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Thoughts on Our Faculty of Reason. Thoughts on Spiritual Blindness

09/18/2019

By Michael Haldas Thoughts on Our Faculty of Reason, June 1, 2016 “… as a human faculty, faith is unlike, but in a way connected to, the act of reasoning, by which we make sense of the world around us. It is an “understanding” of that which is beyond understanding. Just because something is beyond understanding does not make it unreasonable. Like music and art, faith is not opposed to human intellect, but rather makes

True Self and False Self: The Illusion of Our False Self

08/19/2019

Guest writer and CAC faculty member James Finley continues exploring insights on the true self and false self that he gleaned from Thomas Merton. In the following text, Merton makes clear that the self-proclaimed autonomy of the false self is but an illusion: Every one of us is shadowed by an illusory person: a false self. This is the man I want myself to be but who cannot exist, because God does not know anything

REPENTANCE IN THE PHILOKALIA (Part III)

07/02/2019

Theognostos (fourteenth century?) is known to us only as the author of the work included in the Philokalia. “When you fall from a higher state, do not become panic-stricken, but through remorse, grief, rigorous self-reproach, and, above all, through copious tears shed in a contrite spirit, correct yourself and return quickly to your former condition. Rising up again after your fall, you will enter the joyous valley of salvation, taking care so far as possible

What Is the False Self?

06/24/2019

Your egoic false self is who you think you are, but your thinking does not make it true. Your false self is a social and mental construct to get you started on your life journey. It is a set of agreements between you and your parents, your family, your school chums, your partner or spouse, your culture, and your religion. It is your “container.” It is largely defined in distinction from others, precisely as your separate and

The Holy and Great Wednesday

04/24/2019

In the Gospel and hymns of the Church for Holy Wednesday, we hear about the sinful woman who broke an alabaster box of costly ointment, wept at Jesus’ feet, and dried them with her hair. She broke the box – i.e. saved nothing for herself – and poured it out as her offering. It cost 300 denarii, which was 300 days’ wages! This latter fact enrages the disciple who sits in a place of honor

The Nineteenth Day of Great Lent. Good News – Your Debt is Being Cancelled

03/29/2019

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, April 27, 2016 Recent conversations on the blog have bounced around the imagery of debt in the Scriptures. Contemporary Protestant thought often likes to express the notion of a “sin debt.” The idea runs that God’s righteousness and justice have proper demands. When we fail to keep the commandments, we create a debt for which God’s justice demands payment. Christ’s innocent self-offering on the Cross is seen as the payment for

Members of One Another (Part IX): Weep with Me, Forest and Desert (I)

03/06/2019

Sin and salvation, however, are not merely human in scope, but they also involve the entire created order. When Adam fell, the whole creation fell with him; and by the same token our human salvation will inaugurate the salvation of the total cosmos. As Fr Sophrony puts it, ‘Every saint is a phenomenon of cosmic character’. We are not saved from but with the world. This cosmic understanding of sin and salvation has a firm

Persons in Communion: The Justification of the Good

02/26/2019

But sin turns this diverse unity into a hostile multiplicity, so that space becomes a separator, time a murderer, and language good only for expressing juxtaposition or possession. Whence the slogan of May 1968, ‘Love one another’; this is facile blasphemy, because the erotic encounter itself is given us as a symbol, a foretaste of personal communion. In the universe of sin solitary individuals devour one another. There is a besetting tendency today, when faced

“Reign” or “Realm”? (Part II)

01/15/2019

There is ongoing tension between what has been accomplished and what is still to be done, between the “already” and the “not yet.” The “end time” is already present; the Kingdom is in our midst in the person and work of the Son of God. Yet its fulfillment lies in the future, when the Lord’s reign will summon all people to a final judgment, and lead the “righteous” into that eternal Realm in which God

The Thirty-Fifth Day of Christmas Advent. Would Have Been!

12/19/2018

I LOVE THESE LINES IN ISAIAH; the sweetness of their assurance is absolute: I am the LORD your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go. And my heart is broken by the verses that follow. O that you had hearkened to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea; Your offspring would have been

Tags

Thoughts on Our Faculty of Reason. Thoughts on Spiritual Blindness

True Self and False Self: The Illusion of Our False Self

REPENTANCE IN THE PHILOKALIA (Part III)

What Is the False Self?

The Holy and Great Wednesday

The Nineteenth Day of Great Lent. Good News – Your Debt is Being Cancelled

Members of One Another (Part IX): Weep with Me, Forest and Desert (I)

Persons in Communion: The Justification of the Good

“Reign” or “Realm”? (Part II)

The Thirty-Fifth Day of Christmas Advent. Would Have Been!

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