For every therapist distance from the problems of the patient is the prerequisite for being able to really help the other person. So Poimen first has to get some distance from his brother. Then he can freely decide whether he wants to help and intervene in the quarrel, or if he will release him and trust him to resolve the conflict responsibly on his own. Being dead vis-a -vis the other is even viewed by
I think the notion of love has been seriously minimized by today’s popular understanding of love, as we see with Valentine’s Day. This secular holiday reveals a very unsustainable notion of love as romance, infatuation (ignis fatuus, false fire), impassioned sex, sentimental words, romantic gift giving, etc. It eventually creates cynicism and disillusionment because the promise is so high but incomplete. It is never the whole story. When we experience love as different than culture’s
The spiritual life, the Christian life does not consist in developing a strong will capable of compelling us to do what we do not want. In a sense, of course, it is an achievement to do the right things when we really wish to do the wrong ones, but it remains a small achievement. A mature spiritual life implies that our conscious will is in accordance with the words of God and has remoulded, transformed
The movement from loneliness to solitude is not a movement of a growing withdrawal but is instead a movement toward a deeper engagement in the burning issues of our time. The movement from loneliness to solitude can make it possible to convert slowly our fearful reactions into a loving response. As long as we are trying to run away from our loneliness we are constantly looking for distractions with the inexhaustible need to be entertained
Once at the Holy Monastery of Iviron, when the priest officiating began to cense the brothers at their seats, he passed by one of them without censing him. After the dismissal of the Divine Liturgy the priest was asked to give an explanation. He said that when he reached the seat of that certain brother he saw it empty! They then called aside the brother and said to him: – We beg you to keep
Western culture, having spread all over the world, has become so stretched, so cut off from the depths, that it lacks the strength to contain this great upsurge of life and enlighten it. Today it wavers between speculative high refinement and chaos. Only a renewed Christianity can open the ways of beauty. For beauty is one of the divine Names, perhaps the most forgotten, and the seal of the Well-Beloved on creation: ‘Set me as
There is only one thing you must definitely answer for yourself: “Who am I?” Or, restated, “Where do I abide?” If you can get that right, the rest largely takes care of itself. Paul answers the questions directly: “You are hidden with Christ in God, and God is your life” (Colossians 3:3-4). Every time you start hating yourself, ask, “Who am I?” The answer will come, “I am hidden with Christ in God” in every
The feast of the Dormition or Falling-asleep of the Theotokos is celebrated on the fifteenth of August, preceded by a two-week fast. This feast, which is also sometimes called the Assumption, commemorates the death, resurrection and glorification of Christ’s mother. It proclaims that Mary has been “assumed” by God into the heavenly kingdom of Christ in the fullness of her spiritual and bodily existence. As with the nativity of the Virgin and the feast of
RECAPITULATION Irenaeus (+202) treats of this analogy in great detail and can be considered the first Marian theologian. The analogy that he uses of Mary as the New Eve is intimately connected with his fundamental theological principle of recapitulation. In the setting of Christ, as the new head restoring the human race to its former state of divine friendship, Mary takes her place in this process of restoration. “Just as Eve, wife of Adam, yes,
GOD IN SEARCH OF A MOTHER Recently there has been much discussion…as to whether our theological understanding of God has not been too masculine to the detriment of the feminine. For our purpose here it can be said that Fatherhood, as Louis Bouyer has pointed out, belongs to God alone in His essence of absolute Source of Being. Only God is totally perfect, complete, independent and therefore He alone is Love, capable of sharing Himself
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