By Fr. Stephen Freeman, January 9, 2015 Though many struggle with the so-called “Problem of Evil,” the greater moral problem is that of goodness. How do we account for goodness in the world – particularly self-sacrificing heroic goodness? It is not uncommon for a person in a dangerous situation to place their own life at risk in order to save the life of another. It is by no means universal (some act first to save
By Fr. Aidan Kimel, December 20, 2014 In his recent blog article “The Un-moral Christian,” Fr Stephen Freeman criticizes the tendency to reduce the Christian life to obedience to moral rules. “The nature of the Christian life,” he declares, “is not rightly described as the adherence to an external set of norms and standards, even if those norms and standards are described as being ‘from God.’ The ‘unmoral’ life of Christians is a different mode
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, December 19, 2014 Well, the firestorm has moved even to my host, Ancient Faith Blogs. There, you can find a response and a critique of my last article, The Unmoral Christian. I find nothing in the response with which I disagree. The author argues that externals are often important, certainly for beginners, and suggests that I have overplayed my hand in overemphasized the inner nature of our lives. That is perhaps true. Every child
It is much easier to appreciate the glory of Jesus’ resurrection than his painful crucifixion. Yet, Mark’s Gospel, written around 65 to 70 AD, focuses on Jesus’ “suffering servanthood.” Christians believe that we are “saved by the death and resurrection of Jesus.” The key is to put both together. We need to deeply trust and allow both our own dyings and our own certain resurrections, just as much as Jesus did! This is the full pattern
By Fr. George Morelli [1] The promise of the King of the Gentiles and the desired of all The conversion of pagans is mentioned in the psalms. King David as the obvious prefigure of Christ has the Lord God say to him: “You are my son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.” (Ps 2: 7-8) And again
In this vein, the difference between the kingdom of God and God himself can begin to blur in the words of the Abba. For example, he notes that the reason Christians pursue their goal, purity of heart, is to attain the telos of a permanent connection not just to holy things, ideas or states associated with God, but to God himself. This, then, must be our primary undertaking-chis the never-altered destination and never-failing pursuit of
The Greek word theosis, often used by the Eastern Fathers of the church, is probably best translated as “divinization.” [1] Although usually taught in the more mystical and Trinitarian Eastern Church, it was largely lost in the more practical, carrot-on-the-stick emphasis of the Western Church. Every time the Christian church divided or separated, each group lost one half of the Gospel message. That seems to have been true in the Great Schism of 1054, when
By Scott Cairns The Mind in the Heart The more we read in the fathers and mothers across the early centuries of the Church, the more profoundly we come to recognize this formula, this admonition that we might find our prayer lives made fruitful by our descending with our “minds” into our “hearts.” This figure, then — of the lucid nous descended into the ready kardiá, of the mind pressed into the heart — articulates both the
By Scott Cairns “He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul.” —Psalm 22:3 Among a good many advantages our predecessors in the early Church could claim was a more nearly adequate vocabulary. For instance, they were in possession of a number of words that indicated a number of amazing truths. Nous, kardiá, népsis and théosis were among those words that helped to keep the young Body focused on the task at hand, the task of healing our shared
St Dionysius lived originally in the city of Athens. He was raised there and received a classical Greek education. He then went to Egypt, where he studied astronomy at the city of Heliopolis. It was in Heliopolis, along with his friend Apollophonos where he witnessed the solar eclipse that occurred at the moment of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ by Crucifixion. “Either the Creator of all the world now suffers, or this visible
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