Daily Meditations Archives - Page 251 of 327

HUMILITY: The Sunday of the Tax Collector and the Pharisee

01/29/2015

Brethren, let us not pray like the Pharisee, for those who exalt themselves will be humbled. Let us be humbled before God through fasting like the tax collector, as we cry aloud, “God forgive us sinners.” (First troparion of Vespers, Sunday of the Tax Collector and the Pharisee) IT IS NO COINCIDENCE that the season of the Lenten Triodion begins on the Sunday of the Tax Collector and the Pharisee. Not only the hymns of

Feast Day of Saint Ephraim the Syrian

01/28/2015

St. Ephraim was born early in the fourth century in the ancient city of Nisibis in Mesopotamia, where the Roman Empire bordered on the Persian Kingdom. At one time Mesopotamia belonged to Syria and for this reason St. Ephraim is known as “the Syrian.” He was born of Christian parents before the Edict of Milan was issued (313), establishing official toleration of religion, and, as he later wrote, his ancestors “confessed Christ before the judge;

The Season of the Triodion

01/27/2015

Introduction THERE IS MORE TO LENT THAN FASTING, and there is more to fasting than food. This principle lies at the heart of the Lenten Triodion, the main hymnbook of Orthodox Lent. For the Orthodox Church, Lent is without doubt the richest and most distinctive season of the ecclesiastical year. The Lenten services, the spiritual lessons of the Triodion, and the biblical readings for the season invite us to simplify our lives and to immerse

God and Caesar (Part VI): Towards a Creative Secularism

01/26/2015

In the inescapably pluralist life of the city today, Christians must strive for a creative secularism. An open civilization, free from ideocracy, must not be a spiritual desert abandoned to the instincts by the blind forces of production. Kirkegaard thought it necessary ‘to go more deeply into man as he actually exists’ before daring to speak to him of God. More than a thousand years before, the hardiest of ascetics, St John Climacus, remarked that

From Desert to Garden

01/23/2015

But what then can we do with our essential aloneness which so often breaks into our consciousness as the experience of a desperate sense of loneliness? What does it mean to say that neither friendship nor love, neither marriage nor community can take that loneliness away? Sometimes illusions are more livable than realities, and why not follow our desire to cry out in loneliness and search for someone whom we can embrace and in whose

Seeing with Saint Seraphim’s Eyes

01/22/2015

By Nicholas Papas “My friend, both of us at this moment are in the Spirit, you and I.” These pinnacle words from the historic conversation between Nikolay Motovilov and Saint Seraphim of Sarov express a concept awash in my mind as I tend to the care of my granddaughter. Reactions are numerous, animated, heartfelt and frequent when people see my granddaughter. If I am alone, the reaction is not the same. I am, largely, the

FOUR ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LESSONS FROM MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. (Part III)

01/21/2015

By Andrew F. Estocin Law #4: Faith is a Thermostat, Not a Thermometer: In the same way that a thermostat sets the temperature in given room, Orthodox Christianity changes our society and is not a mere indicator (or thermometer) of popular culture. Letter from Birmingham Jail is not just a call for social action, it is also a critique of Christianity and that includes our own Orthodox Christian witness today. Rev. King has some harsh

FOUR ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LESSONS FROM MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. (Part II)

01/20/2015

By Andrew F. Estocin Law #2: Being Legal Does Not Mean Being Right: “Never forget that everything Hitler Did in Germany was legal.” This warning from Letter from Birmingham Jail points to the tradition of natural law. Natural Law is an integral part of Orthodox Christianity and the thought of Martin Luther King. What is natural law? It is the teaching that just laws participate in and reflect the law of God. Man has a

FOUR ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LESSONS FROM MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. (Part I)

01/19/2015

By Andrew F. Estocin “Our Church has never hesitated to fight, when it felt it must, for the rights of mankind….there are times when we must risk everything, including life itself, for those basic American ideals of freedom, justice, and equality, without which this land cannot survive. Our hope and prayer, then, is that we may be given strength to let God know by our acts and deeds, and not only by our words, that

The Peacemakers

01/16/2015

Blest are the single-hearted; for they shall see God. Blest are the peacemakers; they shall be called children of God. [Matt. 5:6-91 The opportunities for satisfying the hunger for holiness are immediately at hand if we are sensitive to the needs of others. Every now and then we are prompted to offer some kind of assistance at considerable cost to ourselves. This offer has to be appropriate to our state of life; at the same