St. Paul Archives - Page 15 of 23

The Thirty-Third Day of Great Lent. St. Mary of Egypt and Moral Progress

04/12/2019

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, January 11, 2015 The suggestion has been made several times recently that my criticism of moral progress is not supported by the example of the saints. Surely, it is said, the transformations we read about in the lives of the saints are clear examples of moral progress. A noted such example, perhaps the greatest story of repentance and asceticism known in the Church, is that of St. Mary of Egypt. It is worth

The Nineteenth Day of Great Lent. Good News – Your Debt is Being Cancelled

03/29/2019

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, April 27, 2016 Recent conversations on the blog have bounced around the imagery of debt in the Scriptures. Contemporary Protestant thought often likes to express the notion of a “sin debt.” The idea runs that God’s righteousness and justice have proper demands. When we fail to keep the commandments, we create a debt for which God’s justice demands payment. Christ’s innocent self-offering on the Cross is seen as the payment for

The Twenty-Second Day of Great Lent. The Death of Christ and the Life of Man

03/22/2019

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, April 15, 2016 Several years ago, someone wrote and asked, “Why did Christ have to die on the Cross?” It is the question that prompted this article. Recently, we have been having a discussion regarding the atonement within the comments section of the blog. I have pointed out that the notion of Christ being punished by the wrath of God for our sakes is not, in fact, found in the Scriptures. Sin

The First Day (Pure Monday) of Great Lent: The Journey to Pascha

03/11/2019

By Alexander Schmemann When a man leaves on a journey, he must know where he is going. Thus with Lent. Above all, Lent is a spiritual journey and its destination is Pascha, “the Feast of Feasts.” It is the preparation for the “fulfillment of Pascha, the true Revelation.” We must begin, therefore, by trying to understand this connection between Lent and Pascha, for it reveals something very essential, very crucial about our Christian faith and

Members of One Another (Part IX): Weep with Me, Forest and Desert (I)

03/06/2019

Sin and salvation, however, are not merely human in scope, but they also involve the entire created order. When Adam fell, the whole creation fell with him; and by the same token our human salvation will inaugurate the salvation of the total cosmos. As Fr Sophrony puts it, ‘Every saint is a phenomenon of cosmic character’. We are not saved from but with the world. This cosmic understanding of sin and salvation has a firm

A Lesser Atonement

02/22/2019

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, March 28, 2015 It has long been known that people tend to see what they think they are seeing. This is particularly the case where what we think is familiar and expected. The case of “mistaken identity” flows from our assumptions and expectations. This is nowhere more true than when we are reading Scripture. If a passage has years of associations, it is almost impossible to see anything else. I have noticed this

“Reign” or “Realm”? (Part II)

01/15/2019

There is ongoing tension between what has been accomplished and what is still to be done, between the “already” and the “not yet.” The “end time” is already present; the Kingdom is in our midst in the person and work of the Son of God. Yet its fulfillment lies in the future, when the Lord’s reign will summon all people to a final judgment, and lead the “righteous” into that eternal Realm in which God

The Eleventh Day of Christmas. The Two Theophanies: Epiphany and Transfiguration

01/04/2019

The Two Theophanies: Epiphany and Transfiguration All three of the Synoptic Gospels provide full descriptions, fairly unanimous as to detail, of the two great theophanies: that which the Church observes as the Feast of Epiphany; and that which it commemorates in August, as the Feast of the Transfiguration. It may seem odd to consider them together as I propose to do. In reality they can hardly be considered separately. It is not accidental that in

The Fifteenth Day of Christmas Advent. We are All Searching.

11/29/2018

WE ARE ALL SEARCHING, AND ULTIMATELY—whether we know it or not—we are searching for God. Ultimately, we are searching for the Ultimate, and the Ultimate is God. It is not easy, searching for God. Think about it. We can stretch our minds as high and deep and far as our minds can stretch, and at the point of the highest, deepest, farthest stretch of our minds, we have not “thought” God. There is always a

The Ninth Day of Christmas Advent. “Born of a Woman.”

11/23/2018

By stating that Jesus is “born of woman”—this Mary (as both St. Matthew and St. Luke attest)—St. Paul insists that Jesus is most emphatically human, the “firstborn of all creation.” That this Mary is at the same time a virgin prevents the birth of Jesus from being reduced to what we know or can reproduce from our own experience. Life that is unmistakably human life is before us here, a real baby from an actual

Tags

The Thirty-Third Day of Great Lent. St. Mary of Egypt and Moral Progress

The Nineteenth Day of Great Lent. Good News – Your Debt is Being Cancelled

The Twenty-Second Day of Great Lent. The Death of Christ and the Life of Man

The First Day (Pure Monday) of Great Lent: The Journey to Pascha

Members of One Another (Part IX): Weep with Me, Forest and Desert (I)

A Lesser Atonement

“Reign” or “Realm”? (Part II)

The Eleventh Day of Christmas. The Two Theophanies: Epiphany and Transfiguration

The Fifteenth Day of Christmas Advent. We are All Searching.

The Ninth Day of Christmas Advent. “Born of a Woman.”

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