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Identity in communion(1)
The only way we can find ourselves is to deny ourselves. That’s Christ’s teaching. If you cling to yourself, you lose yourself. The unwillingness to forgive is the ultimate act of not wanting to let yourself go. You want to defend yourself, assert yourself, protect yourself. There is a consistent line through the Gospel — if you want to be the first you must will to be the last…
Justice and forgiveness
If a person is inspired by the spirit of God, he or she can forgive. But I’m not sure you can say that in general there is the feeling that forgiveness is of value. I have met people who would say, “I don’t care. I can go on and live my life; it really doesn’t matter to me. If I’m not bothering you and you aren’t bothering me, why be reconciled?” This is plain indifference…
Hallowe’en: An Orthodox approach
Every year, on Hallowe’en, I sit on the front porch of my house with a bowl of candy, a box of beeswax candles, and a large icon for the Feast of All Saints. Every child who comes to the house gets a piece of candy, and may also light a candle and place it before the icon.
The nature of things
It is the nature of things that Christ did not come to make bad men good, but to make dead men live. This is to say that the nature of our problem is not moral but existential or ontological. We have a problem that is rooted in the very nature of our existence, not in our behavior. We behave badly because of a prior problem. Good behavior will not correct the problem.
More in this category:
- Can a scientist believe in the Resurrection?
- The Crucifixion of the Paschal Lamb
- Dude, where’s my God?
- At the beginning of Lent
- Ancestral Versus Original Sin
- In the Temple of Broken Hearts
- The Lost Gospel of Mary
- When Tradition Fractures
- Perichoresis: God and His mother
- Monasticism in the 21st Century
- September 24: The Feast of Saint Silouan
- The Monastic Call
- Under the Heaven Tree
- Call no man “Father”
- Orthodox Study Bible