By Fr. Stephen Freeman, March 28, 2015 It has long been known that people tend to see what they think they are seeing. This is particularly the case where what we think is familiar and expected. The case of “mistaken identity” flows from our assumptions and expectations. This is nowhere more true than when we are reading Scripture. If a passage has years of associations, it is almost impossible to see anything else. I have noticed this
Personal existence has a ‘vertical’ dimension, a desire to be plunged into the fullness of God. And this fullness is not a solitude but an ocean already alive with the movement of infinite love. The depth is not unrelieved gloom; it contains reciprocal activity, interchange, the presence of the other, while duality is avoided in the communion of the Three in One. The depth itself suggests the inexhaustible character of the Persons and of their
The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. —Martin Luther King, Jr. [1] As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. saw clearly in the last years of his life, we face a real choice between chaos and community—we need a moral revolution. If that was true fifty years ago, then we must be clear today: America needs a moral revival to bring about beloved community. —William J. Barber II [2] I believe that
The Doorway of Hope “My child, as soon as you speak these words, ‘Love without limits,’ as soon as you give this supreme reality a place in your heart, you open a door. This is the doorway that leads into the Kingdom of freedom and light. “This is the doorway of Hope, the threshold that leads to the infinite expansion of your being. Hope: awaiting what is to come, awaiting the One who is to
It seems to me that the Christian attitude towards this quest for freedom should be above all one of respect. In sin, especially when it is pursued through thick and thin, regardless of the consequences, the whole paradox of human nature is revealed. The divine image is obscured but clear enough to point to its Archetype. We need to be able to recognize the yearning for the infinite, for freedom and communion, the determination not
The entire message, indeed the very essence of Christianity can be summed up in the Church’s triumphal cry on the night of Holy Pascha: “Christ is truly risen!” It is precisely in the light of Pascha that Jesus of Nazareth reveals Himself and offers Himself to the world. It is specifically to Christ’s death and resurrection that Christians bear witness by their faith, just as they experience His presence in worship and sacraments, in sharing
By Father Stephen Freeman It is not unusual to give thought to how we keep a fast. Will it be in a strict manner? How will my fasting be possible when I’m at work or at school? How will I teach my children to fast? When we ignore the Fast, we feel guilty and the need to confess. It is strange, however, that we do not give similar thought and time to what it means
There were two monks living in one place, and a great old man came to visit them with the intention of testing them. He took a stick and began to bang about the vegetables of one of them. Seeing it, the brother hid himself, and when only one shoot was left, he said to the old man, “Abba, if you will, leave it so that I can cook it that we may eat together.” Then
By Father Stephen Freeman “Becoming human” is a baffling phrase. Surely we are simply born as human beings. Of course this is true, but the nature of the modern world allows us to configure our lives in ways that can be described as “less than human.” When we visit a zoo and see a tiger pacing in its cage, we are not seeing a “true” tiger, but a distortion of the animal. Tigers cannot truly be tigers
By Father Stephen Freeman Orthodox Christians commemorate the death (Dormition) of the Virgin Mary during the month of August (New Calendar, the 15th, Old Calendar, the 28th). For those for whom such feasts are foreign, it is easy to misunderstand what the Orthodox are about – and to assume that this is simply a feast to Mary because we like that sort of thing. Flippant attitudes fail to perceive the depths of the mystery of our salvation.
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