contemplation Archives - Saint Sophia

The Fourth Day of Christmas: The Prayer of the Vigilant Heart

12/28/2023

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, December 30, 2018 at St. Mary Orthodox Church in Cambridge, MA King Herod is not only an historic figure he is also a metaphor for a mind out of control, in other words, an impure mind. From impure minds come impure thoughts and from impure thoughts come suffering. We call it in Christian lingo sin. It boils down to this. Sin is anything that causes suffering in

The Transfiguration of All Things

08/06/2023

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on the Feast of the Transfiguration, Sunday, August 6, 2017 It is very important that we wrap our minds around the two truths when we are drawn to speak of the Holy Trinity. One, that the doctrine of the Trinity is the beating heart of our faith. Without it there is no Christianity. And Christianity where the Trinity is not central or has been forgotten or ignored has lost

A Transition to Life: The Dormition of the Mother of God

08/01/2023

The Sixth Thursday of Great Lent. Living in the Present: An Orthodox Perspective

04/06/2023

By Fr. Antony Hughes Delivered at the Antiochian Women’s Pre-Lenten Retreat, February 10. 2018, At St. John of Damascus Church in Dedham, Massachusetts We are in the midst of a kind of awakening. The sciences, including neuroscience and the quantum sciences, have discovered that there is mystery at the core of the universe. Psychology is being revolutionized by the discovery of the benefits of mindfulness practice in religious people, including prayer and meditation. Even the

The First Thursday of Great Lent: Knowing Our Source

03/10/2022

Within Christianity, contemplation was not systematically taught for the last 400 or 500 years. Thankfully, Trappist monk Thomas Merton (1915–1968)—who died fifty years ago today—helped reintroduce contemplation to Western Christianity. Here’s just a taste of what Merton had to say about contemplation: Contemplation is the highest expression of [human] intellectual and spiritual life. It is that life itself, fully awake, fully active, fully aware that it is alive. It is spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe

Unknowing: Dying by Brightness

07/14/2021

I die by brightness and the Holy Spirit. —Thomas Merton (1915-1968) [1] For most of us, growth is a long process of being drawn “by brightness and the Holy Spirit,” as Merton says. I interpret this brightness as being overwhelmed and undone by Immense Mystery and Goodness. Yet the Holy Spirit leads and must direct this undoing. We cannot take control, and this is our “dying” as we have to gradually let go of our need for control,

Patience (Part VI): Patience Withstands Demonic Influence

07/18/2019

When the desert monks left the inhabited world, every monk brought parts of his or her former life with them. Memories, thoughts, fantasies, regrets, old lusts, pride, unfulfilled desires, anger, fear, unresolved conflict and a host of other remnants of the “world” were present in their cells. At the same time, they found a new “world” in the desert in the lives of other monks, visitors, local towns and villages and the rich, yet austere

The Seventh Thursday after Pascha. Silence, Awareness, and Contemplation

06/13/2019

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

Action and Contemplation

11/05/2018

The words action and contemplation have become classic Christian terminology for the two dancing polarities of our lives. Thomas Aquinas and many others stated that the highest form of spiritual maturity is not action or contemplation, but the ability to integrate the two into one life stance—to be service-oriented contemplatives or contemplative activists. By temperament we all tend to come at it from one side or the other. This full integration doesn’t happen without a lot of mistakes and practice

Path of Descent: The Crucified Jesus

07/30/2018

They will look upon him whom they have pierced. —John 19:37 Those who “gaze upon” the Crucified long enough—with contemplative eyes—are always deeply healed of pain, unforgiveness, violence, and victimhood. It demands no theological education, just an “inner exchange” by receiving the image within and offering one’s soul back in safe return. It is no surprise that a naked man nailed to a cross is such a deep, archetypal symbol in the Western psyche. It

Tags

The Fourth Day of Christmas: The Prayer of the Vigilant Heart

The Transfiguration of All Things

A Transition to Life: The Dormition of the Mother of God

The Sixth Thursday of Great Lent. Living in the Present: An Orthodox Perspective

The First Thursday of Great Lent: Knowing Our Source

Unknowing: Dying by Brightness

Patience (Part VI): Patience Withstands Demonic Influence

Action and Contemplation

Path of Descent: The Crucified Jesus

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