Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, November 19, 2017 Let me preface my words with a quote from Thomas Merton. “Our real journey is interior; it is a matter of growth, deepening, and of an ever greater surrender to the creative action of love and grace in our hearts.” There are two major themes that today’s parable of The Rich Fool touches upon, if indirectly. The first is that there is there is
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, January 20, 2017 It is very interesting that we use the word “relationship” to describe everything from God to our lifestyle. More interesting still, is that, used in this manner, the word dates back to only around the mid-20th century. There are older examples, but the psycho-social meaning that it carries today does not appear until around 1940. This also means that no one, prior to that time, spoke about having a
Just as some Eastern fathers saw Christ’s human/divine nature as one dynamic unity, they also saw the Trinity as an Infinite Dynamic Flow. The Western Church tended to have a more static view of both Christ and the Trinity—more a mathematical conundrum than an invitation to new consciousness. In our attempts to explain the Trinitarian mystery, the Western Church overemphasized the individual names—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—but not so much the quality of the relationships
By Stephen Freeman, August 1, 2015 “Person” is among the most difficult words in the classical Christian vocabulary. It is difficult on the one hand because the word has a common meaning in modern parlance that is not the same meaning as its classical one. And it is difficult on the other hand even when all of its later meanings and associations are stripped away – because what it seeks to express is simply a very
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, July 16, 2015 “If anyone falls, he falls alone. But no one is saved alone.” – Alexei Khomiakov Roughly 25 years ago I quit smoking. I never think about it now – it has become a thing of the distant past. But I can remember a period of about 10 years in which I struggled to quit. I would make up my mind, throw things away, make a clean sweep, and
By Fr. Stavros Akrotirianakis, June 1, 2018 There is a reason why I end many of these reflections quoting the Psalms. This is because the Psalms read as prayers, many of which are appropriate to use as our personal prayers. One piece of advice I have given many times is for people to read through the book of Psalms (read one a day – it will take you five months) and then in a notebook,
Personal existence has a ‘vertical’ dimension, a desire to be plunged into the fullness of God. And this fullness is not a solitude but an ocean already alive with the movement of infinite love. The depth is not unrelieved gloom; it contains reciprocal activity, interchange, the presence of the other, while duality is avoided in the communion of the Three in One. The depth itself suggests the inexhaustible character of the Persons and of their
God’s Risk (Part I) The human being, the being who is personal, is the pinnacle of creation. With humanity the omnipotence of God gives rise to something radically new. Not a lifeless reflection or a puppet, but a freedom which can oppose God, and put the fulfillment of God’s creation in jeopardy by excluding him from it. In the supreme achievement of God’s creative omnipotence – for only life giving Love can create a free
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