Lorica

What are you going to do? You- no one else, you what will YOU do? Will you become a human being? Will you turn yourself toward the light of your being and fulfill that deep hunger and longing to be the fullness of what you were given in your creation?

Our Lords passion, his suffering and sorrow is his embrace of us in our grief- and thus his embrace of our grief- this is His love for us. He first love us in this way so that we might be able to Love Him in the same way. He enters our grief so that we might enter Gethsemane and pray with Him, so that we might stand at the foot of the cross and die with him, this is how we will also live with him. When we embrace his grief and passion then we will be lifted up on high and know the joy of His immortality.

Mary is not a doctrine to be figured out or explicated. She is not a conundrum, she is not a concept or abstract philosophical theory to resolve. The Blessed Mary is the Woman who bore the God Man, she is His Mother, she is our Mother- she is a person- She is a person we can know, you don’t solve a person, you know and love a person.

Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

God’s Almighty power is displayed chiefly in showing mercy and pity. The power of God which transforms all, which brings something out of nothing, which brings the world into existence and your little life into existence, which creates light out of darkness, which brings beauty and goodness out of your own darkness, your own ugliness and sin, which goes into death and thru His embrace of our suffering and death subjecting himself to it he overcomes it’s power and destroys it, all of this is accomplished not by a sheer overwhelming force of raw power, a simple strength which is stronger than the one opposing Him, no his power is Love, is humility, is his own sacrifice for us. His power is shown chiefly in His mercy and pity for us.

The God of the Old Testament is the Same God who hangs upon the Cross. We were made for Him and He comes to claim us for Himself and to give us everything He has for our own enjoyment but He is fire and light and the darkness has no fellowship with the light and that is absolute and cannot be otherwise. We are in great danger when we dispense with all fear and trembling in the Christian life. How many have adopted a presumptuous devil may care attitude and perished along with it. The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom.

Asterius 4th Century "When, therefore, any one anticipating his end and his removal to the next world, lightens the burden of his sins by good deeds, either by canceling the obligations of debtors, or by supplying the poor with abundance, by giving what belongs to the Lord, he gains many friends, who will attest his goodness before the Judge, and secure him by their testimony a place of happiness."

Late have I loved Thee, 0 Beauty so ancient and so new; late have I loved Thee! For behold Thou wert within me, and I outside; and I sought Thee outside and in my unloveliness fell upon those lovely things that Thou hast made. Thou wert with me and I was not with Thee. I was kept from Thee by those things, yet had they not been in Thee, they would not have been at all. Thou didst call and cry to me and break open my deafness: and Thou didst send forth Thy beams and shine upon me and chase away my blindness: Thou didst breathe fragrance upon me, and I drew in my breath and do now pant for Thee: I tasted Thee, and now hunger and thirst for Thee: Thou didst touch me, and I have burned for Thy peace. Saint Augustine "Confessions" Episode Notes Notes go here

If Orthodox Christians seek to practice true religion then we must recognize the inherent danger of becoming Pharisaical. Of keeping the rules without paying attention to the inner disposition. We believe that we are to become holy, not just on paper but really holy, that is a dangerous belief, but we must believe it despite the risk. In the Old they were commanded to walk but they had no legs, in the New we are commanded to fly but now we have wings. Episode Notes Notes go here

When God created us He did not create us in motionless static position and then say chose what direction you will go. When man comes into being he is thrown into being, our coming into being is a kinetic event in which God hurls us into existence in a very specific direction. He did not throw us down like a rock in the mud. He throws us toward our beautiful and holy purpose of sharing in His fullness of being. And as long as we are ascending unimpeded in this God induced directional movement there is bliss, it is all peaceful and light, everything is beautiful and keeps getting more and more beautiful the further we progress. # Episode Notes Notes go here

Episode Notes We often feel like we need to do God’s job for him. That’s a heavy weight to bear, being God - Judge and Jury of the cosmos. A weight we were not designed for. A weight that will crush us if we are not careful. It is a heavy burden holding everyone to account, it is a light yoke to forgive and show mercy to feel empathy for the sinner who is suffering under the weight of their own sin. This is much better than being a critical judge who is eaten up with anger and bitterness which will lead to our own destruction.

I assure you there is fire in that chalice, divine fire, the very blood of God who was made Man. There are angels all around this altar standing in awe at the great miracle. That the Glorified Crucified Lord of Heaven and Earth is with us not just Spiritually but bodily and we take him into ourselves, we eat his flesh and drink his blood and we do not even realize what we do but with some measure of fear and trepidation and joy we do it in faith.

The enemy offers a faux power, it is a power which destroys and tears down and leads to emptiness and annihilation. The power of the Spirit creates and builds up and makes something out of nothing. You have received the Eternal Spirit as your friend and comforter he who hovered over the waters in the beginning and formed the structures and order of the cosmos is in you in the most intimate way. Do you not think He is capable of ordering your life? Of making something beautiful? Is your sin and dysfunction so great that the One who set the boundaries of the seas cannot make something of your life?

Not only priest and victim He is also King and Ruler of all. And all of this as God made Man, as your elder brother as your new and true Father-Adam in whom your humanity is ransomed, crowned, and fulfilled.

How important is faith? Without it you cannot be pleasing to God. Faith is what compels you to go search for God because you believe that He exists and that He will reward you with delectable delights if you chase Him down and catch Him.

Jesus endured His cross was glorified, made immortal and went home to majesty while we remain in the polluted world that killed him and wants to kill us. This could be taken as a negative but Jesus says it is for our good and to our advantage that He go away so that He might send another comforter who will not only be with us but in us and be the instrument that will enable us to follow Jesus thru the cross into resurrection-immortality-eternal glory-union with God.

Your potential for Joy or despair depends on one thing and that is how close you are to Jesus. He has made Himself known to us in various ways, there is a way, a door, to Him if we avail ourselves. But we must also realize that there is an insidious enemy which seeks to prevent us from passing thru that door, this enemy above all else wants to keep us from being close to Jesus.

“You were sheep gone astray but now are returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.” The image of shepherd and sheep is a life defining metaphor for St. Peter. As he writes the words no doubt St. Peter has in mind his encounter with the Risen Christ some 30 years earlier. It was an early morning on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, an encounter St. Peter would never forget.

Easter I, 2019

Good Friday 2019

Maundy Thursday 2019

Holy Wednesday 2019

Jesus: “Now is the Judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out…” And just a few moments later: Jesus: “And if anyone hears My words and does not believe, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.” So which is it? Jesus came to die and His death is the judgment of the world and yet he says he did not come to judge the world.

Palm Sunday 2019

Those who believed in Him try to stone Him. Passion Sunday 2019

Lent IV 2019

Feast of the Annunciation 2019

The purpose of the remembering through ashes is not for morbidity sake. But rather as a means to return to God in humility, repentance and purity of heart. The sacramental and willing embrace of the ashes are an embrace of God’s just sentence upon man and at the same time a plea for His mercy and the power to be redeemed.

Qinquagesima 2019

Sexagesima 2019

Septuagesima 2019

Epiphany IV - Jesus sleeping in a storm tossed boat is a picture of Christian Maturity. Jesus does not hold your hand while you drown, he does not comfort you and say perish in peace, He destroys your enemies and delivers you from the storm.

If you're looking for Jesus, He's in the temple.

Epiphany III - God Marveled at the Roman Soldier's faith.

The Woman intercedes with her Son...

For the Feast of the Holy Innocents: "Never, in fact, would that impious tyrant have been able to benefit these children by the sweetest kindness as much as he has done by his hatred." -St. Augustine

God has prepared you an eight course banquet. Don't settle for one or two courses.

His manifestation in the flesh becomes a cloak. He takes a perceptible form and in so doing becomes to many imperceptible.

He made Himself small for us, and we still know him as the Holy Infant.

What is it about Mary that attracts God's favor?

The forerunner cleanses with water that we might receive the Spirit from the Lord.

John the Baptist: a monumental example of having faith.

We cannot conceive of Jesus without Mary. On the conception of Mary...

Adam, full of guilt and shame hid from God. But we having been washed from an evil conscience should be ready to meet Him. Maranatha, come Lord Jesus.

The World is passing away: do not go back for your things, but flee to the Mountain.

...The secrets of heaven.

True and holy love for self is a gratitude for what God has made...

Christ the King Sunday

How do we clothe ourselves with Christ? Get a job.