I have no problem with people who look back at their difficult childhood to realize that they have “turned out fine.” Hindsight sometimes lets one see how even negative experiences can become positive formative parts of one’s character. Steve Jobs, one of the two creators of the original Apple computer was adopted after being abandoned […]

One of the challenges in USA culture is that we are increasingly becoming a culture in which we, “casually [say] ‘I’m gonna live my life the way I want to.’” However, the reality is that such a thought is impossible regardless of how commonly it is expressed in modern USA culture. Why do I say […]

All of us use shortcuts in our thinking. That is, we have a set of “truths” that we rely on to guide our day to day interactions with the world. Many of these truths are inherited from someone(s) else who has done the hard work of thinking it through. In the modern world, we are […]

Just a few days ago, Patriarch Kirill, of Moscow and All Russia, made the following comments on confession during a diocesan assembly. “It is unacceptable to make confession a means of inquiry or supervision, psychotherapy, overcoming conflicts or anything else. A priest listening to a confession should at this moment, to put it this way, […]

Antisemitism is beginning to spread around the world. No, I do not mean merely disagreeing with one or another of Israel’s policies. Many of those disagreements are ideological in nature and need to be debated out in a serious manner between the various parties involved. Sadly, in today’s world, those disagreements are not debated seriously […]

Until a man’s earthly life finishes its course, up to the very departure of the soul from the body, the struggle between sin and righteousness continues within him. However, high a spiritual and moral state one might achieve, a gradual or even headlong and deep fall into the abyss of sin is always possible. St. […]

For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His […]