Do We “Go to Be with Jesus” or Not?
Growing up, I gained a lot of experience with death, or at least, with funerals; my mother took me to every funeral we had in our church. Also, when I was not yet two years old, my younger brother died prematurely, only hours after his birth. I remember many times in my elementary school years: […]
Service for St. Tikhon of Moscow
We celebrate the glorification of our beloved father Tikhon tomorrow, who did much to establish and organize the Church in America, but also guided the Russian Church through some of the most tumultuous times in its history, the Russian Revolution. It is likely too late for this to be of help to anybody for this […]
Losing Our Lives for Christ in Our Hardships
For the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, the Church both prepares us for the feast with a special reading the Sunday before, and also, today, sends us off from the feast with a special reading the Sunday after. This past Sunday’s gospel reading, for the Sunday after the feast of the Cross, is […]
Going the “Extra Mile” in Forgiveness
The Gospel passage mentioned in the last post said, …if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. But, going the “extra mile” in forgiveness, in his first epistle, St. Peter says:Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. And James echoes this same idea of “covering” the […]
We Determine How Strictly We Are Judged
So much of our society trains us to focus on ourselves, on our rights, and to judge others as respecters or offenders of those rights. This past weekend, in Bend, some alleged social media posts from the shooter who took the life of two innocents revealed this to the extreme. Remembering wrongs others commit against […]