By Fr. Stephen Freeman, December 31, 2016 If…then… Among the most alluring ideas in our lives are the notions of cause and effect, performance and award. Nothing seems more soothing than the simple promise that doing one thing leads to the reward of the other. It is predictable, subject to control, clearly delineates the rules of reward and punishment and makes obvious who deserves what. Nothing could be neater. The limit to this idea comes
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. And God said, ”Let there be light” and there was light. Genesis 1:1-3 (From a Prophecy at the Vesperal Liturgy on Holy Saturday Morning) Have you ever wondered why the Crucifixion happened on a Friday, as
Comments on the Main Themes On Great Saturday the Church contemplates the mystery of the Lord’s descent into Hades, the place of the dead. Death, our ultimate enemy, is defeated from within. “He (Christ) gave Himself as a ransom to death in which we were held captive, sold under sin. Descending into Hades through the Cross … He loosed the bonds of death” (Liturgy of St. Basil). The hymnographer of the Church describes the mystery
Fresh for the New Day The life of the body is one of flux and change. The human being cannot exist except in ceaseless motion like the flow of a river. To relax tension we have sleep. When we wake up, the motion starts up again. Neither of the two states lasts very long. But it is thanks to their alternation that we are refreshed. A constant tension would provoke a collapse: a continuing relaxation
The final word for mysticism, after the optimistic explosion that we usually call hope and the ensuing sense of safety, is an experience of deep rest. It’s the verb I’m told that is most used by the mystics: “resting in God.” All this striving and this need to perform, climb, and achieve becomes, on some very real level, unnecessary. It’s already here, now. I can stop all this overproduction and over-proving of myself. That’s Western
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