A reflection for the Ecclesiastical New Year There is something almost unsettling about the way the Orthodox Church begins a new year. She does not begin with fireworks. She does not begin with champagne, resolutions, countdowns, or promises that this will finally be our year. She does not tell us
For my mother, on her birthday. There are certain kinds of love we understand only after we have spent years receiving them. As children, we rarely ask what love costs the person giving it. We simply live inside of it. We wake up and breakfast appears. We become sick and
St. Silouan the Athonite, St. Sophrony of Essex, and the frightening measure of Christian love. This week’s reflection began, fittingly, at home. After my father had “dibs” on the subject of my last reflection, I decided that this week belonged to my mother. I brought her several possible themes—
There are Sundays when the Gospel does not simply ask to be heard. It asks to be allowed in. Into the rooms of the heart we keep locked. Into the wounds we have learned to hide. Into the sins we have renamed, excused, accommodated. Into the places where , if we
A mere fourteen days ago, Orthodox Christians throughout the world who follow the New Calendar celebrated the radiant feast of one of Christianity's fiercest daughters - the Holy Great Martyr Marina of Antioch. In the West, she is known as Saint Margaret of Antioch. Why the different name? At
"Silence is the mystery of the age to come, but words are the instruments of this world." — St Isaac the Syrian There is a moment, if you are the kind of person who has ever prayed for something and meant it, when you ask God for a sign
"It was God Who healed you through my hands. Pray to Him." — St Luke the Surgeon, Archbishop of Simferopol (1877–1961) There is a moment, if you are the kind of person who is always trying to become more, when you catch yourself doing something that looks like
Palm Sunday - A Second Contemplation There is a terrible beauty in this day. A beauty that wounds the one who truly sees it. For today, heaven and earth meet ... not in harmony, but in tension. The Logos enters His city, and the city does not know Him. Not because He
The Ladder That Is Built from Tears (On the Fourth Week of the Fast, through the teaching of St. John Climacus) By the fourth week of Great Lent, something strange begins to happen. The first fervor of the Fast has faded. The excitement is gone. What remains is quieter, heavier,
The Prayer That Descends into the Heart (On the Third Week of the Fast, through the teaching of St. Gregory of Sinai) The Fast is now deep enough that we begin to feel its weight. The first week was fire - repentance, confession, the trembling return to God. The second week
The Silence Where God Waits Second Week of the Great Fast A strange thing has happened to the modern world. We have never been more connected, and yet we have never felt more alone. Phones glow late into the night in bedrooms across the world. Blue light fills the darkness.
The Forgiveness That Opens the Fast On Cheese Fare Sunday, the Church does something quietly devastating. Before she asks anything of us, she asks us to bow to one another. There is candlelight in the nave. The choir has just finished, and the last note is still dissolving into the