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Are We Vessels of the Holy Spirit, or Filled With Worldly Thinking?

03/16/2022

SSCORRE! Saint Sophia Cathedral Online Resources for our Religious Edification Topic of the Week: Are We Vessels of the Holy Spirit, or Filled With Worldly Thinking? “…faith is not renounced overnight. Renunciation can happen bit by bit every day, and then a straw will be enough to break a camel’s back. Sometimes it is enough to remain silent so as not to stand out and be “like everyone else”, finding convincing excuses for your cowardice—and this will be a small

The Second Wednesday of Great Lent: On Humility and the Humble Outlook (Part 2)

03/16/2022

Published by Pemptousia Partnership, November 4, 2014 By Elder Joseph of Vatopaidi Βlessed and favoured people who are humble are meek, calm, serene, attached to virtue, opposed to evil, untroubled by any circumstance or threat. They live in the bosom of the faith, like infants in the maternal embrace of grace. They never live for themselves, because they’ve forgotten what that is. They’ve become one with the others; they become all things to everyone, in

The Second Tuesday of Great Lent: All You Need to Remember Are These Two Things

03/15/2022

But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they came together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” And He said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it,

The Second Monday of Great Lent: A Truly Rational Faith

03/14/2022

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, June 20, 2016 St. Paul notes that “faith works through love” (Gal. 5:6). This describes the very heart of the ascetic life. Only love extends itself in the self-emptying struggle against the passions without becoming lost in the solipsism of asceticism for its own sake. It is love that endures the contradictions of reality without turning away or reducing them. And it is love that finally comprehends the reality hidden within

The First Friday of Great Lent: The Renunciation of Reason

03/11/2022

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, June 14, 2016 I grew up in a house of contradictions. We loved each other and we fought. I had a brother who was five years my senior, and we somehow developed a style of contradiction. If he said white, I said black. If I said red, he said blue. Or after either of us made a perfectly reasonable statement, whatever exceptions might exist, the other was sure to note them.

The First Thursday of Great Lent: Knowing Our Source

03/10/2022

Within Christianity, contemplation was not systematically taught for the last 400 or 500 years. Thankfully, Trappist monk Thomas Merton (1915–1968)—who died fifty years ago today—helped reintroduce contemplation to Western Christianity. Here’s just a taste of what Merton had to say about contemplation: Contemplation is the highest expression of [human] intellectual and spiritual life. It is that life itself, fully awake, fully active, fully aware that it is alive. It is spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe

The First Wednesday of Great Lent: On Humility and the Humble Outlook (Part I)

03/09/2022

Published by Pemptousia Partnership, September 30, 2014 By Elder Joseph of Vatopaidi (+2009) The title of this speech in Greek is ‘Περί ταπεινώσεως και ταπεινοφροσύνης’. An Elder has explained the difference as being that ‘ταπεινοφροσύνη’ is an attitude of mind (hence ‘humble outlook’), while ‘ταπείνωσις’ (‘humility’) is from the heart. In practice, however, the terms are often used interchangeably. Without question, the Scriptures as a whole, as well as Patristic philosophy, are ‘seasoned with salt’, as it were,

The First Tuesday of Great Lent: Lent—the Tithe of the Year (Maxims 1-9)

03/08/2022

By Father Thomas Hopko, March 13, 2008 In Orthodox Church tradition, the season of Great Lent is called, in the liturgical books, the “tithe of the year.” We know that in the Bible the believers were obliged to give ten percent of their possessions, their time, their crop, their money to the Lord, to the temple. And the rule of the tithe wasn’t at all because ninety percent of our possessions are our own and

The First Monday (Pure) of Great Lent: It’s a Crying Shame

03/07/2022

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, March 2, 2016 Orthodox Christians make a beginning of their Lenten discipline with the forgiving of everyone for everything (theoretically). This is expressed in the rite of forgiveness which is part of Vespers on the Sunday of Cheesefare. The ritual expression of forgiveness can easily and often be little more than a ritual. It reminds us of the need to forgive, but does not, on its own, achieve what it expresses.

Everywhere Present

03/04/2022

By Father Stephen Freeman, June 10, 2016 Everything you do, all your work, can contribute towards your salvation. It depends on you, on the way you do it. History is replete with monks who became great saints while working in the kitchen or washing sheets. The way of salvation consists in working without passion, in prayer…. May God give you the strength to keep your spirit, your mind, and your heart in the spirit of

SSCORRE!

Are We Vessels of the Holy Spirit, or Filled With Worldly Thinking?

The Second Wednesday of Great Lent: On Humility and the Humble Outlook (Part 2)

The Second Tuesday of Great Lent: All You Need to Remember Are These Two Things

The Second Monday of Great Lent: A Truly Rational Faith

The First Thursday of Great Lent: Knowing Our Source

The First Wednesday of Great Lent: On Humility and the Humble Outlook (Part I)

The First Tuesday of Great Lent: Lent—the Tithe of the Year (Maxims 1-9)

The First Monday (Pure) of Great Lent: It’s a Crying Shame

Everywhere Present

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