14 Μαΐου 2017

Cradle Orthodox You no doubt mean someone who is born into an Orthodox family and is baptized as an infant versus someone who converts to the Orthodox Faith from some other religion. As far as the Orthodox Church is concerned there is no difference. They are both members of the Holy Orthodox Faith and have the opportunity to grow toward Theosis and salvation through a Sacramental life of faith. Both of these individuals have positive and negative possibilities for their spiritual lives. On the positive side, a cradle Orthodox has the wonderful opportunity of growing in the Orthodox life and faith from their earliest years. They have the opportunity to partake in the Holy Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Christ ...

Christ has risen! The fifth Sunday after Easter and the Church presents us with the dialogue between the Lord and a Samaritan woman. This was a dialogue of real substance and a validity that will last throughout the ages, with a great deal to say to each of us. Christ goes to Samaria, to the town of Sychar, to the place where the patriarch Jacob had made a well: ‘And from the sons of Hamor, Shechem’s father, he bought for one hundred pieces of money the plot of land on which he had pitched his tent. There he erected an altar and called it El-Elohe-Israel ’. He later gave this piece of land to his son, Joseph. So when Jesus went and ...

Mother’s Day today and children all over the world take the opportunity to remember and honour their mother. There are also a good number of cynics who view the adoption of the ‘feast’ as a phenomenon of naked commercialization, while there are others who consider the sanctity of the role of the mother to be such that all the days of the year should be dedicated to them, rather than one being singled out specially. On its part, the Church presents Our Lady as the pre-eminent mother figure and discreetly suggests that the Feast of the Reception of Christ (Candlemas, February 2) might be the best day for the person of the mother to be honoured. In our tradition, we also come ...