Reflections in Christ

How can you be sure what the Bible teaches?  I get this question a lot from enquirers and catechumens.  Most of them come from Protestantism, where their experience has taught them that the Bible is not self-interpreting and that appeals therefore to sola scriptura are in vain.  Indeed this was not a recent lesson; from the early days of the…

When they are in fashion, fads are never recognized as fads.  Those under their influence and promoting them feel that they have come across “An Important New Truth,” or (if Orthodox) “An Important But Neglected Part of Our Tradition.”  Recognizing them as fads would only serve to dismiss them from serious consideration.  Thus fads never ’fess…

Theophany is the feast of God’s humility.  Humility is not something normally associated with power.  Powerful people and rich people and important people aren’t usually humble, because they don’t have to be.  It is the poor and powerless who have to be humble.  The powerful can dictate, and rage, and give orders, not caring whether or not…

The Sunday before the Great Feast of the Theophany is dedicated to the work of John the Baptist (or Saint John the Forerunner, to give him his liturgical title).  To appreciate him fully, we need to place him in his historical context, and realize that he came to Israel as a thunderstorm at the end of a long drought.  Or, to vary the metaphor, as a…

Orthodoxy is known for its pomp—or rather, as our apologists and partisans like to say, for “its glorious worship.”  We like to share the old story of the members of the delegation from the then-pagan land of the Rus’ who attended an Orthodox Liturgy in Constantinople in the tenth century and who were so impressed with its liturgical pomp that…

There are three Hebrew words which the first century Church used often in their worship, and we have retained only two of them.  These Hebrew/Aramaic words were so important that they were carried bodily and untranslated into the worship of the non-Hebrew Gentile churches, where they functioned not as Hebrew words but as international Christian…

I was born and raised in the greater Toronto area (known to locals as the “GTA”) and came to faith in the early 1970s.  For the students of ancient history among us, that was the time of the so-called “Jesus Movement,” when tens of thousands of young people came to Christ, many of them former hippies and drug-addicts.  It was a brief blip on the…

Every Sunday our little parish celebrates an abbreviated Matins service before the Divine Liturgy, and part of that service contains a hymn called the “Exaposteilarion,” or “Hymn of Light.”  During the Sunday Matins, it consists of a brief meditation upon the Gospel reading narrating one of Christ’s Resurrection appearances.  In one Hymn…

Our Lord’s parable of Lazarus and the rich man is unique among the parables, for in this parable alone one of the characters has a name.  The parable begins, “There was a rich man, who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day.  And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus.”  Compare how the parable of the…

Beginning with the Great Feast of the Elevation of the Cross on September 14 and continuing throughout the week that follows, a flower-bedecked Cross will remain in the center of our churches, there to be kissed and venerated with love.  The feast has its roots in the Constantinian revolution in the fourth century.  Prior to this revolution, the…

A friend of mine just returned from back east where he had attended the funeral of a friend and was mightily impressed by it—but not in a good way.  The deceased was an older woman who had died, leaving behind a grieving family who loved her very much.  The eulogy applauded her as a devoted wife, a steadfast friend, and an apparently perfect…

Every year on August 15, the Church bids us come to the final bedside of the Theotokos and learn how to die.  It is an important lesson, and all the more important because the secular world offers us no clue.  Indeed, the world seems intent on denying the reality of death.  In earlier and saner ages, everyone mostly died at home, surrounded by loved…

The miracle of the multiplication of the loaves bears a significance and symbolism like few others of Christ’s miracles, which is perhaps why it is the only miracle from His ministry that we can find in all four Gospels.  It is, in fact, an image of the Church.  That is why in the catacomb art the Church’s Eucharist is symbolized not, as one…

One of the many memorable lines from the classic The Princess Bride says it admirably.  In that film, the then-mysterious Man in Black says to the Princess, “Life is pain, Highness.  Anyone who says differently is selling something.”  This is not cynicism, but consensus, for it expresses a universal feeling.  Life is filled with pain and loss,…

When the Lord called His apostles to follow Him, He told them to let down their nets for a catch (Luke 5:4).  After they took in a tremendous catch of fish and had brought it to land, He called them to follow Him, and they left everything and followed Him (Matthew 4:22).  After that catch that day, their lives were never the same.  Before that day,…

Those for whom ancient history is irrelevant and who equate “old” with “out-dated” (or better yet, “medieval” with “barbarically primitive”) will have trouble appreciating the Fathers of the First Council of Nicea, since they met and produced their work well over a thousand years ago, in 325 AD.  How could a creed so old be remotely…

What is the message for us on Paschal evening, when the churches celebrate Paschal Vespers?  When we read the story of Thomas’ doubt and anguish, we want to jump ahead to finish the tale, and reflect on how Christ at length came to Thomas to resolve his doubts, fill him with joy, and elicit the saving cry, “My Lord and my God!”  But that story…

It is easy looking back at Saint Basil and his patristic compatriots from such a distance to forget that they too lived in times of struggle and uncertainty.  As we look back at the fourth century we can view it as the beginning of Byzantium, the start of a long stretch of glorious Christian ascendency, and we somehow assume that they knew at the…

It is easy to miss the significance of the Great Litany.  It comes so early in the Divine Liturgy, immediately after the opening “Blessed is the Kingdom,” that if one is somehow late in getting to church one can miss it entirely.  Its true significance can be seen by reflecting upon its original position in the Liturgy and its abiding function. …

The first question which presents itself during the Lenten season is one of cuisine:  “What on earth can I eat since the Church forbids eating meat, fish, and dairy?”  It is a reasonable question, but must not be allowed to skew one’s understanding of what Lenten fasting is all about or give the impression that Lent is primarily about…