The Lord, before His incarnation, let mankind experience all the bitterness of sin, all their powerlessness to eradicate it; and when all longed for a Deliverer, then He appeared — the most wise, all-powerful Physician and Helper. When men hungered and thirsted after righteousness as it grew weaker, then the Everlasting Righteousness came.
– St. John […]

It’s two days after Christmas now, and the all-Christmas-all-the-time radio stations have all gone back to playing the usual dreck. Have you ever noticed that the world’s interest in the “holiday season” abruptly cuts out once the possibility for shopping is over? What a world.
And what a pity! Because the Advent season is over and […]

Ugh. Wouldn’t you know it? This is what it takes for Orthodox to show up in the news (via Drudge Report):
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Priests brawl at Bethlehem birthplace of Jesus
Seven people were injured on Thursday when Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests came to blows in a dispute over how to clean the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.
Following […]

Via Drudge Report, some news you’re not likely to read in the Old Media (who still doesn’t get religion):
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Iraqis Crowd Churches for Christmas Mass
BAGHDAD (AP) - Thousands of Iraqi Christians made their way to church through checkpoints and streets lined with blast walls, many drawing hope from a lull in violence to celebrate Christmas […]

I had a need to go through a folder of occasional prayers that I keep on the computer, and I saw one called “Advent.” I really don’t know where it came from, but it seemed a very good thought for us all on Christmas Eve:
Let not our souls be busy inns that have no room […]

Nasty weather we’re having — again. That’s okay. The forecasts tell us this dump of sleety snow is just a passing fancy. Enough to keep us house-bound for the day, but then thank goodness, I had wound up all the gift-giving errands that would’ve taken me out of the house. The last out-going packages are […]

How will it be with us in the future life, when everything that has gratified us in this world: riches, honors, food and drink, dress, beautifully furnished dwellings, and all attractive objects — how will it be, I say, when all these things leave us — when they will all seem to us a dream […]

Our weather made a few headlines, and a friend of ours from California called up to say, “What in the world is an ice storm?”
Well, the shortest answer is that it’s something that everyone would be better off without.
It made our backyard look like this:

And the thing to notice is that the twig at the […]

“Daily Lives” had an interesting commemoration for today that wasn’t on the OCA Website: it’s the consecration of the Church of the Resurrection in the Holy City:
Emperor Constantine and his mother Helen built this church and had it consecrated in the year 336. However, the Persians set fire to it and destroyed it in 614. […]

Father Anthony Bloom makes a case in an essay in “God and Man” that our approach to God when we come in prayer can be part wonder and part despair. The despair he has in mind obviously isn’t what is often called ‘faintheartedness’ by the Church Fathers — that dissolution of our mind and spirit […]