Beginning to Pray

Just finished listening to a series of podcasts covering Metropolitan Anthony's "Beginning to Pray". The first chapter is called "The Absence of God". Listen to this audio excerpt of the first in the series if you've ever felt that you were praying to a wall and wondered why God didn't seem to be responding.

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I recommend Deacon Michael Hyatt's "At the Intersection of East and West" podcasts. I would probably also recommend the book, except that I haven't picked it up yet! Will try to bring exact change to the church bookstore next week. :)

Who Wants to Live Forever

As a young physician caught up in the early years of the H.I.V. epidemic, I was struck by my patients’ will to live, even as their quality of life became miserable and when loved ones and caregivers would urge the patient to let go. I thought it remarkable that patients never asked me to help end their lives (and found it strange that Dr. Kevorkian managed to encounter so many who did). My patients were dying young and felt cheated out of their best years. They did not want immortality, just the chance to live the life span that their peers could expect. What de Grey and other immortalists seem to have lost sight of is that simply living a full life span is a laudable goal. Partial success in extending life might simply extend the years of infirmity and suffering — something that to some degree is already happening in the West.

Abraham Verghese

Forgetting wrongs

You will know that you have completely freed yourself of this rot [of remembering wrongs], not when you pray for the person who has offended you, not when you exchange presents with him ... but only when, on hearing that he has fallen into bodily or spiritual misfortune, you suffer and weep for him as for yourself.

St. John Climacus

Mud

Man is mud whom God has commanded to become god.

St. Gregory of Nyssa (via Fr. Stephen)

Faith

Is faith to be understood simply as a mental exercise, or is it somehow something more? [...]

When speaking of faith, we are describing a relational trust that is rooted in our participation in the life of God. St. Paul says that “faith works by love” (Gal. 5:6). Marriage, at its best and highest moments, can have something of this experience on a human level. The relationship is more than mental and emotional. It is physical and involves a union with the other than can only proceed from trust, freedom and love. It would not be wrong to describe such a relationship as faith. The Church asks husbands and wives to be faithful – which means far more than simply avoiding sex with other persons. It is little wonder that marriage is a common image used for the relationship between God and His Church.

Fr. Stephen

Praying when weak

I often tell people who say they are struggling with prayer to quit trying to pray like a Pharisee and learn to pray like a Publican. We often want to pray from strength – to approach God when we at least feel spiritually alive. The Publican refuses to lift his eyes to heaven. The contradiction of his life and the goodness of God are more than he can bear. And yet he prays. And, ironically, it is he who goes down to his house justified rather than the Pharisee.

Father Stephen

Reasons to not read the Bible

Reasons 4th century Christians gave for not reading the Bible, from St. John Chysostom via Presbytera Jeannie. From another podcast I've started listening to and highly recommend, Search the Scriptures.

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Be still

The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be still.

Exodus 14:14

Success

We are called upon not to be successful, but to be faithful.

Mother Teresa

Living and dying

To live as a Christian is impossible. As a Christian you can only die.

Elder Sophrony via Fr. Zacharias (24 MB MP3)