“Thoughts in Christ”

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…

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…

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…

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?…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

The power is divine. The “giftie” Giver is the Holy Spirit. One purpose of Great Lent is self analysis. “Know yourself!” That command is given in most religions and is demanded of all Christians. And to do that, one must sort out how much of oneself belongs to Jesus Christ and how much is egocentric. We may not like what we discover. We may deny,…

The definition of human beings: We are creatures in the state of an ongoing transition. We are neither angels nor animals. Jesus Christ is the Way, and we follow Him on the way towards unity with the Holy Trinity, or else we are descending into a dark pit of self-destruction—but we are never satisfied with where we are. Great Lent provides us with…

The same Spirit will lead you into a desert that you must fashion by separating yourself from whatever prevents you from self-discovery. You need not go anywhere, but you have to put a distance from your routine way of life. WWJD-W? What Would Jesus Do—Without? If your Lenten desert includes batteries and electronics, how serious are you? This is…

All too rare that Forgiveness Sunday opening onto the Great Lent falls on the same day when our nation celebrates Valentine’s Day—and so serendipitous to merge those great spiritual virtues into one. Several legends surround St. Valentine, who is as elusive as our beloved St. Nicholas and almost as beloved—at least in his legacy of love. Let’s…

Normally in the years when this gospel appears on Last Judgment Sunday, we search for instances when any of the above situations offers us an opportunity to bond with the heavenly King, Jesus Christ. This year with the tragic earthquake still in recent memory, Haiti’s plight confronts the globe with overwhelming possibilities to meet Him on an…

The parable of the Prodigal Son tells us that he came to his senses feeding the pigs. Could he have learned something from the pigs that encouraged him to return home? Imagine yourself in his place. After his wild and foolish fling, he found himself without funds or friends. What could he do? Raised in a wealthy household with servants to do all the…

The deacon or priest shouts the above exclamation that once was a signal to the doorkeepers to make certain that all who were not admitted to the Holy Communion—actually to learn the Creed—would be sent away. Prayers for them had been chanted if they were catechumens; that is, they had been preparing for baptism or perhaps were admonished for…

The life of Christ revealed to us by the Holy Spirit is a constant process of learning and openness to teachings of the Spirit, because only the Spirit can educate us about God in the same way that some things can be known about a private life that only the individual can know.

We set as a minimum the basic facts about the Holy Trinity that all…

Imagine young David watching over his father’s sheep, realizing their total reliance on him. They somehow trusted that with his staff, the long pole with a crook on top that he carried in one hand to move them along and to reach out and catch them if they should slip into a precipice, and the stout club in the other with which he beat off predators,…

Vera was part of our spiritual family from our very beginning. Before there was a church, she prayed with us when only the basement of our rectory was converted for worship. Forty-seven years later, she contracted a most fatal form of cancer, a sure fast track to death. Our deacon and I with our wives had been to the hospice to pray the poignant…