Daily Meditations Archives - Page 98 of 333

Thoughts on Asceticism, the Difficulty of Love and Burdens

01/13/2021

Thoughts on Ascetism and the Difficulty of Love Compiled by Michael Haldas, July 1, 2016 “St. Paul notes that “faith works through love” (Gal. 5:6). This describes the very heart of the ascetic life. Only love extends itself in the self-emptying struggle against the passions without becoming lost in the solipsism of asceticism for its own sake. It is love that endures the contradictions of reality without turning away or reducing them. And it is

Suffering: Freedom from Fear

01/12/2021

Man suffers most through his fears of suffering. —Etty Hillesum [1] I would like to reflect on the role of Jesus as the one whose very presence is incarnational testimony of how to approach our life and the ways we suffer. In the Christian tradition, the cross is right at the center of this great mystery. Jesus is the archetypal master teacher, who reveals his teaching through the very concreteness of his life. What is

We Are Not Here to Help

01/11/2021

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, October 21, 2015 My writings are sometimes treated as though I’m offering some new insight. That only tells me that the reader has only just begun to read. I pray God never to be original in my thoughts, for I long for nothing other than the Tradition. At best, I simply bring the Tradition back into the conversation again and again. I offer here a short passage from Fr. Alexander Schmemann’s For

Stop Complaining! Happiness.

01/08/2021

Stop Complaining! Complaining weakens our resolve By Abbot Tryphon, November 8, 2019 · Abbot Tryphon If we are always complaining about how unfairly we are treated, we will have failed in our imitation of Christ, Who was abused by His enemies unto death. We should strive to reign with Our Lord by loving our enemies and never complain. Christ looked towards His Heavenly Father and when we are tempted to complain we should gaze upon the cross.

The Mystery of the Forerunner

01/07/2021

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, August 28, 2015 There is a unanimous witness in the Christian gospels concerning the place of St. John the Baptist. In the Orthodox world he is generally referred to as the Forerunner. All of the gospels agree that he plays a key role in the coming of the Messiah. It is a role that is largely ignored by most of the Christian world. The gospels make reference to two Scriptures when they

Epiphany

01/06/2021

The sixth of January is the feast of the Epiphany. Originally it was the one Christian feast of the “shining forth” of God to the world in the human form of Jesus of Nazareth. It included the celebration of Christ’s birth, the adoration of the Wisemen, and all of the childhood events of Christ such as His circumcision and presentation to the temple as well as His baptism by John in the Jordan. There seems

Eastern Christianity: Theosis

01/05/2021

The Orthodox teaching of divinization, or theosis, according to Pope John Paul II, is perhaps the greatest gift of the Eastern Church to the West, but one that has largely been ignored or even denied. [1] The Eastern fathers of the Church believed that we could experience real and transformative union with God. This is in fact the supreme goal of human life and the very meaning of salvation—not only later, but now, too. Theosis refers to the shared deification

Excuse Me, You Are Not Rational

01/04/2021

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, October 19, 2015 Words have a way of getting hijacked. Language refuses to stay unchanged and the result can be confusion, particularly when language is compared across the centuries. A common sentiment, written in one century, can be taken to mean something completely different in another. Such is the case with the word “rational.” The word was hijacked around the 18th century and has become a chief accomplice in the misdoings of

The Eighth Day of Christmas. The Circumcision of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Basil the Great, Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia

01/01/2021

On the eighth day after His Nativity, our Lord Jesus Christ was circumcised in accordance with the Old Testament Law. All male infants underwent circumcision as a sign of God’s Covenant with the holy Forefather Abraham and his descendants (Gen. 17:10-14, Lev. 12:3). After this ritual the Divine Infant was given the name Jesus, as the Archangel Gabriel declared on the day of the Annunciation to the Most Holy Theotokos (Luke 1:31-33, 2:21). The Fathers

The Seventh Day of Christmas. New Year’s Eve, 2020

12/31/2020

THE WORLD OF THE GOSPELS was not too different from ours. Even in our day of airport screenings and frequent arrests, behind barricades of military buildup and international alliances, in spite of all our advanced defense technologies, we know our world is precarious and can collapse as suddenly as the Twin Towers. Our only security is in God: God with us. John wrote to those in his community to encourage them in an anxious time.