To Touch God's Body
He bound two nails together to make a cross for his altar. He used a piece of string for a stole, and a bucket for a chalice. Each starving prisoner hid a crumb of bread and gave it to Elder Arsenie to be consecrated. In this way, the Orthodox saint offered up daily Mass during his imprisonment. Each time the soldiers caught him, they locked him in a freezer. One, two, or three days passed, they released him, he went back to praying Mass, they locked him in the freezer again,
Smashing Our Idols
“Smash the television set, turn out the lights, build a fire in the fireplace, move the family into the living room, put a pot on to boil some tea and toddy and have an experiment in merriment…The hearth, like good soil, does its work invisibly, in secret, and slowly. After a long time beneath the earth of a quiet family life, green shoots of vigorous poverty appear; you have become, in a small way, poor” (John Senior). Simplicity and Focus. So many of our problems today stem
Becoming Soil: Reflections on Prayer
Today's homily is a reflection on becoming like soil. "Earth doesn't have anything of its own. It offers nothing. Earth is the great receiver of everything...Earth is nothing on its own. Earth receives." Our soul and attitude must become like earth, receiving without protest what God gives us, and responding in a state of contemplation and gratitude.
The Church in an Era of Isolation
“We need each one of us and the help of one another more than one hand needs the other” (St. Basil the Great). Christian faith is as social as it is internal. The minute faith becomes private, it has stopped being Christian. We are here to love God and love our neighbor, simultaneously, and it always starts in parish life. A lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” It is a good question. “How are we supposed to live?” Christ returns wi