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Daily Meditations

Meditation and Worship (Part IV)

02/29/2016

Meditation is an activity of thought, while prayer is the rejection of every thought. According to the teaching of the eastern Fathers, even pious thoughts and the deepest and loftiest theological considerations, if they occur during prayer, must be considered as a temptation and suppressed; because, as the Fathers say, it is foolish to think about God and forget that you are in his presence. All the spiritual guides of Orthodoxy warn us against replacing

Jesus: Transformative Icon of God

02/26/2016

Jesus’ entire journey told people two major things: that life could have a positive story line, and that God was far different and far better than we ever thought. He did not just give us textbook answers from a distance, but personally walked through the process of being both rejected and forgiving, and then said, “Follow me.” The significance of Jesus’ wounded body is his deliberate and conscious holding of the pain of the world

To Live the Question (Part II)

02/25/2016

To Live the Question (Part II) His own personal experience taught Merton that solitude not only deepens our affection for others but also is the place where real community becomes possible. Although Merton himself lived as a monk first in a monastic community and later in a hermitage, it is clear from this and other writings that what really counts for him is not the physical solitude but the solitude of the heart. Without the

SEEING BY TORCHLIGHT (Part II)

02/24/2016

In an early season of practice we are so caught up in our thoughts and feelings that we think we are these thoughts and feelings and miss the distinction between thoughts and awareness that St. Teresa and countless others have discovered. The great masters presume this awkwardness we all know and so they teach in a practical way the cultivation of awareness. When the light of awareness illumines no more than a torch does, we

Deification and Sonship According to St Athanasius of Alexandria: Part III

02/23/2016

By Father Matthew Baker Indwelling through the Spirit of Sonship Athanasius’ account of deification (theopoiesis) and adoptive sonship (huiothesia) is not limited only to the work of Christ, but also accords a central place to the Holy Spirit. It is not only because it is united to the Word that Christ’s humanity is a deified one, and thus the “root” of our deification, but also because it is a humanity anointed with the Holy Spirit. According to Athanasius, Christ “at

REAL PEACE (Part IV)

02/22/2016

I mentioned that contemporary people do not believe in the reality of demons, which according to Fr. Maximos is the greatest achievement of the devil today, that he has convinced most of the world that he does not exist. As a rule, academics would dismiss such stories as taking place in people’s imaginations, without any basis in objective reality. But the experiences of the saints throughout history are filled with demonic possession and exorcisms. In

The Results of Judging our Fellows (Part II)

02/19/2016

The greatest evil effected by judging others is that he who judges is deprived of [divine] love. James, the brother of God writes: Do not speak against one another, brethren. Whoever speaks against one of the brethren and judges speaks against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge! Only one is the lawgiver and judge, he who is able

Shaping Life Spiritually (Part IV)

02/18/2016

The monks have always practiced what many psychologists today talk about (for example in autogenous training), namely, finding comfort through expressions of trust. For the early monks spiritual life also meant the art of healthy living. It was no accident that so many of the monks got to be very old. Their asceticism didn’t deny life, it promoted it. For their spiritual life the monks adopted dietetics, the art of healthy living, which was the

Saint Theodore of Tyro

02/17/2016

This holy, glorious Martyr of Christ came from Amasia in Pontus and was a Roman legionary at the time of Maximian’s great persecution (c. 303). He had been a Christian since childhood but kept his faith secret, not out of cowardice but because he had not yet received a sign from God to present himself for martyrdom. While his cohort was stationed near the town of Euchaita (Helenopontus), he learned that the people of the

Deification and Sonship According to St Athanasius of Alexandria: Part II

02/16/2016

By Father Matthew Baker If in De Incarnatione the goal and purpose of the incarnation is identified with deification (theopoiesis), in his later works Athanasius more frequently links it specifically with adoptive sonship (huiothesia). Athanasius’ earliest exposition of this doctrine of adoptive sonship appears to be in his De Decretis(chapters 3 and 7), written sometime between 346 and 356 in defense of the Nicene definition. Unlike the oft-quoted exchange formula of De Incarnatione 54.3, Athanasius’ later formulations have an explicitly Trinitarian character:

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