Spirituality is always eventually about what you do with your pain. It seems our culture has lost its own spiritual foundation and center, and as a result we no longer know what to do with universal pain. If we do not transform our pain, we will always transmit it–to our partner, our spouse, our children, our friends, our coworkers, our “enemies.” Usually we project it outward and blame someone else for causing our pain. In
The icon, by a concrete symbolism that preserves it from any tendency to allegory, expresses the deification of humankind and the sanctification of the universe, in other words, the truth of beings and things. The symbolic, integrated in the fullness of communion, is always at the service of the person whom it reveals. Light in an icon does not come from an exact point, for, as we read in Revelation, the New Jerusalem ‘has no
Even before the revelation of Christ we find in scripture one striking example of a man who was strictly speaking a pagan, but was on the verge of this knowledge of God in terms of sonship and fatherhood; it is Job. He is termed a pagan because he does not belong to the race of Abraham, he is not one of the inheritors of the promises to Abraham. He is one of the most striking
The real difficulty with modern technology is not technical but spiritual; what would humankind or nature need to be like, to feel at home in this ‘wild revolution’, as Edgar Morin called it? Left to itself, technical progress becomes the tool of the rich and powerful in their struggle for profit and mastery, while the real need, that hunger for bread and for truth to which we keep referring, is ignored. What we lack, in
Come, let us faithfully celebrate the annual commemoration of Abraham and those who are with him, the fathers that lived before the Law. Let us honor the tribe of Judah as it is meet; let us praise the youths in Babylon, who, as an image of the Trinity, quenched the flame of the furnace, together with Daniel; and holding fast to the prophecies of the prophets, let us cry aloud with Isaiah: “Behold, a Virgin
There are five instances in the New Testament in which “tree” is used for the cross on which Jesus was crucified: three in Acts (5:30, 10:39, 13:29), one in Galatians (3:13) and one in First Peter (2:24). Remarkably, each of these texts is a kerygmatic paradigm—that is to say, each is a unique divine moment filled by the Holy Spirit in which the Spirit-directed and empowered preaching of the Good News revealed the form and
By Michael Lotti Just a few months ago, an icon of Archangel Michael on the island of Rhodes in Greece began weeping. What could this mean? The meaning of a miracle may seem obvious. Something remarkable happened, and it can only be attributed to God. It’s a miracle! Atheists, take note! But, in fact, miracles are not self-interpreting. That was the core of Jesus’ response to John the Baptist: When John, who was in prison,
In the Early Church the rite of Christian initiation was not divided. Three of the sacraments belong together: Baptism, the Holy Chrism (Confirmation), and the Eucharist. The Initiation described by St. Cyril, and later on by Cabasilas, included all three. Sacraments are instituted in order to enable man to participate in Christ’s redeeming death and thereby to gain the grace of His resurrection. This was Cabasilas’ main idea. “We are baptized in order to die
As our practice deepens we see that thoughts are as porous as screen, porous to their grounding Silence. Realizing this, we are not quite so compelled to react or push away or grasp. Yet the externals of our practice remain basically the same; whenever we are aware that the attention has been stolen, we bring the attention back, whether or not we need to repeat the prayer word. While the externals of our practice are
THE PROPHET MALACHI, chosen in church tradition to conclude the Hebrew Scriptures, has for us both a blessing and a warning. Yes, the Lord we seek will come, suddenly, to his temple. “The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed he is coming, says the LORD of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?” This passage is echoed in the Revelation to John, when
© 2020 Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral
