Mystery within Us The Apostle Paul says: ‘Who has known the mind of the Lord?’ [Rom. 11:34] To this I would add, ‘Who knows his own mind?’ Let those who pretend that God’s nature is within their comprehension explain their own nature. Do they understand the functioning of their own mind? It has many parts and many components. How does it comprehend knowledge? How are its different elements brought together? The mind is a single
It is good to remember that a part of you has always loved God. There is a part of you that has always said yes. There is a part of you that is Love itself, and that is what we must fall into. It is already there. Once you move your identity to that level of deep inner contentment, you will realize you are drawing upon a Life that is much larger than your own
YOUR EYE IS THE LAMP OF YOUR BODY; WHEN YOUR EYE IS SOUND, YOUR WHOLE BODY IS FULL OF LIGHT; BUT WHEN IT IS NOT SOUND, YOUR BODY IS FULL OF DARKNESS. —LUKE 11:34 We think the world would be saved if only we could generate larger quantities of goodwill and tolerance. That’s false. What will save the world is not goodwill and tolerance but clear thinking. Of what use is it to be tolerant
Homily by St. Gregory the Theologian on Great and Holy Pascha It is the Day of the Resurrection, and my Beginning has good auspices. Let us then keep the Festival with splendor, and let us embrace one another. Let us say Brethren, even to those who hate us; much more to those who have done or suffered anything out of love for us. Let us forgive all offenses for the Resurrection’s sake: let us give
To be a Christian means to necessarily be an optimist because we remember what happened on the third day! We know the final stage of death, Jesus’ leap of faith, was not in vain. He was not put to shame, and “God raised him up” (which is the correct way to say it, and not that he rose himself). Most of human life is Holy Saturday, a few days of life are Good Friday, but
Abba Nilus said: “Do not want things to turn out as they seem best to you but as God pleases. Then you will be free of confusion and thankful in your prayer.” WHO is THERE who hasn’t, at some time or other, wanted life to be different than it is? Who of us has not wanted it ourselves? We get tired of what we’re doing or where we are. We look for better days somewhere
TODAY WE REFLECT ON A MYSTERY: when our lives are most barren, when possibilities are cruelly limited, and despair takes hold, when we feel most keenly the emptiness of life—it is then that God comes close to us. This is a day for those who are grieving or suffering loss during Advent, lamenting that just as we are suffering, and need to weep, the world force-feeds us merriment and cheer. But we are not without
Our operative God image is often a subtle combination of our mom and our dad and/or any other significant authority figures. Once we begin an inner life of prayer and in-depth study of sacred texts, we slowly begin to grow, and from then on it only gets better. Grace does its work and creates a unique “work of art” (Ephesians 2:10). Most early “God talk”—without self-knowledge and inner journey—is largely a sincere pretense, even to
‘Love all creation,’ says Starets Zosima in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov: ‘Love all creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand within it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things.’ This ‘divine mystery’ of which Starets Zosima speaks is precisely the interdependence, the reciprocal coinherence, of all created things in
“I am the Resurrection and the Life” (Part II) The ultimate reason for Christ’s death must be seen in the mortality of Man. Christ suffered death, but passed through it and overcame mortality and corruption. He quickened death itself. “By death He destroyed death.” The death of Christ is therefore, as it were, an extension of the Incarnation. The death on the Cross was effective, not as the death of an Innocent One, but as
© 2020 Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral
