St. Paul Archives - Page 14 of 25

The Fifth Monday of Great Lent. A Southern Lent

03/30/2020

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, February 28, 2010 One of the hallmarks of my generation in the South is that we never grew up without a great deal of attention to God. Whether it was the absolute assurance in the sermons of preachers who could say with some precision who was going where when they died, or even with assurance describe heaven, or the far more mundane mutterings of public figures giving lip-service to the God

The Fourth Monday of Great Lent. As Lent Moves On—The Greatest Fast Awaits

03/23/2020

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, April 9, 2019 As Great Lent has passed its mid-point, attention begins to move towards Holy Week itself and its very intense focus. It has been an unusual time for me, having traveled on two successive weekends to lead retreats. Travel is always disruptive, and absence from your own community creates a break in the normal continuity of the Fast. I have great sympathies for those whose jobs involve frequent travel.

The Second Monday of Great Lent. Great Lent—The Second Week

03/09/2020

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, March 8, 2009 Great Lent began a week ago for the Orthodox. Interestingly the first week of Lent is the hardest week until Holy Week. There are services pretty much every evening and the rules for fasting are stricter. It’s as if you began a race with a sprint only to realize that there are many more laps to go. Many years ago I was on my high-school track team. I

The First (Pure) Monday of the Great Fast.

03/02/2020

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, February 15, 2010 [Pure] Monday marks the beginning of Great Lent in the Orthodox Church (which liturgically begins at Forgiveness Vespers on Sunday). Though Great Lent is kept with rigor in Orthodox Tradition, there is nothing unusual asked of believers – nothing that we do not do on many days throughout the rest of the year. We fast; we pray; we give alms; we attend services, etc. But we do these

The Secular Challenge

01/24/2020

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, June 12, 2015 Fr. Alexander Schmemann held that secularism was the single greatest challenge of the modern era. I took up this understanding and made it the heart of my book, Everywhere Present: Christianity in a One-Storey Universe. It is at the heart of every serious challenge the Church faces in our time. The news is not so good. A recent article by Damian Thompson in the British publication, The Spectator, estimates that at the

Strife and Division

01/09/2020

Recent disturbing events within the life of the Church have left many, including some clergy and monastics, with the sense of gloom, wondering what’s coming next. During times like this it is good to remember that nothing has changed during the two thousand years of our Orthodox Christian faith. There have always been attacks on the integrity of the Church. Sometimes these attacks have been directed head on toward the Church, such as the atheistic

Prayer of the Heart in an Age of Technology and Distraction, Part 11

01/08/2020

By Fr. Maximos (Constas) What is the Jesus Prayer and how old is it? Who is the Jesus Prayer for? Where can the Jesus Prayer be found in Scriptures, and how does it differ from the mantras of eastern traditions? How ought we to practice the Jesus Prayer, and what do we find when we do? This talk is about the Jesus Prayer, something that we all know about and hopefully something we all practice, but

The Family of Christ

12/27/2019

By Fr. Stavros Akrotirianakis, December 29, 2018 For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it; and I advanced in

Making Sense of a Jumbled World. Christmas Eve, 2019

12/24/2019

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, December 27, 2014 Listening to the Nativity collection of readings for the Vespers of Christmas Eve (there were eight of them), my mind drifted to the “jumbled mess” that is the Old Testament. We speak of it as if it were a single thing, when, it is many things (over 40), and some of those things are jumbled concatenations of other jumbled things. I can only imagine what someone coming to

The Morality of Christmas

12/10/2019

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, December 5, 2017 Morality is tricky business in what is an extremely moral society. I pray my readers to be patient with me as I explain what I think is the problem. First, I will note that morality is all that is left when the most fundamental grounds of a culture have been destroyed. We indeed live in just such a time, hence the rise of a vehemence in the moral life. Second,

Tags

The Fifth Monday of Great Lent. A Southern Lent

The Fourth Monday of Great Lent. As Lent Moves On—The Greatest Fast Awaits

The Second Monday of Great Lent. Great Lent—The Second Week

The First (Pure) Monday of the Great Fast.

The Secular Challenge

Strife and Division

Prayer of the Heart in an Age of Technology and Distraction, Part 11

The Family of Christ

Making Sense of a Jumbled World. Christmas Eve, 2019

The Morality of Christmas

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