St. Ephrem’s “Hymns on the Nativity” are like a dazzling display of Christmas lights—or better yet, like the brightly shining stars shimmering over the fields of Bethlehem. St Ephrem believes that God reveals Himself through “raze” (symbols, mysteries, hidden meanings) found not only throughout Holy Scripture, but everywhere in nature as … [Read more...] about St. Ephrem the Syrian: Hymn of the Nativity
Spirituality
St. Paisios: Too Many Worries Will Distance Us From God
Like Jesus’ friend Martha in the Gospel of St Luke, we “are worried and troubled about many things.” But as we prepare ourselves for the Nativity of Christ — as we look ahead toward His birth not in a royal chamber, but in the rustic and unpretentious cradle of an animal trough — and as we anticipate his quiet but earth-shaking Incarnation into a … [Read more...] about St. Paisios: Too Many Worries Will Distance Us From God
Dostoevsky And Memory Eternal: An Eastern Orthodox Approach to the Brothers Karamazov
Why do Orthodox memorial litanies melodically reiterate "memory eternal” with such feeling and such energy? And why did Orthodoxy’s greatest novelist end his last great work so triumphantly with these same words? By going very deeply into a single passage in Dostoevsky’s masterpiece, "The Brothers Karamazov," Donald Sheehan leads us not only into the the center of the novel, … [Read more...] about Dostoevsky And Memory Eternal: An Eastern Orthodox Approach to the Brothers Karamazov
Are You Drowning in Your Own Stream of Consciousness? Logismoi and How to Cope with Them
Before the Fall, our consciousness (nous) was clear and undivided, focused on God and transparent to Him, without distractions from within or from without. But now we are perpetually distracted by logismoi (low-giz-mee)—not merely “thoughts” in the narrow sense, but also images and ideas running through our awareness tempting and beguiling us. Logismoi constitute a “raging … [Read more...] about Are You Drowning in Your Own Stream of Consciousness? Logismoi and How to Cope with Them
How To Read The Holy Psalter
The Psalms of David are the Prayer Book of the Bible, not only for the ancient Jewish people, but even more for Christians, who discovered that these elusively simple poems contained far more than their Hebrew predecessors had realized, for Christ Himself appears everywhere throughout them. As Fr Patrick Henry Reardon points out in his fine book "Christ in the Psalms," it is … [Read more...] about How To Read The Holy Psalter
