleasures and concerns that mask a person from his or her soul’s health; prayer and meditation; and inner peace leading to a heart that wills what God desires. Abba Peomen goes on to illustrate that the fruits
Abba Joseph now expands on his teaching by identifying six key foundations for this kind of true friendship. I) Detachment with regard to all earthly possessions and wealth. 2) Not considering oneself wise, but deferring to the point of view of the other. 3) Seeking love and peace above all. 4) Refraining from anger at all times. 5) Calming the anger of the friend should it arise. 6) Constant reflection on the coming of death.3
By Father Stephen Freeman And Elisha died, and they buried him. And the bands of the Moabites invaded the land at the coming in of the year. And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band of men; and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha: and when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on
The ego is that part of the self that wants to be significant, central, and important by itself, apart from anybody else. It wants to be both separate and superior. It is defended and self-protective by its very nature. It must eliminate the negative to succeed at this. The ego is what Jesus called an “actor,” usually translated from the Greek as “hypocrite” (see Matthew 23). If our “actor” is merely defended, the shadow will
Stillness A brother asked Abba Poemen, “How should I live in the cell?” He said to him, “Living in your cell clearly means manual work, eating only once a day, silence, meditation; but really making progress in the cell, means to experience contempt for yourself, not to neglect the hours of prayer and to pray secretly. If you happen to have time without manual work, take up prayer and do it without disquiet. The perfection
The feast day of Saint Demetrios is a great feast for all of Orthodoxy, but especially Thessalonica, which is his birthplace. His church is a building dating from the ancient Christian era, built one hundred years after his holy martyrdom which was in 296 A.D. But after 300 years it burned down, and was rebuilt in the days of Leo the Wise. Saint Demetrios along with Saint George are the two brave young men of
In Living Prayer, Metropolitan Anthony Bloom wrote, “The Greek Fathers set this silence, which they called hesychia, both as the starting-point and the final achievement of prayer.” What does this silence look like? Silence is a way, a state of soul, in which all the powers of the soul and the faculties of the body are completely at peace, quiet, and recollected, perfectly alert yet free from any turmoil or agitation. 2 In the Philokalia,
Because we are exploring life in society as a web of relationships, it is important to establish from the outset a picture of what the fathers of the Conferences thought relationships should be like for Christians. No matter how deep into the desert they went, none of the fathers was under any illusion that a human being can live free from relationships with others. What is more, the fathers did not consider a life of
It seems we always find some way to avoid the transformation of our pain. There’s the way of fight. Fighters are looking for the evil, the sinner, the unjust one, the oppressor, the bad person “over there.” He or she “righteously” attacks, hates, or even kills the wrong-doer, while feeling heroic for doing so (see John 16:2). Philosopher René Girard sees this tendency to scapegoat others as the central story line of human history. Why?
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