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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442. The Parable of the penitent Prodigal Son and the forgiving Father and the stupid Elder Brother, in three Scenarios

The word in New Testament Greek is άσωτος/asotos, “dissipated, debauched, dissolute”. The old English word for this was “prodigal”. This guy who has wasted his life on nothing, worse than nothing, thrown away his family inheritance on pig’s slop: What kind of fuzzy-minded liberal would forgive somebody like that? I still remember my granddad feeding […]

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440. Do you know this remarkable modern Saint? Papa-Nicholas of Athens – Part One

Old age mind fog has caught up with me. Here it is only mid-February, and I have prepared a Post for a saint whose feast day is not till March 2, Ah well, we’ll certainly be prepared for it. Saint Nicholas Planas Introduction I love that in our Orthodox churches we have icons in all […]

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427. Saint John the Merciful, Patriarch of Alexandria

“But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil. Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.” Luke 6:35-36 “Blessed are the merciful, for they will […]

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424. Evil Spirits

“boo” Only a little tiny “boo…“? from something that looks as scary that? Really? Well, that’s what the Orthodox Troparion/Apolytikion for martyrs tells us. Please take note of the portions in italics. From the Greek Archdiocese: “For since they possessed Thy strength, they cast down the tyrants and wholly destroyed the demons’ strengthless presumption.“ From […]

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