The Bridegroom Matins – Orthodox Holy Week

Icon of Christ The BridegroomChrist the Bridegroom is the central figure in the parable of the ten Virgins (Matthew 25: 1-13); Christ is the divine Bridegroom of the Church as described in the Book of Isaiah (chapter 54), as well as the primary image of Bridegroom Matins.

The title is suggestive of His divine presence and watchfulness (“Behold the Bridegroom comes in the middle of the night…”) during Holy Week and His selfless love for His Bride, the Church.

The Troparion
Behold the Bridegroom comes at midnight, and blessed is the servant whom he shall find watching, and unworthy is the servant whom he shall find heedless.

Beware, therefore, oh my soul. Do not be weighed down with sleep, lest you be given up to death, and lest you be shut out of the kingdom.

But rouse yourself, crying, Holy, Holy, Holy are Thou our God.

Through the Theotokos, have mercy on us. [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

Where Do Jews and Christians on the Left Get Their Values?

Dennis Prager
Dennis Prager

Townhall | by Dennis Prager | 3/30/2010

Many Americans find it difficult to understand why Jews on the Left — including many who would call themselves “liberal” rather than “Left” — continued to enthusiastically support President Obama after the revelations about the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish views of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the religious mentor and close friend of Obama. This confusion is all the greater now that Obama has humiliated the prime minister of Israel and created the most tense moment in American-Israeli relations in memory.

Likewise, many Americans wonder how Democratic congressmen who claim to be faithful Catholics and are pro-life could vote for the health care bill that allows for federal funding of abortions — after opposing it up to the last day. [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

Hope and Change … the Constitution

Larry Elder
Larry Elder

Human Events | by Larry Elder | 3/25/2010

We live in a fundamentally different country from that which existed only days ago. The government now requires that every American purchase health insurance. The Constitution has been attacked, interpreted in a way beyond its original intent. Therefore, we must change it.

Ignoring the will of the majority of the American people, the discouraging experiences of countries with socialized medicine, and the already staggering amount of entitlement debt, President Barack Obama and the congressional Democrats “reformed” health care. Once a nation under a Constitution that restricted government intrusion, we now want government to provide for our “needs” by calling them “rights.” [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

Coercive Charity Destroys the Human Spirit

American Thinker | by Joseph Rosenberger| 3/26/2010

A society that compels each individual to provide for the personal happiness of one’s neighbor, which can come only from selling one’s labor or one’s private property, and then handing those earnings over by confiscatory taxes, is a society with less individual freedom or liberty. At the current bankrupting levels of benevolence that comprise Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, this health care log will no doubt pulverize every bone in the camel. The destruction of our great nation — what the enemies of America could not accomplish by war, we are doing to ourselves by misplaced compassion.

We are not a collective. Nor are we slaves or servants to each other. While we hold many things in common, we must keep our hands off that from which all goodness and compassion come: the individual. [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

The Witness of the Holy Spirit

BreakPoint | by Regis Nicoll | 3/12/2010
Holy Spirit icon Orthodox
God: “He is there,” wrote the late Francis Schaeffer, “and He is not silent.”

As I have noted elsewhere, God not only is there, he has given us ample evidence of that fact through his Word: the incarnate Word of Jesus Christ, the written Word of Scripture, and the Word of creation, conscience, and the Church, with the indwelling Word of Holy Spirit as light and guide.

Misunderstood, ignored
Few doctrines of the Church are as misunderstood as that of the Holy Spirit. I suspect this is partly due to His title. The word “spirit” conjures up a fuzzy, if not, spooky image—a mysterious life-force, a formless immaterial being, a wraith—that inclines us to think of the Holy Spirit as “it” rather than “Him.”

There’s also the matter of instruction. Although we give the Holy Spirit a nod in our slogans, mission statements and church talk, He is largely ignored in our teaching, except as he relates to our spiritual gifts and prayer life. [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

Exempted From Obamacare: Senior Staff Who Wrote the Bill

New Ledger | by Ben Domenech | 3/22/2010

For as long as the political fight took over the past year, the abbreviated review process on the health care legislation currently pending on President Obama’s desk is unquestionably going to result in some surprises — as happens with any piece of mashed-up legislation — both for the congressmen who voted for it and for the American people.

One such surprise is found on page 158 of the legislation, which appears to create a carveout for senior staff members in the leadership offices and on congressional committees, essentially exempting those senior Democrat staffers who wrote the bill from being forced to purchase health care plans in the same way as other Americans. [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

20 Ways ObamaCare Will Take Away Our Freedoms

Investors.com | by David Hogberg | 3/23/2010

It is worthwhile to take a comprehensive look at the freedoms we will lose under ObamaCare.

Of course, the bill is supposed to provide us with security. But it will result in skyrocketing insurance costs and physicians leaving the field in droves, making it harder to afford and find medical care. We may be about to live Benjamin Franklin’s adage, “People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both.” [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

Leadership: Is the Microphone On?

The Orthodox Leader | by Fr Basil Biberdorf | 3/23/2010
Christ, the Author of Life

The recent turmoil surrounding the recent passage of healthcare legislation by the United States Congress is providing ample opportunity to look at the absence of Orthodox leadership. As a reminder, this blog’s purpose is not political. To the extent this legislation reflects Caesar’s affairs, it is generally best for the Church to remain silent.

Sadly, though, this legislation is not purely about political matters, for it has provisions for using taxes gathered from individuals, including Christians, to pay for elective abortions in all or part (c.f., here and here). Despite the scandalously equivocal language used by the Ecumenical Patriarch in discussing abortion (c.f., here, here, here, and here),  the Church’s teaching cannot be misunderstood. As a best example, consider St. Basil the Great (AD 330-379), who says absolutely nothing new: “Women also who administer drugs to cause abortion, as well as those who take poisons to destroy unborn children, are murderesses” (Letter 188).

Children in the womb are human beings, and their willful destruction is murder. So what about all those who will now find themselves accessories to the crime through the new legal requirement to fund abortion? [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

America Lost

US Flag in Distress

American Thinker | by Steve McCann | 3/22/2010

In the 1970s, there was an evocative public service advertisement on television. It showed an old and grizzled Native American Chief with a tear rolling down his cheek as he surveyed the pollution scaring the landscape of the once-pristine land.

As the House of Representatives passed Health Care Reform, many of us who were blessed to immigrate to the United States in search of freedom and opportunity (and were welcomed with open arms) found ourselves looking across the panorama of our adopted land with a tear rolling down our cheek.

Many of us who came to the United States did so to escape the brutal hand of government or as survivors of the consequences of tyranny run amok.

It has become difficult to watch, as our adopted land appears to have chosen a path that will lead to a nation we dare not imagine: a nation beginning to resemble what we left behind. [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

Congress Health Care Vote: A Dark Day for Freedom in America

Telegraph UK | by Nile Gardiner | 3/22/2010

The passage last night of Barack Obama’s health care reform bill through the House of Representatives is yet another blow to freedom in America inflicted by the Obama administration. The legislation, which comes at a staggering cost of $940 billion, will hugely add to the already towering national debt, now at over $12 trillion. It is yet another millstone round the necks of the American people, already faced with the highest levels of unemployment in a generation. [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail