In December of 1849, the Russian author, Fyodor Dostoevsky, stood waiting his turn for execution, having been found guilty of plotting against the Russian Tsar. At the last minute, under instructions from the Tsar, the sentence was commuted from death, to four years in a Siberian prison. Later that day, […]

It is a common definition that the emotion of shame is about “who I am.” It centers in feelings of exposure, unworthiness, and damaged identity. Guilt, they say, is about “what I have done.” There are ways to deal with guilt – but shame, if it is actually a matter […]

Modernity is an inherently religious project. It is highly “secular” only in a very refined meaning of the term. This is only one of many inner contradictions within the modern project. It is thoroughly committed to the creation of a better world, while holding to philosophies that would deny the ability to actually define “better.”

How does Christ save us in terms of being? In essence (no pun intended), He became what we were in order to make us what He is. He became man, entering and restoring the full communion which we had broken. The Lord and Giver of Life, the Author of our Being entered into dying humanity.

There is a patience and a humility that comes in a traditioned existence. It assumes that age and experience hold the possibility of wisdom, and that the wisdom of earlier generations is a treasure. Just as our DNA is a treasure, representing countless generations of survivors, whose inherited immunity makes life possible.

If we want to pray, then we will have to live as though we are praying. We cannot live in the abstract and suddenly attend to the real. We cannot “care” and then turn to love. “To live” is an active verb. The passions of mass experience are something else.

The soul is a difficult thing to speak (or write) about. First, the word is used so commonly and widely that its true meaning becomes obscured. Second, the soul is largely unknown to each of us, despite its primary importance. So, I will begin by giving its simple meaning: the […]

For a long time now, we have been facing tough civilizational changes in a modern world where traditional universal values are increasingly being rejected. There is a growing divide between Christian evangelism and the ideological paradigm in which modern humanity is developing.

The myrrh-bearing women are an image of the Church. Taken together they reveal the broad catholicity of the Church, for they were a diverse lot, and included both the conventional married woman, Mary the mother of Joses, and the highly unconventional Mary Magdalene. They also reveal the primacy of devotion […]

“Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe.” These words of Christ, spoken to Thomas and recorded in John 20:29, have often been misunderstood. Some suggest that Christ was offering a blessing to those who believe in Him without any evidence at all, who accept Him on blind […]

Among the most uncomfortable feelings is that of “not belonging.” It is one of the forms of shame, for, when we do not belong or are “out of place,” we feel exposed and inherently vulnerable. It is not a feeling that we sustain for any length of time without engaging […]

Now we are going home, our faces radiant with Pascha, the faces of those who have heard the blast of the Jubilee trumpet. Let that trumpet sound in the ears of the weary world, loud enough to wake the dead: Christ is risen!