Jesus, was asked what should be done concerning a woman caught in adultery. Those who asked him said that the law indicated she must be put to death (cf. Lev. 20:10). The law, they believed, promoted the death penalty and to execute the law then required the woman’s death. What, then, would Jesus suggest? Would he agree to stoning the woman? No, because Jesus understood things differently: Early in the morning he came again to the temple; all the people... Read more
“Working together with him,” St. Paul writes, “then, we entreat you not to accept the grace of God in vain” (2 Cor. 6:1 RSV). What does it mean to accept God’s grace in vain? How is it possible for us to do so? Doesn’t grace perfect nature? Doesn’t accepting it transform us and save us? Yes, but only insofar as we work with or cooperate with it, that is, only if we take what has been given to us in... Read more
The Dormition of Mary, the “going to sleep” or death of Mary, and her subsequent assumption into heaven, is an important event in human history. It demonstrates to us what can be accomplished in and for us if we, like Mary, are open to Christ’s deifying grace in our lives. The teaching of the Dormition in the Christian East is the teaching that Mary died, and it is only in and through that death she joined in with the death... Read more
St. Maximos the Confessor’s complex theology engages many concerns, from the cosmic significance of Christ’s work, to the nature and modality of the will. His concern with the will, and how we will, is found throughout his writings. However, it became far more important and significant for him when he realized the Christological aspects involved with the question of the will. Christ, being fully God and fully man, has a human will, even as he has a divine will. How,... Read more
COVID19 has shown us the broken nature of contemporary American society. Not only do many Americans deny the reality of the pandemic, they deny their social responsibility, making the pandemic worse than it should have been. Those societies in which social responsibility is appreciated, people are more willing to be inconvenienced for the good of the whole, which they know, in the long run, will make their own particular situation better. For a single stick is easily broken, but the... Read more
Jesus was greeted by a man whose son suffered from epileptic seizures which often caused the boy to hurt himself. Jesus’ disciples were not able to heal him. Only Jesus was capable of doing so: And when they came to the crowd, a man came up to him and kneeling before him said, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and he suffers terribly; for often he falls into the fire, and often into the water.... Read more
“Say to them, As I live, says the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways; for why will you die, O house of Israel?” (Ezek. 33:11 RSV). God tells us, he does not desire death. He is, after all, the God of life. In the incarnation, we see the significance of this: God not only gives us... Read more
When heading the promises of sin, humans like to empower themselves, not for the sake of the common good, but for what they can get from other. That is, sin tells them to empower themselves so that they can dominate and control others. Since it does not know how to create, that is, create ex nihilo, sinful humanity likes to express its power in its ability to destroy, that is, engaging the power for the sake of negation, trying to... Read more
When St. Maximos was taken to trial, one of the accusations made against him was that he was an Origenist, an accusation which he absolutely denied: When they had been dismissed to their prison, Menas went to the old man and said in the presence of the officials, “God has struck you and brought you here in order for you to receive whatever you did to others, leading everyone into the doctrines of Origen.” To him the servant of God... Read more
God gives us freedom, and with that freedom, we can (and should) choose to work with God in building up the world, making it better. Where injustice resides, we should work for justice. Where charity is lacking, we must strive for charity. When we do this, we follow after Jesus, who, in the incarnation, gave himself completely to us in his love so that he could build up the world with that love, restoring to it the justice it had... Read more
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