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! Saint Sophia Cathedral Online Resources for our Religious Edification Topic of the Week: The Real Reasons for War: “There’s a war on today, a holy war… “ “But we are responsible for not letting the enemies of the Church corrupt everything. Though I’ve even heard priests say: ‘Don’t get involved in that. It’s none of your business!’ If they had reached such a non-striving condition through prayer I would kiss their feet. But no! They’re indifferent because
[The cosmos] is fundamentally and primarily living. [1] Christ, through his Incarnation, is interior to the world, rooted in the world even in the very heart of the tiniest atom. [2] —Pierre Teilhard de Chardin As Paul saw Christ as a single “New Human” (see Ephesians 2:15), as Duns Scotus saw Christ as the Alpha point of history, so Teilhard saw the same Divine Icon as the Omega point of cosmic history—both the archetypal starting point and the alluring final goal.
By Fr. Brendan Pelphrey A central question, however, is exactly what we mean by “mindfulness.” How do we understand what we are doing? Why we are doing it? As mentioned already, both Buddhists and Christians are taught not to condemn or to act as a judge over others. On this subject, St. Paul says, “Who am I to judge another man’s servant?” (Romans 14:4). However, in this sentence we see an important difference between the
By Fr. Brendan Pelphrey Recently while waiting for my wife at a doctor’s office, I flipped through a “wellness” magazine. In it was an article entitled, “Are You Aware of What You Eat?” True to the title, the article suggested knowing what we are eating. We should also know where our food comes from, we should chew slowly, and we should notice how satisfied our stomach feels. This is called “eating with mindfulness.” The idea
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, June 5, 2016 The science of psychology had its beginnings in the 19th century. It has since gone through many changes, complete with clinical science of the brain and its chemistry. However, in its earliest days it had something of a mystical twist. Freud, Jung and their cohort could see the surface of the personality and the various disorders it presented. Their instinct was that the causes of those disorders lay somewhere
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, May 21, 2016 The Orthodox pray for the departed. The most pressing prayer within the liturgies appointed for this purpose is for God to forgive their sins. We say, “For no one lives and does not sin, for You only are without sin….” This is easily misunderstood, but it goes to the very heart of the mystery of our relationship with God. The same sentiment, interestingly, is offered in the prayers
SSCORRE! Saint Sophia Cathedral Online Resources for our Religious Edification Topic of the Week: Saint Dimitry of Rostov: Where God is, There is All Good “…. [in this work Saint Dimitry] addresses how to abide with God and conversely how a person separates himself from God. The reader will note that St. Dimitry makes it very clear that where God is not allowed to work, there begins the work of the demons. I believe that this passage
Christ is the eternal amalgam of matter and spirit as one as they hold and reveal one another. Wherever the human and the divine coexist, we have the Christ. Wherever the material and the spiritual coincide, we have the Christ. That includes the material world, the natural world, the animal world (including humans), and moves all the way to the elemental world, symbolized by bread and wine. The Eucharist offers Christians the message in condensed
Published by Pemptousia Partnership, September 24, 2014 Q.: I’ve noticed, Elder, that sometimes babies smile at the time of Divine Liturgy. A.: They don’t do that only at the Divine Liturgy. Babies are in constant contact with God, because they’ve got nothing to worry about. What did Christ say about little children? ‘Their angels in heaven continually gaze upon the face of my Father who is in heaven’. They’re in touch with God and with
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