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The Sacrament of Humility – Part Two

~By Fr. Stephen Freeman, August 26, 2024 In my earlier article, I described humility as “our willingness to receive with thanksgiving those things (of whatever size) that come our way.” This describes humility as a virtue, but the article’s title described it as a “sacrament.” Oddly, I seemed not to have unpacked what that means. There are several ways to think about sacraments. There are those actions within the life of the Church with which

The Fourth Monday of Great Lent. The Church is the Cross through History

By Father Stephen Freeman, April 14, 2023 St. Paul wrote that he had determined to restrict his preaching to the Cross. (1 Cor. 2:2) This was not an effort to diminish the gospel. Rather, it was an effort to rightly understand the gospel. One of the great temptations of Christianity is to allow itself to become a “religion,” that is, to serve whatever role that religions of any sort play within a culture and the

Second Friday after Pascha, Christ is Risen!

In the Early Church the rite of Christian initiation was not divided. Three of the sacraments belong together: Baptism, the Holy Chrism (Confirmation), and the Eucharist. The Initiation described by St. Cyril, and later on by Cabasilas, included all three. Sacraments are instituted in order to enable man to participate in Christ’s redeeming death and thereby to gain the grace of His resurrection. This was Cabasilas’ main idea. “We are baptized in order to die