Archbishop Benjamin (Peterson)
"I think it’s one of the primal human characteristics that we can only eat with those people we love. I can’t eat with people I don’t like. I just can’t—I don’t feel like eating. In a household where children are misbehaving at the dinner table what do we tell them to do? 'Go to your room.' We tell them 'We don’t want to eat with you, and when you act better you can come back and join us.' I imagine two cavemen sitting down and having a mammoth leg, and a third one appears. Now if he’s invited to eat with his friends he knows he’s welcome and there’s peace between them, but if they spurn him and push him away there’s already tension between them. Eating together is a basic human characteristic and it’s a way we show love to each other, it’s a way we build community, and it’s the way God builds community with us."
Fr. Timothy Hojnicki
Rating: 8,4|Votes: 5
And a fantastic thing took place, that one day while he was praying, the Lord Himself, Father, Son and Holy Spirit appeared to him. It’s a fantastic thing because, even the Synaxarion makes mention, this never happens! It’s one of the only times that we know that the Trinity appeared to somebody. They told him and they revealed themselves that we are Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and they instructed him to build a church in their honor and one of them, the Son, reached over and grabbed his arm and told him to take courage and be of good faith—everything would be taken care of.
St. Justin Popovic
Rating: 7,4|Votes: 7
Today is a little Great Friday, a second Great Friday. For today the greatest man among those born of women, John, the Holy Forerunner and Baptiser of the Lord, is murdered.
Fr. John Whiteford
Rating: 4,6|Votes: 7
Some things are inherently sinful, and some things are sinful in specific contexts. For example, it is sinful for an Orthodox Christian to disregard the fasts for no compelling reason, and to eat a hamburger on a fast day, but there is nothing inherently sinful about hamburgers. Likewise, for Israelites, not eating certain kinds of foods had a symbolic meaning, and was a matter of obedience, but there was nothing inherently sinful about eating shrimp. However, it is inherently sinful for a man to have sex with another man, and the Bible is completely unambiguous about this.