“Where is the life we have lost in living; where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge; where is the knowledge we have lost in information?” — T. S. Eliot These three poignant questions, penned by T. S. Eliot over a half-century ago, point us directly at the problem of the Christian view of the Creation as we face the new millennium. The Christian conscience has lost its ancient wisdom, and needs to recover
Making Our Lives Available to Others One of the arguments we often use for not writing is this: “I have nothing original to say. Whatever I might say, someone else has already said it, and better than I will ever be able to.” This, however, is not a good argument for not writing. Each human being is unique and original, and nobody has lived what we have lived. Furthermore, what we have lived, we have
Human life is marked by constant conflict. We can’t just float through life. We have to confront the temptations that life brings with it. And there will never be a time when we can rest on our laurels. Temptations will be with us till the point of death. In another passage Anthony says: “No one can make it to the kingdom of heaven untempted. Take away the temptations, and no one will find salvation.” Anthony
Stand diligently at the gate of the heart. —St. Philotheos The practice of stillness is full of joy and beauty. —Evagrius By the grace of creation and redemption, there is a grounding union between God and the human person. In the depths of this ground, the “between” cannot be perceived, for it is completely porous to the Divine Presence. Indeed there is more Presence than preposition. While this is the simplest and most fundamental fact
The Most-Holy Theotokos has often appeared to holy men in need: sometimes to encourage them in asceticism, or to heal them from sickness, or to reveal a certain mystery to them. Two similar, wonderful events took place in the Great Lavra on the Holy Mountain. In Great Lent, during the chanting of the Great Akathist, St. John Koukouzelis was tired and sat down, facing the icon of the Theotokos. As he sat, he fell asleep.
JUDGE NOT, THAT YOU BE NOT JUDGED. –MATTHEW 7:1 It is a sobering thought that the finest act of love you can perform is not an act of service but an act of contemplation, of seeing. When you serve people you help, support, comfort, alleviate pain. When you see them in their inner beauty and goodness you transform and create. Think of some of the people you like and are drawn to you. Now attempt
The power of love has perhaps been best described by Gregory of Nyssa. He was undoubtedly forced to it by the Origenists, whose Christian belief, though profound, was still permeated with the cyclical outlook of the ancient world. According to the Origenists, souls were in the beginning filled with God and with one another, but were surfeited by the experience. Desiring a change, they then chose a state of separation, cold isolation and opposition. A
The Body of Christ is not only unity but interchange, by which the ‘movement of love’ of the Trinity is conveyed to humankind. This movement, in which each effaces himself in order to give, is the transition from individual to person, a growing to maturity certainly, but only achieved by means of a succession of death-and-resurrections, in the course of which we are stripped down and recreated. We become unique, escape the repetitive character of
After further discussion and clarification of the issues, Fr. Maximos signaled for the next question. A woman in her fifties, who introduced herself as Maria, a professional counselor, spoke in accented Greek. “Your Eminence, can you comment on what I used to hear my parents say when young, namely that in our religion it is believed that the sins of the parents torment their children?” “Did you hear this in church?” Fr. Maximos asked with
“Jesus is Lord” (Romans 10:10) was proclaimed by the early church as their most concise creedal statement. No one ever told me this was a political and subversive statement, until I studied the Scriptures. To say “Jesus is Lord” was testing and provoking the Roman pledge of allegiance that every Roman citizen had to shout when they raised their hand to the Roman insignia: “Caesar is Lord.” Early Christians were quite aware that their “citizenship”
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