Maximus the Confessor clearly distinguishes two freedoms in Man: that of his nature and that of his person. The first is the magnetic attraction of his deepest being towards God, the completion of his nature in love; indeed, Man desires love with his whole nature and finds fulfillment in it. Human beings conceal within themselves an ‘immense capacity for love and joy which is effective from the moment it knows the presence of the Beauty
The human being, the being who is personal, is the pinnacle of creation. With humanity the omnipotence of God gives rise to something radically new. Not a lifeless reflection or a puppet, but a freedom which can oppose God, and put the fulfillment of God’s creation in jeopardy by excluding him from it. In the supreme achievement of God’s creative omnipotence – for only life giving Love can create a free living being – there
“Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of all who fall asleep.” ~1 Corinthians 15:20 St. Paul seldom leaves the message at the level of “believe this fact about Jesus.” He always moves it to “this is what it says about you!” or “this is what it says about history!” Until we are ourselves pulled into the equation, we find it hard to invest ourselves in a distant religious belief. Paul normally
When our dull wits had so declined
as to set us mid the squalor of the merely
sensible creation, the Very God consented
to become a body of His own, that He
as one among us might gather our dim senses
to Himself, and manifest through such
The earth trembled; its foundations shook
like silt; the sun, chagrined,
fled the scene, and every mundane
element scattered in retreat. The day
became the night: for light could not endure
the image of the Master hanging on a tree.
Saint Mark is recognized by all Christians world-wide as one of the four Evangelists who wrote a Holy Gospel. He was also one of the seventy apostles. Although the disciples and the apostles are considered ecumenical or universal bishops for the Church in general, every church refers to her initial preacher as her first bishop and as such, Saint Mark is the first bishop of the See of Alexandria.
Pascha, our Passing Over into Life
Finally! The Hebrew Scriptures have been opened
and the mystery declared:
how the sheep was sacrificed, and how
a people were redeemed,
Saint George is honored in the Church as one of the most illustrious martyrs of Christ. The Greeks have long distinguished him by the title of The Great Martyr, and keep his festival a holiday of obligation. There stood formerly in Constantinople five or six churches dedicated in his honor,
Of Time and Eternity: The Resurrection (Part II) In the passages in which it addresses the Resurrection, then, the New Testament witnesses not to the resuscitation of a corpse, and certainly nothing like a return to the life of this world. It addresses rather the entire passage of Jesus from earthly mode of existence to a spiritual and eternal mode of existence. The Jesus whom faith proclaims as the Lord of the universe is no
Of Time and Eternity: The Resurrection (Part I) Nothing about Jesus is so misunderstood, misrepresented, trivialized and falsified as the Resurrection. Everything in the Gospels has to be understood in light of the Resurrection. Christian faith takes its meaning from the Resurrection—every claim about Jesus, every notion of what it means to live in trusting hope, every view of the world, every take on reality. What the Christian knows of God—with “knowledge” that is qualitatively
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