Today is Mother’s Day in America. Emphasis is on the heartwarming aspects of the day and the contributions mothers have made to the lives of their children. A special place for mothers is established in the Ten Commandments. At a tender age we hear the words: “Honor your father and your mother that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you” (Genesis 20:12). Mothers are cast in a
By Fr. Stavros Akrotirianakis, March 10, 2019 Jesus said “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. “And when you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when
All the great religions of the world talk a lot about death, so there must be an essential lesson to be learned here. But throughout much of religious history our emphasis has been on killing the wrong thing and avoiding the truth: it’s you who has to die, or rather, who you think you are—your false self. It’s never someone else! Historically we moved from human sacrifice to animal sacrifice to various modes of seeming self-sacrifice, usually
By Father Leonidas Contos, LOS ANGELES, August 2, 1962 Orthodox theology refuses to see Mary as only the physical instrument of Christ’s birth. She is seen as a cooperating instrument in the work of redemption. Christ did not save the world, so to speak, automatically. He was not on earth as an alien thrust in, but lived as part of humanity, sharing its weakness, knowing its need. The grace He released into the world became
One of the most wonderful things I find in the classic naming of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is its affirmation that there is an intrinsic plurality to goodness. Goodness isn’t sameness. Goodness, to be goodness, needs contrast and tension, not perfect uniformity. If Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all God yet clearly different, and we embrace this differentiation, resisting the temptation to blend them into some kind of amorphous blob, then
There is an extraordinary beauty in Orthodox Trinitarian theology. I all too easily lose sight of that beauty, but it came back to me again the other day after a conversation I had with a non-Orthodox friend…. His problem, as he describes it, is with the Church’s traditional doctrines — which he referred to with a slight edge of hostility as “dogmas” — that appear to “put God in a box.” Formulas such as “One
Love is just like prayer; it is not so much an action that we do, but a dialogue that already flows through us. We don’t decide to “be loving”; rather, to love is to allow our deepest and truest nature to show itself. The “Father” doesn’t decide to love the “Son.” Fatherhood is the flow from Father to Son, one hundred percent. The Son does not choose now and then to release some love to
I think it’s foolish to presume we can understand Jesus if we don’t first of all understand Trinity. We will continually misinterpret and misuse Jesus if we don’t first participate in the circle dance of mutuality and communion within which he participated. We instead make Jesus into “Christ the King,” a title he rejected in his lifetime (John 18:37), and we operate as if God’s interest in creation or humanity only began 2000 years ago.
To be in control of one’s destiny, health, career, or finances seems to be an unquestionable cultural value. On a practical level it may be partially true, but not on the bigger level. Our bodies, our souls, and especially our failures, teach us this as we get older. We are clearly not in control. This is not a negative discovery, but a thrilling discovery of divine providence; being led, used, and guided; having an inner
[The Older Son] answered his father, ”Lo, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command; yet you never gave me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your living with harlots, you killed for him the fatted calf!” And he said to him, “Son you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was
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