Tag: sin
Embodiment, incarnation, flesh and blood
To age is something good, pleasant (?), well, no (!), for if life is about ‘something’ rather than “chance” then something deeper seems to be a play. What if we are just children at our beginnings, if all that we experience as awful as it is, as absurd as suffering and evil seem to be,… Read More ›
Adam’s Sin
But Adam did not wish to say, “I sinned,” but said rather the contrary of this and placed the blame for the transgression upon God Who created everything “very good,” saying to Him, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I ate.” And after him she also placed the blame… Read More ›
Lent Is Special Time to Cleanse and Protect Against Spirits
Though society and even the Church (can) often turn a blind eye to the workings of spirits, the fact is that they exist and the fact is also that — among their repertoire — is what might be called “spiritual transference”: spiritual energies can be transmitted through people, communication, and things, including at a distance…. Read More ›
The whole mechanism of modern life is geared for a flight from God
Everything in modern city life is calculated to keep man from entering into himself and thinking about spiritual things. Even with the best of intentions a spiritual man finds himself exhausted and deadened and debased by the constant noise of machines and loudspeakers, the dead air and the glaring lights of offices and shops, the… Read More ›
Spiritual tips for the new (and any) year
VAIN is the man who puts his trust in men, in created things. Do not be ashamed to serve others for the love of Jesus Christ and to seem poor in this world. Do not be self-sufficient but place your trust in God. Do what lies in your power and God will aid your good… Read More ›
Showing true love to God
We truly love God and keep His commandments if we restrain ourselves from our pleasures. For he who still abandons himself to unlawful desires certainly does not love God, since he contradicts Him in his own intentions. . . Therefore, he loves God truly, whose mind is not conquered by consent to evil delight. For… Read More ›
The Eight Demons of St. John Cassian
My life, along with many others (though I forget this often), has been a continual struggle with sin. I am not alone in this, and there is a kind of comfort in that. I found this out especially when I stumbled upon some writings of St. John Cassian in the Philokalia, arguably the most important spiritual… Read More ›
St. Benedict for Beginners – The Fifth Step to Humility
The fifth step of humility is that a man should in humble confession reveal to his Abbot all the evil thoughts that come into his mind, and any wrongful actions that he had done in secret.’ Nothing helps us make a quantum leap forward in the quest for humility than a good and complete confession…. Read More ›
The mob (The dark desire to scapegoat)
I am not sure that there is anyone who could not be caught up in the mob mentality, or perhaps mass mind would be a better phrase. You get a group together, fire them up and the momentum can take its individual members to places that they may have thought impossible. Hangings, beatings and burnings… Read More ›
Finding God’s will
(notes for a talk I’m giving) At times it can seem like finding God’s will for some people is like going to an Easter egg hunt. Looking under bushes and rocks, seeking to find the God’s will written out in bold letters: “This is it, my will”….”you win”. Of course it is noting like that,… Read More ›