“We’d been dating for three years.” This was the opening sentence of the student’s essay on what Evagrius might have to teach undergraduates. He continued: She’d met everyone in my family. I even told my parents I thought she might be the one. One day out of the blue my girlfriend said she thought we were “outgrowing our relationship” and that we should stop dating and “just be friends.” My world fell apart. When your
[Desert Father] Evagrius helped lead another student into liberating insight into the nature of her very active mind, especially the connection between her anger and her fear. While she was less revealing of the details of her struggles, she was grappling with the fallout and follow-through of an intervention initiated by concerned friends. She admits it needed to be done but she still struggles with feelings of betrayal and more. She wrote: Evagrius seems to
“We’d been dating for three years.” This was the opening sentence of the student’s essay on what Evagrius might have to teach undergraduates. He continued: She’d met everyone in my family. I even told my parents I thought she might be the one. One day out of the blue my girlfriend said she thought we were “outgrowing our relationship” and that we should stop dating and “just be friends.” My world fell apart. When your
Published by Pemptousia Partnership on June 8, 2021 Is marriage a path to sanctity and holiness? Upon seeing an article with a title containing the word “holiness,” one would think that the article discusses monastery life, or a life devoted to the Lord Jesus Christ and the service of His Church. However, in the Orthodox Church, marital life is also a holy life, as marriage is a sacrament (mysterion); it carries the sanctifying and purifying grace of the
Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, October 2, 2016 The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke. (6:31-36) The teaching of Jesus is radical. We are not just to be nice, we are to be like God. This leaves us with only one option and that is to get real about being disciples of the Lord’s teaching and to acknowledge the reality of his presence in our midst. “It seems that
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, November 10, 2017 This article first appeared in 2015. It seems very apropos to our present moment. Glory to God for all things. I do not understand Zombies. When I was a child, Zombie movies were virtually non-existent. The word referred to something like a Golem in Jewish thought – a creature without a soul. It is properly a frightening thing – for that which we think of as the soul,
Are You Over-Bearing? The Superior must not reprove with anger. An angry or violent reproof does not set the brother free from his fault but it throws the Superior into a state of sin. That is why the Bible says: ‘The Lord’s servant must be … forbearing, correcting his opponents with gentleness.’ [2 Tim. 2:24-25] We ought not to be inflamed with anger when others have offended us, nor should we show ourselves too indulgent
When the desert monks left the inhabited world, every monk brought parts of his or her former life with them. Memories, thoughts, fantasies, regrets, old lusts, pride, unfulfilled desires, anger, fear, unresolved conflict and a host of other remnants of the “world” were present in their cells. At the same time, they found a new “world” in the desert in the lives of other monks, visitors, local towns and villages and the rich, yet austere
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, April 15, 2016 Several years ago, someone wrote and asked, “Why did Christ have to die on the Cross?” It is the question that prompted this article. Recently, we have been having a discussion regarding the atonement within the comments section of the blog. I have pointed out that the notion of Christ being punished by the wrath of God for our sakes is not, in fact, found in the Scriptures. Sin
Open the Route to God for your Opponents Don’t ever hurt one of your neighbours by using words in two senses. He could reply in the same way and you would both be wandering off the path of love. Go to him and warn him with affectionate sincerity. When you have between you removed the cause of your unhappiness, you will both of you be free from anxiety and bitterness. Don’t recall to your memory
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