“Thoughts in Christ”

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…

In that eye contact between the apostle and the cripple, the Holy Spirit who is present everywhere bonded the two in a way that made healing possible. The Spirit told St. Paul that the man had faith enough to let him stand upright. St. Paul was not the healer—Christ was. The apostle was the trigger. The wonder is that the man might have spent his…

Any mother holding her infant is an eye-catcher. The baby, not long having been within the woman, becomes a projection of self love, a reminder of the love that produced the fruit of her womb and her gratitude for the joy of holding evidence of her love for her husband, her gift to him and the fulfillment of maternal love in the new creature held in…

I’m told that at the Diocesan Assembly of the South this year, the 300+ delegates were asked to rise if they had been baptized Orthodox Christian at birth. Only ten members from the clergy and laity stood. What a glorious celebration! The Holy Spirit is alive. Here in the United States of America, of the first-born on the continent, our beloved…

Think of Christmas, and Bethlehem comes to mind. The image of the Nativity of little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay so familiar from the cards depicting the Holy Family in the manger scene is so poignant that it draws even the formerly faithful and non-believers to celebrate the birth of the Christ child with us, or at least to affirm what it portrays…

We have just celebrated Thanksgiving Day, and already we’ve had enough of the secular seasonal songs once creative, no longer so. We pretend we enjoy the ancient carols from the old John Hancock Insurance Company booklet; however, there is one classic that seems never to grow outdated—Handel’s Messiah. Even us children and grandchildren of…

The gospels feature our Lord, God and Savior Jesus the Messiah and focus on His message and actions. It took a while for the Church to appreciate what the woman in the crowd grasped in a moment of divine inspiration—what a mother He had to produce such a Son. We know there was much more to it, which the Church took just as long to recognize,…

What is going through your mind when you hear the deacon or priest invoke this petition for the Lord’s mercy? Is it a mere background sound that you tune out, or do you think about…mercy, of course? What do you understand by this sacred term that is used so frequently in all of the Orthodox Christian worship, as well as private prayers? Forgiveness?…

The priest makes tiny crosses of sacred myrrh under the eyes and on the ears of the newly baptized Christian, chanting: “The seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit.” The same is repeated by the choir. The gift is a prayer—may the newborn see and hear with the eye and ear of Christ all the beauty and sounds of a world created by the heavenly Father,…

It was the Soviet times, 1974. Trying to talk over the noise of the TU-114 on the tedious flight back to Moscow from Novosibirsk, Father Vitaly and I were discussing Christ’s enigmatic advice to Judas after the Last Supper: “What you are about to do, do quickly.” Decide, then do.

The priest theologian was most likely a “number two” on the Frolov…

St. Maximos the Confessor is addressing not only monastics but all of us who wish to grow in grace from applying his intelligent and spiritual thoughts. He is writing about the essence of love, the ascent to God and the way it shuts out all else. Think of the golden light we find everywhere on the icon of Transfiguration. Notice how it blinded the…