Praying In The Rain
- Autor: Vários
- Narrador: Vários
- Editora: Podcast
- Duração: 50:30:21
- Mais informações
Informações:
Sinopse
Reflections on the Inner Life from Canada's Pacific Coast - Fr. Michael Gillis reflects on the inner life of Orthodox Christians. Drawing on the wisdom of both ancient and contemporary Church Fathers, Fr. Michael ponders the struggles, the ironies, and the disciplines of the spiritual life.
Episódios
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Abbot Chapman Prays in the Rain
16/11/2016 Duração: 15minSpiritual Letters is a collection of letters written in the early part of the twentieth century by a Roman Catholic priest—and I highly recommend it to English speaking Orthodox Christians who want to be encouraged in prayer.
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Being of One Mind: What It Is and Isn’t
18/10/2016 Duração: 16min"As Christians we are all called to be of one mind, but that one mind is not your mind or my mind or somebody else’s—no matter how holy or important that person is or how much authority he or she has. The one mind we are called to have is Christ’s."
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Admitting That We Hate
12/10/2016 Duração: 17min"Even if I feel I must oppose in some specific ways someone whose sin, for the sake of Christ, I cannot tolerate; still I must weep, weep as one who also is laden with sin—even if my own particular sins, at least the ones I recognize in myself, are not so socially repugnant."
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Concern Over God’s Judgement: What Does It Look Like?
27/09/2016 Duração: 17minConcern over God’s judgement has nothing to do with striving to be better. Concern over God’s judgement is to continually strive to enter God’s rest, to humble ourselves and feel sadness over our wretchedness, and to offer that wretchedness to God as prayer. This is what concern for God’s judgement looks like according to St. Isaac the Syrian.
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A Priest’s Rights
30/08/2016 Duração: 17minWhat should lay people do when they have a priest whose words or behaviour is unworthy of the grace of the priesthood? What should any person in authority do to better hear the voice of those under their care, especially when that voice is critical of them?
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Reforestation and the Healing of the Soul
09/08/2016 Duração: 17min"Most of us most of the time will be attending to the first stage of the spiritual struggle: the purification of our senses through ascetic discipline, the control of the passions and developing the habit of attention. But even as we are focused mostly on this first stage, it does not mean that, by God’s Grace, we might not also have small clumps, small glimpses of illumination here and there growing in the field of our soul also. And who knows, maybe with time and continued struggle, deep in the heart of one of those little groves, in the darkest, most undisturbed part, who knows maybe the seedling of a great cedar is taking root."
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Disappointment With Church Leaders
20/07/2016 Duração: 15minIt seems the future of the Church, the future of the next Great and Holy Council (or the continuation of the one that has already begun) depends mostly on us, the people: the moms and dads, the brothers and sisters, the laity in general and the married priests and simple monastics. We’re the one’s whose holiness or lack thereof determines the holiness of tomorrow’s generation of leaders in the Church.
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On the Motions of Our Souls
14/07/2016 Duração: 18minA very wise nun once said something like this: “If you have an evil thought, dismiss it; but if you can’t dismiss it, don’t dwell on it; but if you can’t stop dwelling on it, don’t speak it; but if you can’t keep from speaking it, don’t act on it; but if you can’t keep from acting on it, don’t do it again; but if you do do it again; seek help to find repentance.” The point she was making was this: salvation starts where you are.
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Some Thoughts on Rightly-Directed Zeal
05/07/2016 Duração: 17minSt. Isaac the Syrian refers to zeal as a guard dog. He refers to sinful and unwanted thoughts and impulses as birds that fly around our soul. Zeal is the guard dog that barks and warns us that these unwanted thoughts are there and motivates us to chase these birds away.
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Wrongly Directed Zeal
28/06/2016 Duração: 14minIf we are really interested in helping others who are sick, who are in sin, and who have fallen, then St. Isaac tells us, “know that the sick are in greater need of loving care than of rebuke.”
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Deeds, Disposition, and Humility
21/06/2016 Duração: 18minWhen I can just be at peace with the fact that I am a mess, but that I am God’s mess (God’s beloved mess), then I don’t have to prove anything. Rather, I can just be my broken self.
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Being Saved Together
15/06/2016 Duração: 18minWe all benefit when we receive one another, when we recognize and encourage the strengths in others, when we submit to the maturity and giftedness of others, then the Church is the Church and we are all saved together.
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Evangelism according to St. Isaac the Syrian
07/06/2016 Duração: 16minToo often we say that we love the sinner but hate the sin; however in practice, I don’t think the sinners can tell the difference. May God help us to care for the bodily needs and to lovingly honour our neighbours, especially those we disagree with, and let us strive in appropriate measure to be diligent in our life of prayer and in our ascetic disciplines so that even without a word we may influence our neighbour to turn from what is evil to what is beautiful.
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Patience: What Growth In Christ Looks Like
31/05/2016 Duração: 14minDeciding to follow Christ or repenting from a besetting sin is only the first step in a very long journey. St. Isaac the Syrian likens this walk with Christ to a soft drop that hallows out a hard rock. It is not the gush of water caused by a sudden cloudburst of enthusiasm that actually changes us (although it often sets a direction). It is not the dramatic move that forms us into the image of our Master. Rather, it is the “small but always persistent discipline” that carves away the hard stone of our sinful passions and smooths our rough edges and undermines the foundation of our delusions about ourselves, about the world and about God. This is why St. Isaac tells us that patience, actually, is the evidence of God’s consolation received secretly, or in a hidden way, in our souls.
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Receiving Christ and Satan
24/05/2016 Duração: 17min"Within each person, each baptized, Spirit-filled, Orthodox Christian, there are angels and demons raging. We are, so long as we live in this body of flesh, at war."
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Speaking of Silence and Boasting of Humility
17/05/2016 Duração: 18minI feel a little crazy sometimes, like an idiot—not a godly, holy idiot, just a plain, old-fashioned idiot: the kind that boasts of humility and speaks about the virtue of silence.
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My Dog as a Mirror
19/04/2016 Duração: 14minI have a great six-year old German Shepherd named Kota. Kota is very obedient, most of the time. It’s the rest of the time, the time that is not most of the time, that you have to be careful about. I summed up the situation to a friend recently in the following way: “Kota is very obedient unless she is tempted by easy food, or she is bored—in which case she goes looking for something to tempt her.” On hearing this, my friend said, “Wow, that sounds like a problem lot of people I know have.” And then I thought about it. Oh my goodness, Kota and I have the same problem, only Kota is a dog and has an excuse, I don’t.
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convolvulus arvensis
15/04/2016 Duração: 14minEvery spring I muse on the weeds in my garden. A particularly demonic weed (from my perspective) is convolvulus arvensis: Bindweed. Once you’ve got it, you’ve got it. St. Isaac the Syrian speaks of sin as if it were in our bodies like bindweed.
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Marriage, Sex, and Lent
06/04/2016 Duração: 15minThere are some in the Orthodox Tradition who have said that married couples should abstain from sexual relations during lenten periods. Some have gone so far as to say that this is the teaching of the Church. I am not an expert on such things, so I will not venture an opinion on whether or not it is the teaching of the Church or whether or not it is merely pious opinion. However, since someone has asked me about it, I will share some of my thoughts about it. Follow the blog at blogs.ancientfaith.com/prayingintherain/2016/03/marriage-sex-lent
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St. Isaac and the Passions
29/03/2016 Duração: 24minFr. Michael answers two questions about the passions.