Today is Mother’s Day in America. Emphasis is on the heartwarming aspects of the day and the contributions mothers have made to the lives of their children. A special place for mothers is established in the Ten Commandments. At a tender age we hear the words: “Honor your father and your mother that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you” (Genesis 20:12). Mothers are cast in a
By Metropolitan Nikolaos of Mesogaias and Lavreotikis Here space and time acquire another dimension and perspective. One’s relationship with earthly, ephemeral and perishable things is an entirely perfunctory one. Concepts like ‘money’, ‘property’, ‘wealth’, ‘investment’, ‘entertainment’, ‘competition’ and ‘interest’ completely lose their importance. Here only the most essential worldly concerns are allowed to occupy one’s thoughts. The soul opens itself up to heavenly things. Here the main focus of interest is eternity and God’s kingdom.
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, February 9, 2015 If Christian morality is not a legal or forensic matter, how are we to think about moral behavior? Does the word have no use for Orthodox Christians? What do we think about when we confess our sins? If morality is ontological – a matter of being – what does that look like? To say that morality is ontological, a matter of our being, is to confess that the commandments of God are
For the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are far off, every one whom the Lord our God calls to Him.” And he testified with many other words and exhorted them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” Acts 2:39-40 There is no question that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. That’s one of the reasons why the interstate freeway system was created, to get
But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they came together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” And He said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it,
By Father Stanley Harakas It isn’t very often that we hear the word “integrity” in the religious language of our Greek Orthodox Church. Yet, if we scratch the surface, we will discover profound meanings that speak directly to the way we are to be and to live our Orthodox Christian life. We can start with its dictionary meanings. My Greek-English dictionary uses two words to provide the equivalent of the English word “integrity.” And both
By Father Thomas Hopko In the Old Testament, Pentecost was the feast which occurred fifty days after Passover. As the Passover feast celebrated the exodus of the Israelites from the slavery of Egypt, so Pentecost celebrated God’s gift of the ten commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai. In the new covenant of the Messiah, the Passover event takes on its new meaning as the celebration of Christ’s death and resurrection, the “exodus” of men from
By the Very Reverend Vladimir Berzonsky “For as Jonah was for three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:40). On the fourth Sunday of the Great Lent the Holy Church honors the memory of St. John called Climacus, which means “The Ladder.” He’s called that because of the astounding book he
The Temple of God The most pure Temple of the Savior, the precious Bridal Chamber and Virgin, the sacred Treasure of the glory of God, is brought today into the house of the Lord. She brings with her the grace of the divine Spirit. God’s angels sing her praise: She is the heavenly tabernacle. (Kontakion of the Feast of the Entry of the Mother of God) THERE IS A STRANGE SILENCE about the Nativity in
The Old Testament feast of Pentecost occurred 50 days after Passover—the commemoration of the Exodus of the Israelites from captivity and slavery in Egypt—in celebration of God’s gift of the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai. In the New Covenant of the Messiah, the Passover event takes on its new meaning—the celebration of Christ’s Resurrection, the “passing over” from death to life and from earth to heaven, the “exodus” of God’s People from this
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