Our Lords passion, his suffering and sorrow is his embrace of us in our grief- and thus his embrace of our grief- this is His love for us. He first love us in this way so that we might be able to Love Him in the same way. He enters our grief so that we might enter Gethsemane and pray with Him, so that we might stand at the foot of the cross and die with him, this is how we will also live with him. When we embrace his grief and passion then we will be lifted up on high and know the joy of His immortality.

Mary is not a doctrine to be figured out or explicated. She is not a conundrum, she is not a concept or abstract philosophical theory to resolve. The Blessed Mary is the Woman who bore the God Man, she is His Mother, she is our Mother- she is a person- She is a person we can know, you don’t solve a person, you know and love a person.

Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

God’s Almighty power is displayed chiefly in showing mercy and pity. The power of God which transforms all, which brings something out of nothing, which brings the world into existence and your little life into existence, which creates light out of darkness, which brings beauty and goodness out of your own darkness, your own ugliness and sin, which goes into death and thru His embrace of our suffering and death subjecting himself to it he overcomes it’s power and destroys it, all of this is accomplished not by a sheer overwhelming force of raw power, a simple strength which is stronger than the one opposing Him, no his power is Love, is humility, is his own sacrifice for us. His power is shown chiefly in His mercy and pity for us.

The God of the Old Testament is the Same God who hangs upon the Cross. We were made for Him and He comes to claim us for Himself and to give us everything He has for our own enjoyment but He is fire and light and the darkness has no fellowship with the light and that is absolute and cannot be otherwise. We are in great danger when we dispense with all fear and trembling in the Christian life. How many have adopted a presumptuous devil may care attitude and perished along with it. The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom.

Asterius 4th Century "When, therefore, any one anticipating his end and his removal to the next world, lightens the burden of his sins by good deeds, either by canceling the obligations of debtors, or by supplying the poor with abundance, by giving what belongs to the Lord, he gains many friends, who will attest his goodness before the Judge, and secure him by their testimony a place of happiness."

Late have I loved Thee, 0 Beauty so ancient and so new; late have I loved Thee! For behold Thou wert within me, and I outside; and I sought Thee outside and in my unloveliness fell upon those lovely things that Thou hast made. Thou wert with me and I was not with Thee. I was kept from Thee by those things, yet had they not been in Thee, they would not have been at all. Thou didst call and cry to me and break open my deafness: and Thou didst send forth Thy beams and shine upon me and chase away my blindness: Thou didst breathe fragrance upon me, and I drew in my breath and do now pant for Thee: I tasted Thee, and now hunger and thirst for Thee: Thou didst touch me, and I have burned for Thy peace. Saint Augustine "Confessions"

Episode Notes

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If Orthodox Christians seek to practice true religion then we must recognize the inherent danger of becoming Pharisaical. Of keeping the rules without paying attention to the inner disposition. We believe that we are to become holy, not just on paper but really holy, that is a dangerous belief, but we must believe it despite the risk.

In the Old they were commanded to walk but they had no legs, in the New we are commanded to fly but now we have wings.

Episode Notes

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When God created us He did not create us in motionless static position and then say chose what direction you will go. When man comes into being he is thrown into being, our coming into being is a kinetic event in which God hurls us into existence in a very specific direction. He did not throw us down like a rock in the mud. He throws us toward our beautiful and holy purpose of sharing in His fullness of being. And as long as we are ascending unimpeded in this God induced directional movement there is bliss, it is all peaceful and light, everything is beautiful and keeps getting more and more beautiful the further we progress. # Episode Notes

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Episode Notes

We often feel like we need to do God’s job for him. That’s a heavy weight to bear, being God - Judge and Jury of the cosmos. A weight we were not designed for. A weight that will crush us if we are not careful. It is a heavy burden holding everyone to account, it is a light yoke to forgive and show mercy to feel empathy for the sinner who is suffering under the weight of their own sin. This is much better than being a critical judge who is eaten up with anger and bitterness which will lead to our own destruction.