“Life in Christ”

Musicians, poets or graphic artists will often claim to be “inspired” to produce a particular composition or design. Like the ancient Hebrew prophets, they feel themselves “seized,” “filled” or “carried away” by some invading power. A force from beyond themselves takes control of their mental faculties and guides or compels them toward an expression…

A small group of a dozen or so young medical professionals were sitting around a table, munching cookies and downing soft drinks. They were all mainline Protestants or Evangelicals. Some were very much connected to their church tradition; others were thirsting for something else, which clearly meant something more. They had asked us to come and talk…

The Orthodox liturgical calendar is filled with the names of obscure people we know little or nothing about. Some of those names are composites. They are stereotypes based on real persons, usually confessors or martyrs, whose personal history is lost to us, but who come down to us in the Church’s collective memory as courageous witnesses to the…

The usual answer given to the title of this article is that the Church Fathers provide us with invaluable spiritual guidance, based on their own faith and experience. They interpret Scripture and other elements of Holy Tradition in such a way as to educate us in the Way that leads to the Kingdom of God. And by the witness of their own life, which…

An unacknowledged but powerful presumption guides a great deal of today’s theology, whether it appears in the popular press, in scholarly journals or in Sunday morning homilies. It is the conviction that language and images that depict transcendent rather than empirical reality are mere metaphors. They are “symbols” in the modern, popular sense,…

In 1999, the Romanian National Institute for the Study of Totalitarianism published a volume entitled “The Imprisoned Church: Romania, 1944-1989.” It is presented as a “dictionary” that details the persecution and suffering endured by clergy and other figures in the Orthodox, Catholic (Eastern and Roman) and Protestant Churches in Romania during the…

One of my worst passions is irritation and one of my worst irritations is church billboard slogans. I don’t know why these things bother me so much, but they do.

Between the Piggly Wiggly grocery store on the Maybank Highway, some ten miles north of here, and the Rockville, S.C., “yacht club” the same distance south, there are about twenty-five…

The film “Million Dollar Baby” caused quite a stir in certain pro-life circles. Although director and actor Clint Eastwood dealt with the tragic end of his heroine’s life with sensitivity and compassion, many people were shocked at his apparent endorsement of euthanasia. The controversy was unnecessary because the entire problematic surrounding…

In his reflections on the Knowledge of God, Saint Silouan of Mount Athos (+ 1938) speaks in a very simple and beautiful way of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the faithful. They are words that seem especially significant in this time of Pentecost, when we celebrate and relive the coming of the Spirit in power, to renew us…

Psalm 67/68 is considered by most biblical scholars to be the most difficult of all psalms to interpret.^[1] The current consensus holds that the psalm was an ancient cultic hymn, originally recited in an autumn festival by the covenant-community of Israel. Its theme celebrates the coming of God to His people, from Sinai to Zion, in order to…

Can a reader read the same text twice?

This is an odd question, one that has been asked many times since the beginning of this “postmodern” age. Yet the thought behind it is as ancient as the pre-Socratic philosopher who asked if a person can step twice into the same stream. Now, as then, the answer is both Yes and No.

This is an important…

The beautiful expression, “bright sadness,” came back to me with special poignancy during Holy Week this year. In Greek the compound noun is charmolypê, variously translated “bitter joy,” “joyful mourning,” or “affliction that leads to joy.” It expresses what the Fathers of the Church call an “antinomy,” a truth that defies normal logic. The word…

Orthodox theology, like Holy Scripture, accomplishes what in strictly human terms is not possible. It takes the ineffable and incomprehensible mystery of God’s being and activity, and makes it intelligible and accessible.

Most of the images we have of God are pitifully inadequate. Our minds are simply not able to grasp the reality of God, either as…

Some three months have passed since the devastating tsunami in the Indian Ocean took hundreds of thousands of lives and left millions homeless and destitute. During the weeks following that horrendous event, mudslides, blizzards, floods and other natural disasters have taken their toll as well, in California and throughout the world. Material aid…

To close this series of reflections on silence, solitude and inner stillness, it seems most appropriate to share a few very modest, personal experiences that I have been blessed to undergo over the years. These involve encounters with unpretentious yet holy persons whose example can guide all of us who long to acquire these virtues or qualities for…

Although they are often used interchangeably, the terms “silence” and “stillness” are not synonymous. Silence implies in part an absence of ambient noise, together with an inner state or attitude that enables us to focus, to “center” on the presence of God and to hear His “still, small voice.”

To silence, the virtue of stillness adds both…

In the New Testament little is said of silence as such. The examples that do exist, however, are striking and significant.

The people are reduced to awe-filled silence as they witness Christ’s ability to silence his adversaries (Lk 20:26). Jesus, in the presence of His disciples, displays the authority to still the waters and silence the thundering…

The second-century Latin theologian Tertullian declared that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. This remains true to our day, as witnessed most poignantly by the martyrdom of bishops, priests and lay people during the Communist era, in Russia, Romania and elsewhere, and in the ongoing persecution of Christians at the hands of Muslim…

The last column in this space took up the issue of the relationship between fact and truth in the biblical accounts of Jesus’ birth. I tried to point out that the question “Did it really happen that way?” arises from a certain common misunderstanding, one that confuses fact with truth, while it overlooks the point that everything reported as “fact”…

The Christmas season inevitably leads people in the media to speculate on whether or not the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ conception and birth are historically accurate. The question they raise in the public mind is whether these cherished stories are really “true.”

A good, well-balanced example of this kind of reflection appeared in the December 13,…