“Thoughts in Christ”

Here is a phrase from the Sermon on the Mount. Our Lord Jesus is explaining to His disciples the outlook on life one must possess in order to experience the Kingdom of God within one’s heart and soul. It may have been springtime when flowers burst into bloom. Do more than notice – Consider [reflect deeply, observe thoroughly, study] the way they…

St. Mary Magdalene went to the tomb where the Lord Jesus had been laid because she was restless. She could not sleep. Her mind filled with anguish and confusion. In the common contemporary phrase, she suffered from lack of closure. After a disaster in flight, when a plane falls into the water, the family and friends appear at the edge of the ocean,…

How blessed are they who have a home address but who live in the house of God. For them the church is where you find their hearts and passions. They are called in our native tongues “churchy people.” To be Orthodox Christian is to love your parish with a passion, whether it be a huge cathedral or a garage-size chapel. And such Christians know…

The writer of Hebrews is comparing the “Day of Rest,” or “Sabbath rest,” which can mean getting to the Promised Land as in the Old Testament, or maybe as Christians we would think of it as the peace of God that our Lord said “passes all understanding,” life everlasting with the Holy Trinity. We do not understand because it lies ahead of…

How would the apostles know the name of Pontius Pilate’s wife that tradition has named Claudia? Why would they care to know the spouse of the executor of our Lord, God and Savior, Jesus Christ? Why would she be mentioned in the gospels at all, if it were not for her dream, and how would the faithful learn about it unless she was one of them? And…

The first reference is mystical, the revelation that Christ Himself awaits an invitation to the heart of every human being. He never intrudes or enters where He is not wanted or invited. The second is actual and practical, announcing to the doorkeepers that the non-baptized have been prayed for and now are to leave, because what follows is “for…

The first reading ends. The Royal Gates open. The celebrant appears holding aloft a candle in one hand, the censer in the other. He faces the people of God and chants: “The light of Christ illumines all.” The Word of God, the Logos Who with the Father and Holy Spirit were from the beginning of everything, the same Son of God is from the baptism…

Preaching from the last words of our Lord, God and Savior on Good Friday is quite common in western churches. In the medieval period preachers emphasized the darkness and desolation. Later they stressed the overwhelming love poured out from Christ’s glorious sacrifice. In any case the emotions of all Christians are brought to a climax by the Son…

What made Judas decide to betray the One who chose him from among all the followers of Jesus to be an apostle? Several suggestions come from the above passage. Judas was called Iscariot. That wasn’t his last name. He came from Kerioth, a place beyond Galilee. He was the only apostle from somewhere else. Sometimes we feel that we are unlike…

This is what we Orthodox Christians do all the time, but especially through Great Lent. We take from the reliquary of our souls the most precious Pearl who is Christ in whom we were baptized, but we first wash ourselves clean as we had been on our baptismal day through fasting and prayer. We start again as infants, knowing that He will be patient…

We begin the awesome soul-transforming experience of the Great Lent with two services specifically for this time: Forgiveness Vespers and the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete. One is dedicated to the cleansing of consciences, the other to elevate our minds to an ever-greater unity with the Holy Trinity. The two are bound together. St. Maximus says…

When the icons portray this glorious scenario of countless saints all in white and gold, the viewer can make a conventional error—to think of them not as individuals with their own personalities but as a group without separate characteristics. Quite the contrary, they have been or shall be free of all the restraints that proceed from sinfulness and…

It’s termed the Sunday of the Prodigal Son, a prelude to Great Lent; but it may well be called the parable of a father’s inexplicable love. We respond to our Lord Jesus Christ’s fabulous tale of a Jewish father’s overwhelming compassion for a son who had abused that paternal affection by rejecting it as just too much. Where on earth would we…

In time past, only the Orthodox Christian bishops and monastics wore the prayer ropes wound around their left wrists. In our time, one notices lay persons young and old doing the same, often shortened from the conventional length. Assuming they are used properly by those who have been trained to grow spiritually in the way of the hesychasts, we…

We are blessed with many icons of angels in our temple: All nine ranks of angels, guardian angels, angels surrounding the holy Mother of God, angels among the figures in the feast day icons—but the most dangerous angel has no icon, nor does he want one. He prefers darkness and obscurity to do his nefarious work. He “left Him,” but not for long.…

All life is sacred, and nothing more so than human life. Every Jew knew and honored that truth, as does, or should, every Christian. The blessed promise of the Almighty to Abraham was human life [lakhai’m]. Life is a gift. Gratitude is expected by a sacrifice. Since Jesus was a first-born male, Mary was expected to present a lamb for the burnt…

Consider the first sin following the landing of Noah’s ark. Just when it appeared that the Lord Almighty had found a solution to the rampant sinfulness of humanity by “baptizing” the whole earth, one son having found his father in disarray, mocked him rather than covering him up. One must never disrespect a parent. St. Peter insists that we…

“Honor all people.” Honor, in Greek timi, means respect and more—recognition and dignity—but at times it is a challenge to do so for all persons, especially when they do not respect themselves. A book titled I and Thou, by Martin Buber, left an indelible imprint on my memory. We have lost the distinction held in many languages between the formal…

The Divine Liturgy begins with a proclamation, a direction and a promise: “Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages.” We announce the Kingdom because it is, it is where God is, and it is where we ultimately shall be. God is not just the Creator [although many in our times dispute even…

The distinctive feature of our Lord, God and Savior is humility. If the entire scenario of the Nativity from the embarrassment of His mother’s pregnancy to the rude treatment at the inn of Bethlehem, the birth, flight and return to Galilee is not ample evidence of the way the Holy Trinity chose to make the Son of God manifest, here again in His…