holy spirit Archives - Page 6 of 11

Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! The Second Monday of Pascha: What Christ Accomplished on the Cross (The Primordial State)

05/09/2016

By Hieromonk Damascene The Primordial State Let us begin by discussing the state of man and the world before the Fall. A right understanding of this pre-Fall state is actually essential to a right understanding of the meaning of Christ’s death on the Cross. We have to understand what Adam fell from in order to understand what Christ restores us to. According to the Patristic interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, before the Fall man’s body was not subject

REAL PEACE (Part IV)

02/22/2016

I mentioned that contemporary people do not believe in the reality of demons, which according to Fr. Maximos is the greatest achievement of the devil today, that he has convinced most of the world that he does not exist. As a rule, academics would dismiss such stories as taking place in people’s imaginations, without any basis in objective reality. But the experiences of the saints throughout history are filled with demonic possession and exorcisms. In

REAL PEACE (Part III)

01/25/2016

“It is important to keep in mind,” Fr. Maximos continued, “that the perfect way of approaching the other person in such situations is with prayer. It may require many years of systematic prayer for God to inform the other person’s heart that we truly love him and have nothing against him. We must take upon ourselves this responsibility and say, ‘I am to be blamed for this situation also.’ The very fact that I exist

Twelfth Day of Christmas, Looking Toward Epiphany

01/05/2016

Meditation: Looking Toward Epiphany Epiphany! Theophany! Two good Greek words expressing and proclaiming to the world the showing forth of God in His fullness. Epiphany is the showing forth of God because it was there, at the Baptism of Jesus, that all three Persons of the Holy Trinity appeared together for the first time. The Father’s voice testified from on high that Jesus is the Son of God. The Son accepted his Father’s testimony, and

Thomas Merton: Thoughts in Solitude (Part II)

08/21/2015

Every spiritual director knows that it is a difficult and subtle matter to determine just what is the borderline between interior idleness and the faint, unperceived beginnings of passive contemplation. But in practice, at the present time, there has been quite enough said about passive contemplation to give lazy people a chance to claim the privilege of “praying by doing nothing.” There is no such thing as a prayer in which “nothing is done” or

Thomas Merton: Thoughts in Solitude (Part I)

08/20/2015

The spiritual life is first of all a life. It is not merely something to be known and studied, it is to be lived. Like all life, it grows sick and dies when it is uprooted from its proper element, Grace is engrafted on our nature and the whole man is sanctified by the presence and action of the Holy Spirit. The spiritual life is not, therefore, a life entirely uprooted from man’s human condition

A Holy Nation (Part II)

07/03/2015

By Father Brendan Pelphrey This raises the question how we understand ourselves as American Orthodox. Many Orthodox Christians in America today want to see a self-ruling, or autonomous, American Orthodox Church. Others, however have consistently referred to Orthodox churches in America as “diaspora”—not an American Church, but a collection of missions sent out from “mother” churches overseas. When American converts to Orthodoxy hear the language of “diaspora,” it can seem very strange. Those of us

Feast of the Holy, Glorious, and All-Praiseworthy Chiefs of the Apostles, Peter and Paul

06/29/2015

THE HOLY APOSTLES PETER AND PAUL The divinely-blessed Peter was from Bethsaida of Galilee. He was the son of Jonas and the brother of Andrew the First-called. He was a fisherman by trade, unlearned and poor, and was called Simon; later he was renamed Peter by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, Who looked at him and said, “Thou art Simon the son of Jonas; thou shalt be called Cephas (which is by interpretation, Peter)” (John 1:42). On being raised by the Lord to the dignity of an Apostle and becoming inseparable from

The Sixth Monday after Pascha, Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! Saint Silouan the Athonite and His Relevance Today, Part II, Russian village

05/18/2015

By Harry Boosalis The Saints challenge us to reach beyond the common conception of salvation that predominates in the West. For the Orthodox Church, salvation is more than the pardon of sins and transgressions. Salvation is more than being justified or acquitted for offenses committed against God. According to Orthodox teaching, salvation certainly includes forgiveness and reconciliation, but by no means is it limited to them. For the Saints of the Church, salvation is the

THE MEANING OF THE GREAT FAST (Part II)

03/10/2015

By Mother Mary and Bishop Kallistos Ware One reason for this decline in fasting is surely a heretical attitude towards human nature, a false ‘spiritualism’ which rejects or ignores the body, viewing man solely in terms of his reasoning brain. As a result, many contemporary Christians have lost a true vision of man as an integral unity of the visible and the invisible; they neglect the positive role played by the body in the spiritual

Tags

Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! The Second Monday of Pascha: What Christ Accomplished on the Cross (The Primordial State)

REAL PEACE (Part IV)

REAL PEACE (Part III)

Twelfth Day of Christmas, Looking Toward Epiphany

Thomas Merton: Thoughts in Solitude (Part II)

Thomas Merton: Thoughts in Solitude (Part I)

A Holy Nation (Part II)

Feast of the Holy, Glorious, and All-Praiseworthy Chiefs of the Apostles, Peter and Paul

The Sixth Monday after Pascha, Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! Saint Silouan the Athonite and His Relevance Today, Part II, Russian village

THE MEANING OF THE GREAT FAST (Part II)

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