By Fr. Stephen Freeman, May 8, 2015 One of the fathers was asked, “What do you do all day in the monastery?” He replied, “We fall down and get up; fall down and get up; fall down and get up again.” This, I think, may be the most accurate and faithful description of the Christian life that I know. We fall, and we fall repeatedly. Our very best intentions often serve to make the sting
The Body of Christ is not only unity but interchange, by which the ‘movement of love’ of the Trinity is conveyed to humankind. This movement, in which each effaces himself in order to give, is the transition from individual to person, a growing to maturity certainly, but only achieved by means of a succession of death-and-resurrections, in the course of which we are stripped down and recreated. We become unique, escape the repetitive character of
Venerable Kevin of Glendalough St. Kevin (also known as Coemgen) is one of the greatest saints of Ireland and founder of the famous and important Glendalough Monastery. He lived in the 6th and early 7th centuries. His Life was written some four hundred years after his repose. The future saint was born in the Irish province of Leinster to a noble family and was related to the royal house. His name, according to the most
By Stephen Freeman, May 31, 2015 I had a reverie around the time of Pascha. My life has had many chapters. I have loved friends and lost friends. My memory is filled with much that is bittersweet – not my favorite flavor. But my reverie was a dream of Pascha – the Last Pascha. I wrote this in a Facebook post and have looked it up numerous times for balm for my tired soul. Today, I
By Vladimir Moss Our holy Father Bede the Venerable was born in the year 673 on the lands of the monastery of St. Paul at Jarrow in Northumbria. At the age of seven he was entrusted to the first abbot of Jarrow, St. Benedict Biscop, and after his repose to his successor, St. Ceolfrid. There is a tradition that during a plague that swept England during St. Ceolfrid’s abbacy, only the abbot and the young
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, April 18, 2017 It is impossible to describe the joy of Pascha, particularly as I experience it as a priest. This year, I was deeply aware that I stand in a place that was both created for me, and for which I am unworthy. The joy of such a combination is the realization of the Gift. When you are trying to find a gift for someone, the most difficult part, it
St Silouan gave careful thought to our relationship as humans with the animals. This is only to be expected. He had grown up in an agricultural community. The Holy Mountain which then became his monastic home abounds in living creatures, in birds, butterflies, snakes and jackals, and also (at any rate in the days of the Starets) in wolves and wild boar, not to mention the domestic animals, the horses and mules, that the monasteries
…. we [have] explored the metaphor of a wedding to describe what God is doing—preparing and drawing us toward deeper intimacy, belonging, and union. The Eastern Fathers of the Church were not afraid of this belief, and called it the process of “divinization” (theosis). In fact, they saw it as the whole point of the Incarnation and the very meaning of salvation. The much more practical and rational church in the West seldom used the
Fr. Stephen Freeman, April 8, 2018 Serge Schmemann, son of Fr. Alexander Schmemann, in his wonderful little book, Echoes of a Native Land, records a letter written from one of his family members of an earlier generation, who spent several years in the prisons of the Soviets and died there. The letter, written on the night of Pascha in 1928 is to a family member, “Uncle Grishanchik” (This was Grigory Trubetskoi who had managed to emigrate
Saint Pachomios was born of pagan parents in the Upper Thebaid of Egypt. He was conscripted into the Roman army at an early age. While quartered with the other soldiers in the prison in Thebes, Pachomios was astonished at the kindness shown them by the local Christians, who relieved their distress by bringing them food and drink. Upon inquiring who they were, he believed in Christ and vowed that once delivered from the army, he
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