Sacraments

"All sacraments are an epiclesis, all sacraments call the Holy Spirit upon a reality to reveal the fullness of that reality, to bring forth what is there, to release the full potential."

+ Fr Roberto Ubertino

"We might say that the symbol does not so much “resemble” the reality that it symbolizes as it participates in it, and therefore it is capable of communicating it in reality...

By its very nature the symbol unites disparate realities, the relation of the one to the other always remaining “absolutely other.” However real a symbol may be, however successfully it may communicate to us that other reality, its function is not to quench our thirst but to intensify it: “Grant us that we may more perfectly partake of Thee in the never ending day of Thy Kingdom.” It is not that this or that part of “this world” — space, time, or matter — be made sacred, but rather that everything in it be seen and comprehended as expectation and thirst for its complete spiritualization: “that God may be all in all.”

Christian worship is symbolic because, first of all, the world itself, God’s own creation, is symbolic, is sacramental; and second of all, because it is the Church’s nature, her task in “this world,” to fulfill this symbol, to realize it as the “most real of realities.” We can therefore say that the symbol reveals the world, mankind and all creation as the “matter” of a single, all-embracing sacrament."

+ Fr Alexander Schmemann,

On Compassion and Forgiveness

“Remember People’s love and their past good experiences with you. Should you doubt their sincerity or find out they have wronged you, Their old love will intercede and your anger will fade away.” 

+ H.H. Pope Shenouda III

"I beseech you, put this to the test. When a man affronts you or brings dishonor on your head, or takes what is yours, or persecutes the Church, then pray to the Lord, saying: “O Lord, we are all Thy creatures. Have pity on Thy servants and turn their hearts to repentance,” and you will be aware of grace in your soul. To begin with, constrain your heart to love enemies, and the Lord, seeing your good will, will help you in all things, and experience itself will show you the way."

+ St Silouan the Athonite

"Christianity honors man greatly, and raises his value as the crown of all creation who has the sole dominion over it. But it is a spiritual religion which aims to create a religious society, eliminating the spirit of evil in man, to bring him back to his first state before the fall when God made him in His image and according to His likeness (Genesis 1:26). When Christianity asks us to love our enemies, bless those who curse us, do good to those who hate us, and pray for those who spitefully use us and persecute us (Matthew 5:44), it does that to elevate the state of all parties that they become no more enemies but friends. In doing that, it does not convert us to passive fearful people, but to good and active people. It gives us a powerful weapon by which we defeat our enemies. It is the weapon of goodness which eliminates evil from its root "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:21). Hence, withstanding is out of strength and not of weakness, for "He who rules his spirit is better than he who takes a city" (Proverbs 16:32). The matter is very clear in our own lives, in fulfilling such commandments - which some consider as lowering to human honor - one gains honor and tribute via humility and love, and not via roughness and haughtiness, and he converts enemies to friends." 

+ Bishop Yoannis of Gharbia

Some Ideas for Summer Camp

Here are two posts from Fr Johnathan Tobias' blog that organizers of Summer Camps, Youth Conferences or Mahragan Alkeraza might find interesting.

Cool scientific facts that should be talked about at summer camp

http://janotec.typepad.com/terrace/2014/06/cool-scientific-facts-that-should-be-talked-about-at-summer-camp.html

More cool science facts that should be talked about at summer camp (or OCF)

http://janotec.typepad.com/terrace/2014/06/more-cool-science-facts-that-should-be-talked-about-at-summer-camp-or-ocf.html

The articles are also reblogged for reference below:

The Struggle of Love

"Don't wage your Christian struggle with sermons and arguments, but with true love."

+ Elder Porphyrios

"When we argue, others react. When we love people, they are moved & we win them over. When we love...we are the first to benefit." 

+ Elder Porphyrios

The Purpose of Orthodox "Spirituality"

One of our professors once mentioned that the term "Spirituality" is a category that is rooted in the presuppositions of protestant ethos or the result of the Protestant Reformation. Our professor referred instead to a term 'pastoralia' to refer to the pastoral application of the 'spirituality' of the Church's living theology. So one could say that when we think of 'spirituality,' the whole life of the Church is 'spiritual' just as it is 'physical' or 'worldly' or 'eschatological'. Likewise all of the Church is to be applied pastorally, thereby hinting that 'pastoralia' is indeed a more accurate term...if under certain circumstances we are asked to use terms and categories. Better perhaps to point towards the beauty of the life of the Church, the beauty of the Lord and say "Taste and see."

The Purpose of Orthodox "Spirituality"
by Metropolitan Saba Esber
Source: http://araborthodoxy.blogspot.ca/2013/05/met-saba-esber-on-purpose-of-orthodox.html

Question: I know, father, that many Orthodox do not like to use the term "spirituality." But insofar as it is a term that is current in the field of religion as in other fields, can you explain to us what is Orthodox spirituality?

How much? How Little?

There is no lowest common denominator of Christianity. There is no modest form of the faith around which we may gather. There is only the “faith, once and for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3). Anything less is either no longer Christian, or building a foundation for something that in time will not be Christian.

+ Fr Stephen Freeman, http://glory2godforallthings.com/2007/05/17/how-much-is-too-little-how-much-is-enough/

Jim Forest on Peacemaking

Seven Aspects Essential in Christian Peacemaking

Excerpt from "Following Christ in a Violent World," presented to the Orthodox Student Association of Finland in 2003. Source: http://www.jimandnancyforest.com/2005/01/09/following-christ-in-a-violent-world/

Reflecting on the word and example of Christ, we can identify seven aspects of spiritual life that are essential aspects of Christian peacemaking: love of enemies; prayer for enemies; doing good to en­emies; turning the other cheek; offering forgiveness; breaking down walls of division; and resisting evil in ways which may lead one’s en­emies toward conversion.

A Study on Modern Evolutionary Anthropology

"Also for Adam and his wife the Lord God made tunics of skin, and clothed them”:
The experience of biblical theological analysis of the realities of modern evolutionary anthropology
http://www.bogoslov.ru/en/text/2580297.html

Father Oleg Mumrikov (Doctor of Theology, lecturer at St Tikhon’s Orthodox Humanities University, teacher at the Moscow Theological Academy), asks a rather important question for the field of theology in a report presented during the session "On the Origin of the World and of Man" at the Moscow Theological Academy 20th International Educational Christmas Readings on 24 January 2012: how should one understand the array of facts, supporting evolutionary anthropogenesis, which have been gathered in anthropology?

What is meant by a Living Liturgical Tradition?

"In the East the alternative to an imposed legalism and rubricism is not anarchic individualism but spontaneous fidelity to the common tradition. Take for example the Byzantine rite. Except for some synodal decrees and a few novellae of Justinian, there is no corpus of liturgical law obligatory in the Byzantine Churches. Incredible as it may seem, this most splendid, complex, highly ceremonialized worship in the whole of Christendom has evolved and maintained itself for the most part in a natural way, without the need of formal law. This is precisely what we mean by a living liturgical tradition."

+ Fr Robert F. Taft, "Beyond East and West: Problems in Liturgical Understanding." 2nd Rev. Ed. (Rome: Pontifical Oriental Institute Press, 2001) 149

Created in Love

"What profundity of richness, what mind and exalted wisdom is God’s. What compassionate kindness and abundant goodness belongs to the Creator! With what purpose and with what love did He create this world and bring it into existence! What a mystery does the coming into being of this creation look towards! To what a state is our common nature invited! What love served to initiate the creation of the world! This same love which initiated the act of creation prepared beforehand by another dispensation the things appropriate to adorn the world’s majesty which sprung forth as a result of the might of His love.

In love did He bring the world into existence; in love does He guide it during this its temporal existence; in love is He going to bring it to that wondrous transformed state, and in love will the world be swallowed up in the great mystery of Him who has performed all things; in love will the whole course of the governance of creation be finally comprised. And since in the New World the Creator’s love rules over all rational nature, the wonder at His mysteries that will be revealed then will captive to itself the intellect of all rational beings whom He has created so that they might have delight in Him, whether they be evil or whether they be just. With this design did He bring them into existence, even though they among themselves have made, after their coming into being, this distinction between the just and the wicked. Even though this is so, nevertheless in the Creator’s design there is none, from among all who were created and who have come into being—that is, every rational nature—who is to the front or to the back of God’s love. Rather, He has a single equal love which covers the whole extent of rational creation, all things whether visible or invisible: there is no first place or last place with Him in this love for any single one of them, as I have said.

And just as there is not a single nature who is in the first place or last place in creation in the Creator’s knowledge—I refer here to this knowledge which was set in His purpose eternally, that He would bring them into being: it was not the case of His knowing one before or after another, but all of them equally without any before or after, in a twinkling of an eye—similarly there is no before or after in His love towards them: no greater or lesser amount of love is to be found with Him at all. 

Rather, just like the continual equality of His knowledge, so too is the continual equality of His love; for He knew them all before they ever became just or sinners. The Creator and His love did not change because they underwent change after He had brought them into being, nor does His purpose which exists eternally change. And if it were otherwise, He would be subject to change just as created beings are—a shocking idea.

My brethren, if there is anyone to whom these things are difficult to believe, he should be careful lest, by running away from one element in the argument he fall into blasphemy at another: imagining that he is spurning the words of a fellow human being, he may find himself arming himself against what concerns the divine Nature, being forced by the logic of his case to reduce the glorious Nature of his Creator to weakness and change.

But we know that everyone is agreed on this, that there is no change, or any earlier and later intentions, with the Creator: there is no hatred or resentment in His nature, no greater or lesser place in His love, no before or after in His knowledge. For if it is believed by everyone that the creation came into existence as a result of the Creator’s goodness and love, then we know that this original cause does not ever diminish or change in the Creator’s nature as a result of the disordered course of creation."

+ St Isaac the Syrian, The Second Part, Chapter 38.