A Community of Love

Catechumens: Where any two of us are gathered together in the Name of Christ, there is Christ in our midst. Therefore one of us speaks: “Christ is born.” and another responds: “Glorify Him.” One of us says “Christ is in our midst.” and another answers “He is and ever [...]

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Comfort

Catechumens: I said to the world: “My love, how I long for you. I know what the world is for. Entertain me. Comfort me. Satisfy me. Fill me. Be my reason for being. Do not be hard or difficult. Do not try my patience. Give me what I want [...]

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Doppleganger

Catechumens: I have an evil twin. It is the self that is pious with the pious but disregards the truth in private. It is the me that speaks one way with the saintly, and another with those who do not see God. I am the man who embraces my [...]

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Excess

Catechumens: It is difficult to write of excess in a culture in which we slather our foods with gravy and sauces and oils and sugars. Everything must be seasoned and coated and drowned in stimulation and titillation. It is folly to write of it while smoking like a coal [...]

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Life Behind the Veil

Catechumens: I want to say that it is difficult to live in the ever-present awareness of God’s world. The real world, rather than the veil that is pulled over my eyes – “the frail shadows of elusive dreams”. But then I think of what that world is, and how [...]

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Christ: One person, two wills, two natures

Against Monotheletism & Monophysitism, these quotations:
“He being one Son, dual in Nature, not dual in Person. Wherefore, do we confess, preaching the truth that Christ our God is perfect God and perfect Man.” — (Troparion of the Resurrection on the Feast of the Holy Forefathers).
O faithful, let us acclaim the lover of the Trinity, great [...]

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Desertions

Catechumens: The reasons people give for deserting the Faith seem most often to fall into one of three categories: distortions of reality (misrepresentation), non sequitur (irrelevancy), and transferring blame to others (passing the buck). How often have I done this, deserting the Faith in my heart, mind, [...]

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Now we are in darkness

We are in darkness, now, until God becomes man. We look now, in this Little Lent, toward our Winter Pascha, toward the Nativity of God, when God became man to bring man to God. Let us prepare ourselves, fasting from food and from every passion. Let us meditate [...]

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