A Calling to Beauty, A Calling to Holiness

A Calling to Beauty, A Calling to Holinessby Fr. Gabriel Rochelle –
“Beauty will save the world,” said the great Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky. But what is that beauty? Not simply art no matter how well executed or in what medium. Indeed, we can become tearful at the sight of graceful dancers or upon hearing a brilliant pianist play Chopin, and we know intuitively that there is something generically spiritual going on. [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

Drifting Away From the Christian Faith

Drifting Away From the Christian Faithby Fr. Luke A. Veronis –
Many people in our society have turned away from faith, from faith communities and from the faith in which they were raised. Yet, is it that so many have “turned away” from faith or is it that many have unconsciously “drifted away.’

We are all deeply influenced by everything that is around us in society. Surely there is much skepticism, doubt and uncertainty about faith which we hear and see constantly via the internet or in our daily conversations. This uncertainty may lead us to question beliefs we once held strong. [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

Parents Must Fight to Prevent the Fallen World from Stealing Their Children

Parents Must Fight to Prevent the Fallen World from Stealing Their Childrenby Fr. Octavian Moşin –
Our main duty is to surround the children with care and prevent any harmful influence from entering their souls or stealing them from us.

To create a family is about denouncing oneself for the sake of the love of your neighbor. On the whole, I think that family is akin to a monastery. A monk at his tonsure takes three vows: to live in chastity, poverty, and obedience. If these principles were kept in family life, we would have a completely different outcome than the one we are facing today.

One should keep his desires at bay, preserve physical and spiritual purity; money should be a shared resource, with no one furtively trying to stash it away, because both the husband’s and the wife’s major goal is to acquire [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

Cultivate the Spiritual Discipline of Gratitude

Cultivate the Spiritual Discipline of Gratitudeby Fr. Luke A. Veronis –
The spiritual discipline of gratitude helps us to discover life from the perspective of God.

Gratitude as a spiritual discipline. Gratitude as a choice. Let’s think about this. Sometimes, we look at gratitude as a spontaneous response to something someone has done for us. That’s nice. Yet, gratitude as a spiritual discipline means consciously cultivating a spirit of gratitude in all circumstances – for whatever we perceive as good as well as for the blessings we receive even in the midst of difficult, unfortunate or challenging experiences.

Cultivating a spirit of gratitude means opening our hearts to see God’s Presence everywhere in all things and at all times. That’s surely hard to do at times and it may take serious discernment. Yet it is possible. [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

Corruption Must Be Revealed in Order to Overcome the Darkness

Corruption Must Be Revealed in Order to Overcome the Darknessby Fr. Johannes Jacobse –
Be courageous. Don’t fear. Stand on the Rock.

We may be in the stages of a final reveal. Corruption must be revealed to overcome the power of darkness. The darkness is sustained when fear overcomes the heart and mind of man. He loses hope and the necessary constituents that give his life meaning move beyond the horizon. He becomes blind.

Men embrace ideology because they refuse to face the corruption in their own hearts. The ideology confers a false righteousness that avoids the honest appraisal of one’s own heart that is necessary for freedom, and replaces it with a lie. This lie reiterates the lie first whispered in Eden: “You will become like God.” That is how a man becomes blind. [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

Give Me Liberty, Not Marxism – America and Freedom Are Worth Defending

Give Me Liberty, Not Marxism – America and Freedom Are Worth Defendingby Robert Maginnis –
God save America and grant wisdom to our present-day Patrick Henrys, Thomas Jeffersons and John Adams’, where-ever they may be!

America and her freedoms are worth defending, but both are rapidly approaching a critical tipping point. On November 3rd, Americans go to the polls to vote for our future and, subject to the election’s outcome, we must be ready to aggressively push against those who would trash this great nation should the radical Democrat Party elite take over the White House and Senate and begin to push an anti-constitutional agenda.

President Donald Trump may not be a perfect candidate but his almost four-year policy record is quite impressive. President Trump appointed more than 190 mostly strict constitutional constructionists to our federal courts; [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

Jesus Christ and the Social Problem

Jesus Christ and the Social Problem by Archimandrite Georgios Kapsanis –
The more that people are cleansed of the passions, the greater their capacity for real communion with God and other people.

Those who take a romantic and external view of the human person transfer wickedness from the person onto society, which is why they proclaim that any improvement in society will bring with it an improvement in people. But, without denying the importance of social effects on people, we Orthodox prioritize the transformation of the person through repentance and divine grace.

It’s a grave error to want to change society without first striving to change ourselves. It is, at the very least, naive to believe that a change in a few social institutions will also bring about a change in people even if they don’t repent. [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

Trust Faithful Orthodox Elders, Avoid Modernist Liberal Academics

Trust Faithful Orthodox Elders, Avoid Modernist Liberal Academicsby Fr. Michael Wood (Hieromonk) –
For the academic, nothing is a given, nothing is sacred, all must be questioned and challenged.

While I have spent a fair amount of my life in and around academic institutions, and would count myself an historian and liturgist, I am above all an eremitic monastic priest. While I certainly cannot lay claim to the extremes of monastic asceticism that many of our great Orthodox Elders have held to, nevertheless in all matters theological, I will always come down on the side of Scripture, Tradition and the Fathers, for that is where Orthodox truth is to be found.

We are, as Orthodox Believers in The Church, dependent entirely upon revelation and as such our real theologians are not academics at all, but rather the great experiencers of God.

Hence when we have academic clergy presuming to pronounce on the faith, from their height of academe, I would counsel the faithful to run away from them. [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

How to Know When God is Calling – Tuning in to the Call of God

How to Know When God is Calling - Tuning in to the Call of Godby Regis Nicoll –
“When God calls you to do something,” the speaker cautioned, “your only response is, yes.” I saw a number of heads nodding in agreement, but I sensed a question stirring in the heads of others: “But how do I know when God is calling?”

It’s an important question. In fact, there is no question more important for Christians. For how can we follow Christ, if we can’t tell his call from that of the culture or of those darker angels that would lead us into temptation or prod us to another have-to, got-to, need-to duty that seems good and feels good—and maybe, is good—but is not God sent? [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

Preserve Your Purity and Modesty, Guard Against Moral Corruption in Contemporary Society

Preserve Your Purity and Modesty, Guard Against Moral Corruption in Contemporary Society by Met. Philaret of New York –
Our Lord Jesus Christ, instructing His disciples and apostles, imbued in them the necessity of observing purity of heart and thought. From the thought and from the heart proceed our sinful impulses: “But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart,” says the Saviour; “and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witnesses, blasphemies” (Matt. 15:18-19).

The Saviour pointed to this further with the following words: “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery; But I say unto you, that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart” (Matt. 27-28). This law of the psycho-political nature of man is well-known to contemporary perverters, who are consciously striving to corrupt our youth. [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail