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Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! Thursday of the Third Week of Pascha. God Likes to Play.

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, November 12, 2014 There are things that children understand instinctively. And the things that children know and understand are worth consideration. They have much to teach us. Among the most natural things children do is play. Depending on how you define play, it is among the first activities in which we engage. It comes to dominate the lives of children and is the hallmark of their existence. Play is what children do. It

Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! Wednesday of the Third Week of Pascha. Spiritual Despondency

The word accidie [acedia] (translated as ‘despondency’ or ‘spiritual sloth’) means, etymologically, ‘lack of care’, i.e. about one’s salvation. With few exceptions, all humanity is now living in the state of accidie [acedia]. People have become indifferent about their salvation. They do not seek divine life. They confine themselves to forms of life which appertain to the flesh, to everyday needs, to the passions of this world, to mundane activities. God, though, created us out

Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! Tuesday of the Third Week of Pascha: The Paradox of Christian Life

In Christ, our consciousness expands, our life becomes unlimited. In the commandment ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself, we must understand the words ‘as thyself in this way: every man, the ‘whole Adam’, is my being. The kingdom of Christ, writes Saint Silouan, is to bear in our heart the whole universe and God the Creator Himself. When you pray, pray for each and every one. And add: ‘By their prayers, by his/her prayer, have mercy

Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! Monday of the Third Week of Pascha. Saint George and the Dragon in Iconography.

The wealth of images depicted in holy icons is overwhelming, yet one thing appears to unite them all. Despite not usually being painted in a naturalistic way, they are always concerned in depicting reality. In icons of the life of Christ, His Saints, or other historic events we are always presented with what happened, and the meaning behind what happened. The image of St George killing the dragon, on the other hand, appears more like

Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! Friday of the Second Week of Pascha: He was Crucified for Every Being.

We must have the same consciousness as Christ, who bears in Himself the whole world; this is what makes for the universality of the human person. The word of Christ does not stop; it is without limits. If, as we confess in the Creed, Christ is very God, the Savior of the universe, the Creator of the world, ‘by whom all things were made’, how can we bring our understanding of Him down to a

Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! Thursday of the Second Week of Pascha: Jesus Rose with His Wounds

Jesus rose with His wounds; and we, too, rise with our wounds. In repentance, we are able to realize a resurrection of the heart before the final resurrection of the dead. The key to this mystery is given to us at the moment of our baptism, which offers the possibility of repentance and the foretaste of resurrection. Through baptism, we find that our resurrection through repentance is not a denial or a disparagement of our

Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! Wednesday of the Second Week of Pascha: We Should Follow Him.

Christ said: ‘I am the Way’. If He is the Way, we should follow Him, not outwardly, but from within. And we must remember that on Golgotha and in Gethsemane He was confronted by the hostility of everyone. Alone. There are times, when the love of Christ touches us that we feel eternity. This cannot be understood rationally. God acts in a manner proper to Himself, which is beyond reason. We must not be too

Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! Tuesday of the Second Week of Pascha: Through the Cross, Joy! (Part II)

This descent, this final and ultimate penetration into the realm of the dead, is accomplished once and for all. It frees patriarch, prophet, and king. But at the same time it frees us, liberating us from the consequences of death. The hand that reaches out to grasp the hands of Adam and Eve reaches out to embrace their descendants as well: every “Adam” who responds to His gesture with longing and with faith. We, like

Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! Monday of the Second Week of Pascha: Through the Cross, Joy! (Part I)

THE TWO MOST IMPORTANT antinomies or paradoxes of Christian faith are the incarnation of the Son of God and His resurrection from the dead. Both of these find their fulfillment in the celebration of Easter, known in Orthodox tradition as Holy Pascha: The Passover of our Lord from death to life. A resurrectional hymn sung at each eucharistic celebration reminds us that every such celebration commemorates and actualizes for us Christ’s victory over death. The