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Daily Meditations

The Post-Feast of the Nativity of the Theotokos: Remembering Saints Joachim and Anna

09/09/2014

Coming as it does right after the beginning of the Church New Year, the Great Feast of the Nativity of Our Most Holy Lady the Theotokos on September 8 allows us a good start that we further hope we can sustain as the liturgical year unfolds before us.  As a straightforward and joyous feast of commemorating the birth of the Virgin Mary, we receive a “taste” of the joyousness of life from within the Church

The Nativity of the Theotokos

09/08/2014

In addition to the celebration of the Annunciation, there are three major feasts in the Church honoring Mary, the Theotokos. The first of these is the feast of her nativity which is kept on the eighth of September. The record of the birth of Mary is not found in the Bible. The traditional account of the event is taken from the apocryphal writings which are not part of the New Testament scriptures. The traditional teaching

Seeing the Forest for the Trees: The Meaning and Message of Forests and Trees in the Christian Tradition (Part V)

09/05/2014

There are five instances in the New Testament in which “tree” is used for the cross on which Jesus was crucified: three in Acts (5:30, 10:39, 13:29), one in Galatians (3:13) and one in First Peter (2:24). Remarkably, each of these texts is a kerygmatic paradigm—that is to say, each is a unique divine moment filled by the Holy Spirit in which the Spirit-directed and empowered preaching of the Good News revealed the form and

Seeing the Forest for the Trees: The Meaning and Message of Forests and Trees in the Christian Tradition (Part IV)

09/04/2014

Restoring this Christian unitive vision of creation as a cosmic sacrament points us to the Iconic Tree. The Iconic Tree  The mystery of life is that even the life of fallen nature partakes somehow of the Life beyond life, even though without redemption access to the Tree of Life remains blocked by separation, sin and death. As a great saint of the early Church, Dionysios the Areopagite wrote in his enormously influential work, The Divine

Seeing the Forest for the Trees: The Meaning and Message of Forests and Trees in the Christian Tradition (Part III)

09/03/2014

The Symbolic Tree What we are calling “the natural tree” represents the Scriptural expression of Biblical culture’s awareness of the intrinsic value of trees and of the central role played by trees in ecological balance, as well as the human use of trees for food, shelter, trade and commerce to satisfy the needs of the body. The “metaphoric tree” represents the figurative use of trees for the purpose of education, moral instruction, and the inculcation

Seeing the Forest for the Trees: The Meaning and Message of Forests and Trees in the Christian Tradition (Part II)

09/02/2014

Characteristically, Scripture uses the image of trees and forests in three basic ways, plus a subsuming fourth, which represent respectively three kinds of the Scriptural tree, corresponding roughly to the Pauline trichotomy of body, soul and spirit, plus a transcending fourth, representing the presence of the Holy Spirit that is “everywhere present and fillest all things.” We may call these three types of tree usages the Natural Tree, the Metaphoric Tree and the Symbolic Tree.

Seeing the Forest for the Trees: The Meaning and Message of Forests and Trees in the Christian Tradition (Part I)

09/01/2014

By Vincent Rossi “Whoever does not love trees, does not love God.” This was the teaching of the renowned Greek Orthodox monk, Elder Amphilochios of Patmos (1888-1970). According to Orthodox scholar Bishop Kallistos Ware, Fr. Amphilochios was an ecologist long before environmental concern became fashionable. “Do you know,” the elder said, “that God gave us one more commandment, which is not recorded in Scripture? It is the commandment, “Love the trees.” When you plant a

On the Commemoration of the Beheading of John the Baptist

08/29/2014

By Fr Antony Hughes, August 29, 2010 In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. St. John knew who he was.  Self-knowledge, say some of the Holy Fathers, is the greatest of all the spiritual gifts.  He was the Forerunner, the last prophet of the coming Messiah, that is, of the Old Testament.  Most of all he knew who he was not.  He was not

ON OBEDIENCE

08/28/2014

Obedience is another indispensable implement in the struggle against our selfish will. With obedience you cut off your physical members the better to be able to serve with the spiritual, says St. John Climacus. And again, obedience is the grave of your own will, but from it rises humility. You must remember that you have of your own free will given yourself over to slavery, and let the cross you wear around your neck be

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