A woman whose husband was an alcoholic had feelings of hatred toward him; she even thought of killing him. She accused herself of being thoroughly evil for even thinking such things. This happens to many people who blame themselves for their negative thoughts. The monks are more compassionate on this score. They say that the thought isn’t evil; it has a meaning. I just have to find the strength that lies within it. In the
The Holy Prophet Elias is one of the greatest of the prophets and the first dedicated to virginity in the Old Testament. He was born in Tishba of Gilead into the Levite tribe 900 years before the Incarnation of the Word of God. St Epiphanius of Cyprus gives the following account about the birth of the Prophet Elias: “When Elias was born, his father Sobach saw in a vision angels of God around him. They
By Father Matthew Baker As we give blessing to God for the end of one day and the beginning of another, the words of Psalm 103 in our Vespers service bid us turn our thoughts to the Lord’s work in creating the world. 1. How magnified are thy works, O Lord! In wisdom hast Thou made them all (Ps. 103:26). The whole creation, the Psalmist tells us, has been fashioned “in wisdom.” The great multitude of
Between the first and second comings of the Lord, between the God-man and the God-universe, between the fallen and transfigured states of being, stands the Church, as a boundary and a crossing-place. And every Christian, through communion with holy things, i.e. the Eucharist, and in the communion of saints, is himself a ‘living boundary’, a place where death passes over into life. The cosmic history of the Church is the history of a childbirth, that
The Holy Martyrs Kyrikos and Julitta lived in the city of Iconium in the province of Lykaoneia in Asia Minor. Saint Julitta was descended from an illustrious family and was a Christian. Widowed early on, she raised her three-year old-son Kyrikos. During the emperor Diocletian’s persecution of Christians, Saint Julitta departed the city with her son and two trustworthy servants, leaving behind her home, property, and servants. Concealing her noble rank, she hid out first
By Father Stanley Harakas One of the most confusing words in the Christian vocabulary is the “world.” Sometimes it seems to have good meanings, sometimes neutral and sometimes the word “world” has bad meanings. How can we make sense of this? The World as the Creation is Good: In the story of the creation of the world by God, repeatedly we see that world is described as good (Genesis 1). Because God is goodness itself, the
By Harry Boosalis Before concluding, there is one final, yet very important point which makes St. Silouan’s teaching so relevant for today. And this is the special emphasis he places on the theme of depression and despair within the spiritual struggle. Interestingly enough, this warning against the danger of depression and despair was written probably around the early 1930s. As Orthodox believers, we must be fully aware of the many dangers that await us as
By Father Vasile Tudora There are many places in the world where the fear of not being able to make ends meet, leaving your family without food, shelter, and other means of subsistence, or the fear of a ravaging war, is intensely present. With the golden era of prosperity, in the Western world at least, these great survival fears have almost disappeared, morphing into new and shallow anxieties: not being able to land the most
When the Son of God, the fullness of personal existence, becomes the Son of the Earth, he allows himself to be contained by the universe at one point in space and time; but in reality the universe is contained in him. He will not use his body to possess and exploit the world, but by his constantly Eucharistic attitude, he makes it a body of unity, flesh which is both cosmic and sacrificial. In him
By Grace Brooks I don’t know many languages, but in each one, there are words that I wish we had in English. The same is true in different dialects (for instance, I’m sorry that the word “y’all” isn’t commonly used by non-Southerners). But that desire to co-opt vocabulary is never more pronounced than when I consider some of the Orthodox words that I have read or heard. There are words from the Orthodox lexicon that
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