468. Doubting Thomas? Part One: Seeking Truth

Christ is risen! Truly He is risen! Forgive me. This Post is three days late. Just wait till you’re 85 and stay at the Paschal Meal at church till 4:30 in the morning. It was wonderful, and I spent all last  week recovering. This Post has already grown rather long. Therefore I’m splitting into two […]

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449. The Fifth Sunday of Lent: Saint Mary of Egypt – Penitence

I love this story. In the late Fourth Century monks from the Monastery of Saint Savas (Mar Sabas) * down below Jerusalem in the West Bank, spent Lent alone in the desert. A priest-monk Zosimas, walking alone one day on the Jordanian side of the river, to his surprise saw someone ahead of him. He […]

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444. Forgive. Forgive. Forgive. Forgive. Forgive. Forgive. Forgive.

In today’s Post I am plagiarizing myself. I’ve written so many Posts that often I can’t remember them. I had a vague memory of writing long ago about forgiveness, so I looked back and, sure enough: Post 55. It was like reading someone else’s writing. I thought some of it (forgive my pride) was really […]

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443. “In the Heart of the Desert” by Dr John Chryssavgis

This Post contains small portions from the excellent book In the Heart of the Desert: The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, published here with the generous permission of the author, the Rev. Dr. John Chryssavgis, Archdeacon of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. I think it’s appropriate reading as we near our annual passage through Great […]

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441. Papa-Nicholas of Athens – Part Two

Last week we began to tell the story of this humble, quiet, unobtrusive, remarkable parish priest – this Saint of the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth centuries. As I began, I feared there wouldn’t be enough to say about him to fill a Post – and to my surprise here we are in Part Two. […]

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