“Thoughts in Christ”

by Fr. Vladimir Berzonsky

Jesus the Miner

Estimates put nearly one of every six persons on earth as viewers of the rescue of the miners in Chile, trapped under the earth for sixty-nine days. No communication emerged for the first seventeen days. Pessimism prevailed. Few would dare hope that the men were alive. The mountain over and around them was of almost solid stone. They were a half…

The Miracle at Nain

If this were happening in our time and we were looking down from an airplane, it would show a pathway between the villages. Two crowds of people are approaching on the pathway, one towards the town, the other leaving. The first are happy, active, milling around a figure ahead of them who is talking and gesturing with His hands. The other is not at…

Healing the Brokenhearted

How does the Lord heal the brokenhearted and bind up our wounds? He uses the healing myrrh with which the Holy Spirit sealed us at the sacrament of Anointment following baptism. Christ Himself wipes away our tears. Then He mystically snips pieces from our pure and precious baptismal garments, fashioning tourniquets in order to staunch the bleeding.…

Memory and Eternity

God and humanity—eternity and transience. One lifetime is all you get, so enjoy it while it lasts. That is reality, but it is not the whole truth—not all we get, because God planned more for us. He wants us to share life eternal with Him. Modern society’s attitude is to consider death as finality, and they call it wisdom—or maybe…

The Tear Wiper

What an abundance of meditation opportunities is here, in the glorious promise that: “He will wipe away every tear.” Every tear? So many tears have been shed since our infancy from each of us—it’s the way we communicate before we can explain what we require. Is it necessary to count the tears that our kind mothers and even fathers have made to…

What the Cross Reveals

The common sense reason for having our Lord’s accusation written in three languages was to make certain whatever the nationality of the people in Jerusalem, they all would be able to understand why it was that Jesus Christ was condemned to the cruel execution of crucifixion as He wended His way to Calvary, the place of death. However, we know that…

The Indwelling Christ

After the newly-Chrismated Orthodox Christian is received into the holy Church, I follow him or her to ask what their impressions are regarding the Orthodox Christian faith. Not only for their sake, though I wish for them a simple and complete transition from their former faith or from agnosticism. I want to “pick their brains,” to use the painful…

Attributes of the Perfect Church

Here we are near the end of the Bible in the Revelation experience. Is it not odd that one of the angels with the seven bowls with the seven last plagues is here inviting us to witness the glorious marriage of the Lamb whom we know to be our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ as the bridegroom? Also to recognize that the bride is none other than the…

Sons of Disobedience

Evil incidents become our daily “Breaking News.” Recently in a normal high school two male and three female students had carried on a series of harassments on a colleague who had moved from Ireland, thinking that in America her dreams of a pleasant future would be fulfilled. The gang taunted and teased her, calling her all sorts of vulgarities,…

Chance or Design

Anthony Flew is dead. He was a professional philosopher. His book on atheism was required reading for my college course in philosophy. He set forth the logic of atheism, the rationale that nothing can explain the universe other than mere accident. Those who see some plan at work, a deity that has laid out the cosmos according to some complex…

When Popularity Challenges Truth

On the icon of the First Ecumenical Council we observe the fathers of that seminal assembly large and filling the central frame in an imitation of the apostles on the Pentecost icon. Beneath their feet, huddled in a twisted form, is their turbaned adversary, the infamous Arius, leader of the opposition to the champions of the Nicene Creed’s…

Ways of Relating to the Lord

Two types of people go in search of Jesus: Those who want something from Him, and those like St. John who only want to be with Him. Neither is ever satisfied. It’s the same relationship between children and parents. What can they do for me, versus how can I be with them? Contrast the two most prominent apostles, Sts. Peter and John. Peter will go on…

The Servant Lord

Jesus performed the demeaning act of washing the feet of His disciples in order to challenge the attitude of pride that afflicted them in jockeying for status over one another. It is imperative that spiritual leadership be expressed in humility. The leaders are to lead in displays of meekness, gentleness and acts of kindness. These are the ways of…

Falling for Satan

How can it happen to a person baptized into Christ, sealed with the gifts of the Holy Spirit so that the child or adult is protected from invasion from anything evil or damaging to his or her innocence and openness to the flow of grace from the heavenly Father, the eternal Son of the Father whom we know as Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit of God?…

Saint Paul’s Passion

The consuming passion of St. Paul was to know Christ. Is that not the supreme goal we Christians all should set and share? Who has not been approached by an eager young person, usually a man filled with his own idea of spirituality and demands to learn: “Do you know Jesus?” The implication regardless of how you reply is: No, you do not, but yes, I…

The Holy Apostles Thomas and John

To grasp the full flavor of the Thomas type of personality, it may help to set him against his consummate opposite, St. John Divine. How could we not enter into the bond of affection between our loving Lord and the apostle so proud to bear the title of the one whom Jesus loved—certainly Christ loved them all, including Thomas and even Judas…

What is Truth?

A Christian will see that the question, “What is truth?” is phrased incorrectly. Truth is not a concept: It is a person. Pilate was not open to a discussion as to the meaning of truth. He had his own definition. It was for him whatever he wanted it to be. Like many alive in our time, truth can be anything or everything, a way of imposing one’s will…

Christ’s Last Moments on the Cross

It was truly a spectacle—the last moments of our Lord and Savior on the cross, and what they saw—that spectacular event when He shouted out with a loud voice: “Finished!” [omitted by Luke, but mentioned in Matthew and Mark]. The word for a spectacle, theoria, appears only here in the entire Gospel, and yet it remained for the later Church…

Holy Mother Mary’s Grace

Orthodox Christian theology does not limit the grace of the Lord given to Mary the Theotokos only to the conception and birth of the Son of God. We believe that following the Annunciation she continued to be blessed by the Holy Spirit. Her human nature was not left without grace, but rather she lived in the spiritual energy that came to her first at…

Repentance

Jesus began His ministry with the same demand made by St. John the Baptist. “Repent!” Odd the way terms we use remain and yet lose the original meaning. Definitions continue long after they had lost their original meaning. “Penitentiary,” for instance, meant a place apart from society—a prison or even a monastery where criminals and murderers were…