I‘m a little late in getting this posted but, for the record and your edification, here are a couple pics of Bishop THOMAS at St George on the Sunday of the Cross — with a link to his sermon, below. His Grace likes to preach from the Solea. Trouble is, there’s no microphone there — which wasn’t a problem for those in attendance, but the recording reflects a certain chamber echo. [Click here for the Sayidna’s sermon on the Sunday... Read more

Much like you have introverts and extroverts, a friend of mine once theorized that there were Purple People and White People; that is, tipping his hat to the colors of the liturgical seasons, there were Lenten Christians and Paschal Christians. Some folks really, really get into LENT. As a layman, I was one of those: I was Purple. My sojourn as a Purple Person continued for about the first 10 years of my priesthood. I have come to the conclusion,... Read more

Forty-eight times a day Every now and then, I check the book stats on Amazon. Imagine my surprise when, yesterday, I found that my new book’s cover had been replaced by the cover for Fr Peter Gillquist’s 25th Anniversary Edition of Becoming Orthodox. I couldn’t decide if this should all translate to: We Came, We Saw, We Covered or We Came, We Saw, We Recovered We’ve put in for the fix but, at last check, it’s still wonky. It must... Read more

From the seminary website: This year’s annual public Lenten retreat at St Vladimir’s Seminary will be “Southern Style” as we welcome Fr Joseph Huneycutt, author of the popular blog Orthodixie. Fr Joseph’s topic for this year’s retreat, to be held Saturday, March 20, 2010, is Paschal Fire from Spiritual Ashes. Known for combining wit with wisdom, and satire with sobriety, Fr Joseph has authored several books reflecting his journey to and through the Orthodox Christian faith, including: We Came, We... Read more

Winter in these parts has been, by Texas standards, pretty brutal this year. But, as I told Gerontissa Paraskevi: “The weather is always beautiful when I come here.” “You should come more often,” she replied. Today I had the blessing of taking Bishop THOMAS of the Diocese of Charleston, Oakland, and the Mid-Atlantic (Antiochian Archdiocese) to the women’s Monastery of St Paraskevi, Washington, Texas. We also brought along St George parishioner, George Katrib. Gerontissa gave us a tour of the... Read more

Steve at Pithless Thoughts continues to draw his your my life. (Make sure to scroll down his blog, click Older Posts, for more.) Read more

With all the fanfare surrounding the return of Jay Leno to The Tonight Show – and earlier, the drama around hosts and ratings, I was remembering my own visit to The Tonight Show, as a member of the studio audience, back when Johnny Carson was host. This would have been many moons ago, in the summer of 1982 … I was a college kid selling Cable TV in Southern California – and a coworker’s mom just happened to be on... Read more

Was thinking about this list the other day … could only come up with five. Suggestions welcomed in the comments. 10) The devil looks a whole lot like that Burger King guy. 9) You start thinking, “I hate everyone – is that a sin?” 8) It’s really, really … windy. 7) You wonder if reading ingredient labels counts as spiritual reading. 6) Greek, Russian or Arabic? Nope – but, during the Fast, your CHINESE improves greatly! Image Source Read more

The following quote, the words of Mother Mary and Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, comes from Fr Josiah Trenham’s site, The Arena. “The primary aim of fasting is to make us conscious of our dependence upon God. If practiced seriously, the Lenten abstinence from food- particularly in the opening days- involves a considerable measure of real hunger, and also a feeling of tiredness and physical exhaustion. The purpose of this is to lead us in turn to a sense of inward brokenness... Read more

The following two snippets, the words of Mother Mary and Metropolitan (then Archimandrite) Kallistos Ware, come from Fr Josiah Trenham’s site, The Arena. The Meaning of the Great Fast: How the West Changed the Fast “The second tendency [viewing the fasting rules as outdated] is doubtless the more prevalent in our own day, especially in the West. Until the fourteenth century, most Western Christians, in common with their brethren in the Orthodox East, abstained during Lent not only from meat... Read more