While St. Patrick did not drive out snakes from Ireland, the legend suggesting he did is sometimes understood as a metaphor to the way he spread the Christian faith. Thus, some say it means that he came to Ireland and enlightened it with the light of Christ, casting out the dark shadows of sin and the spiritual ignorance of Ireland’s druidic past. This interpretation is problematic because Patrick did not eliminate the pre-Christian faith from Ireland. When he died, major... Read more
Now the flaming sword no longer guards the gates of Eden; It has mysteriously been quenched by the wood of the Cross! The sting of death and the victory of hell have been vanquished; For You, O my Savior, have come and cried to those in hell:  “Enter again into paradise” –Kontakion for the Veneration of the Holy Cross On the Byzantine Calendar, the third Sunday of Lent is that of the Veneration of the Holy Cross. The cross is... Read more
In early Christian times, the period of the Great Fast, that is, Lent, a time of penance and almsgiving, was also a time in which the Divine Liturgy, Mass, was not celebrated. Rather, pre-Christian times were remembered, and the Great Fast itself was seen as participating in and continuing the memory of the past. Whenever Christians met to worship (but not in a Mass setting), the readings were taken from the Tanakh instead of the New Testament. The historical preparation... Read more
Many, if not most people, have a very simple understanding of morality. They reduce everything to being black or white bad, or good, without any gradation. Something is either simply bad or good. A way this over-simplification of morality is achieved is by reducing everything to the objectivity, ignoring the subjective dimensions behind moral activity. Similarly, various categories used to discuss morality are often misunderstood. For example, many think the category of “intrinsic evil” means “the worst kind of sin.”... Read more
Self-control, that is, self-discipline, is a difficult thing to learn (especially when we live in an era which tells us to follow our desires without restraint).  And yet, learning such discipline is an important part of proper self-development. To become good at some particular skill requires an investment in time and effort where we put aside many of our wants and desires which would get in the way of acquiring the proficiencies which we desire for ourselves. Thus, for example,... Read more
The first Sunday of Lent, the Sunday of Orthodoxy, celebrated the triumph of icons, and in doing so affirmed the value of revelation. God truly has revealed himself to us. God became man and took on a form which we can see. Since we can see it, we can depict it. Now, the second Sunday of Lent, St. Gregory Palamas Sunday, gives us a continuation of this theme. In this way, we continue with our celebration of the triumph of... Read more
The Catholic Church has a reputation of being behind the times. While, in some ways, there is truth in that generalization, because the Catholic Church is often slow to deal with contemporary problems, it is an over-simplification of the Catholic Church’s legacy.  The Catholic Church has consistently promoted education and the integration of faith and reason. The Catholic Church has a history of engaging the sciences even as it has cautioned misapplication of those sciences in theories which do not... Read more
In their conflict with the Arians, those following the decrees of Nicea had to develop a sophisticated understanding of the incarnation in order to respond to Arian objections. For centuries, Christians used loose, if not ambiguous, theological explanations for the incarnation. This allowed subsequent generations to employ the same sources while holding differing conclusions. With the Arian crisis, this changed. While engaging the basic Christological outline which had been handed to them from previous generations, the Nicenes had to take... Read more
My confreres, our inheritance is the poor, the poor; pauperibus evangelizare misit me. What happiness, gentlemen, what happiness! To do that for which our Lord came from heaven to earth, and by means of which we too shall go from earth to heaven, to continue the work of God, who shunned cities and went to the countryside to seek the poor. – St. Vincent de Paul [1] Christians need to conform themselves to Christ. Certainly, they cannot do it alone.... Read more
The First Sunday of Lent in the Byzantine cycle is the Sunday of Orthodoxy. This was not always the case. It became associated with Lent because it celebrates the victory of the orthodox teaching on the use of icons against the iconoclasts. That victory occurred on March 11, 843, when a procession brought back icons into Hagia Sophia after a public declaration was made for their use in the first session of a Synod in Constantinople. That event took place... Read more
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