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
GOD’S KENOTIC LOVE St. Paul had grasped the essence of God’s self-giving love as a kenosis, an emptying. That Greek word contains a great mystery for us. God’s outpouring did not begin only on the Cross when He, whose state was divine, did not cling “to His equality with God but emptied Himself to assume the condition of a slave … even to accepting death, death on a cross…” (Ph 2:6-8). God’s kenosis began when
MARY THE WOMAN TOWARD OTHERS It was at Pentecost that Mary received an outpouring of the Holy Spirit that enabled her, more than any of the Apostles, to understand the universal love of her Son and Savior for all human beings. By the Spirit of Jesus Christ she burned to surrender herself even more completely to serve His Body than she had done at Nazareth or at the foot of the Cross. With new awareness
STABAT MATER Mary the contemplative must have reached her peak of mystical union with Jesus Christ by experiencing the terrifying dark night on Calvary. She had said her fiat long ago. Now her virginal acceptance and maternal response reach their fullest expression. St. John the Evangelist, who stood beside Mary at the foot of the Cross, knew as Mary did that Jesus’ hour with its promised victory over the Adversary would take place there. John
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