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Hope in the Darkness: Two Kinds of Darkness

02/11/2020

Darkness is a good and necessary teacher. It is not to be avoided, denied, run from, or explained away. First, like Ezekiel the prophet, we must eat the scroll that is “lamentation, wailing, and moaning” in our belly, and only eventually becomes sweet as honey (see Ezekiel 2:9-10; 3:1-3). By the time most people reach middle age, they’ve had days where life has lost its meaning, they no longer connect with an inner sense of

Hope in the Darkness: Entering the Dark Wood

02/03/2020

The mystics of all the great religions, along with classic literature like Homer’s Odyssey, intuited that life was a journey involving completion of a first half and transition to a second half, sometimes called “a further journey.” Yet most of us were given the impression that life was a matter of learning and obeying the rules; and those who obeyed them won. Many of our pastoral problems and the foundational alienation from religion in Europe and

Be Yourself

01/23/2020

When we enter into communion with one another in the life of the Church, we come broken, and far from the image and likeness that God intended when He created us. We, to a one, are in need of the healing that comes from a life in Christ. Yet we often hinder ourselves from healing because we fear being who we are. This fear is sometimes based on what others may think of us, or

THE HOLY AND GREAT PASCHA! CHRISTOS ANESTI! CHRIST IS RISEN!

04/28/2019

CHRISTOS ANESTI! CHRIST IS RISEN! 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, and Pharaoh wincing, lashed by unsuspected mystery. Therefore, all-beloved, apprehend the secrets of the Pascha. See that they contain both new and old, eternal and provisional, what passes and what will never pass away, mortal and immortal, both. For the law is

Monday of the Second Week of Great Lent: Prove your Faith by Your Trust. Let Nothing Discourage You: Have no Fear!

02/26/2018

Prove your Faith by Your Trust ‘Look at the birds of the air,’ says Jesus. [Luke 12:24] What a splendid example for our faith to follow! If God’s providence bestows an unfailing supply of food on the birds of the air who neither sow nor reap, we ought to realize that the reason for people’s supply running short is human greed. The fruits of the earth were given to feed all without distinction and nobody

Thursday of the First Week of Great Lent: All the Limbs Begin to Tremble. The Power of Faith

02/22/2018

All the Limbs Begin to Tremble To fear God is not simply to say: ‘I fear God,’ as some who seem to fear God suggest. It is a fear that arises naturally in the soul and causes it to tremble, to such an extent that it makes the body tremble too. The body is afraid of what can make it suffer; the soul is afraid of what can cause its death. The body is afraid

Tuesday of First Week of Great Lent: Tackle your Fears Head-On. Reach out to the Good in the Freedom of Love.

02/20/2018

Tackle your Fears Head-On Fear is a childish feeling of the adult but empty soul. Fear is really a lack of faith that becomes obvious when we think of what unforeseen things might happen. It is lack of trust in God. The proud soul is a slave to fear precisely because it trusts in itself and so shudders at any noise or any shadow. Those who are contrite for their sins have no fear. So

Patience (Part VI): Patience Withstands Demonic Influences

09/29/2017

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

Let us Glory in Temptation. Tackle your Fears Head-On

09/26/2017

Let us Glory in Temptation The devil does not have only one weapon. He uses many different means to defeat human beings: now with bribery, now with boredom, now with greed he attacks, inflicting mental and physical wounds equally. The kind of temptation varies with the different kinds of victim. Avarice is the test of the rich, loss of children that of parents and everyone is exposed to pain of mind or body. What a

Watching the River

07/17/2017

To live in the present moment requires a change in our inner posture. Instead of expanding or shoring up our fortress of “I”–the ego–which culture and often therapy try to help us do, contemplation waits to discover what this “I” consists of. What is this “I” that I take so seriously? To discover the answer, we have to calmly observe our own stream of consciousness and see its compulsive patterns. That’s what happens in the

Tags

Hope in the Darkness: Two Kinds of Darkness

Hope in the Darkness: Entering the Dark Wood

Be Yourself

THE HOLY AND GREAT PASCHA! CHRISTOS ANESTI! CHRIST IS RISEN!

Monday of the Second Week of Great Lent: Prove your Faith by Your Trust. Let Nothing Discourage You: Have no Fear!

Thursday of the First Week of Great Lent: All the Limbs Begin to Tremble. The Power of Faith

Tuesday of First Week of Great Lent: Tackle your Fears Head-On. Reach out to the Good in the Freedom of Love.

Patience (Part VI): Patience Withstands Demonic Influences

Let us Glory in Temptation. Tackle your Fears Head-On

Watching the River

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