Tags

Mary the Contemplative (Part VI)

STABAT MATER Mary the contemplative must have reached her peak of mystical union with Jesus Christ by experiencing the terrifying dark night on Calvary. She had said her fiat long ago. Now her virginal acceptance and maternal response reach their fullest expression. St. John the Evangelist, who stood beside Mary at the foot of the Cross, knew as Mary did that Jesus’ hour with its promised victory over the Adversary would take place there. John

Two Kinds of Loneliness

Two Kinds of Loneliness In the spiritual life we have to make a distinction between two kinds of loneliness. In the first loneliness, we are out of touch with God and experience ourselves as anxiously looking for someone or something that can give us a sense of belonging, intimacy, and home. The second loneliness comes from an intimacy with God that is deeper and greater than our feelings and thoughts can capture. We might think

The Ascension and the Glorification of Man (Part II)

By Father Lawrence Farley The Church has always proclaimed that Man’s ultimate glory and destiny find fulfillment in Jesus. He is the Son of Man to whom God subjects all things, putting them under His feet. He is the One whom God crowned with glory and honour (see Heb. 2:6-9), the true and representative Man ruling over all creation. And the moment of this crowning, this final and supreme exaltation, was the Ascension. That is

Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! The Third Wednesday of Pascha: What Christ Accomplished on the Cross (The Consequences of Christ’s Redemptive Work, Part II)

By Hieromonk Damascene The Consequences of Christ’s Redemptive Work, Part II In the Gospels, especially the Gospel of St. John, Christ makes several statements which reveal how His followers would be able to receive the Grace of the Holy Spirit by means of His death. In the temple Christ preached: He that believeth on Me … out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. After quoting these words of Christ, the Apostle John explains: But this

Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! The Second Wednesday of Pascha: What Christ Accomplished on the Cross (The Consequences of the Fall, Part II)

By Hieromonk Damascene The Consequences of the Fall, Part II We are all the inheritors of the death and corruption that entered into man’s nature at the Fall. St. Gregory Palamas says that, through Adam’s one spiritual death, both spiritual and physical death were passed onto all men. [10] This is because human nature is one: we are all of the family of Adam. Orthodoxy does not accept the idea that we are guilty of

Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! The Second Tuesday of Pascha: What Christ Accomplished on the Cross (The Consequences of the Fall, Part I)

By Hieromonk Damascene The Consequences of the Fall, Part I Such was the lofty original state of man and the creation, and such was man’s lofty original calling. But as we all know and experience every day, the first man, Adam, fell from this state and brought himself and all of creation into a state of corruption and death. The whole story of the Fall and why it occurred lies outside the scope of this

The Great and Holy Pascha! Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen!

“This is the day which the Lord hath made; let us rejoice and be glad therein.” Pascha is the day of universal joy and peace. The entire world, every breath and all creation, triumphs and rejoices. For the Lord has conquered and destroyed death, abolishing the “dominion of death” – the power of death. With the Resurrection of Christ, the dawn of the coming general Resurrection has already begun to break over all creation, for

ON THE JESUS PRAYER

The saint Abbot Isaiah, the Egyptian hermit, says of the Jesus Prayer (1) that it is a mirror for the mind and a lantern for the conscience. Someone has also likened it to a constantly sounding, quiet voice in a house: all thieves that sneak in take hasty flight when they hear that someone is awake there. The house is the heart, the thieves, the evil impulses. Prayer is the voice of the one who

ON THE USE OF MATERIAL THINGS

We are made up of soul and body; the two cannot be separated in our conduct. Let the physical therefore come to your aid: Christ knew our weakness and for our sake used words and gestures, spittle and earth as media. For our sake He let His power flow from the fringe of His garment (Matthew 9: 20; 14: 36), from the handkerchiefs or aprons that were carried away from the apostle Paul’s body (Acts

Fortieth Day of Christmas Advent, For so has God Loved the World (Part II)

But the road from Bethlehem to Zion is long, and is leading us through Gethsemane and Golgotha. Already in Bethlehem the newborn Godchild is presented with funeral offerings by the Wise Men from the East. “Today God leads the Wise Men to worship through the star, prefiguring His three-day burial in gold, frankincense, and myrrh.” The very doors of the Bethlehem cavern are nearly stained with the innocent blood of the children who were killed