“God is able to make children of Abraham out of these stones”Matthew 3:9
Like a master stonemason, God carves saints out of many different kinds of stone. Just as the beautiful pearly lustre of white marble differs fromt he sullen, brooding roughness of a dark granite, the Master Craftsman uses the natural properties of each type […]

“He just drives me crazy! When is he going to wake up to himself?!”
Unfortunately, priests hear words like these on an all too regular basis. There is a lovely little story His Holiness Pope Shenouda tells of a man who came to him to confess (before he was Pope). The man launches in to a […]

One of the hardest sins to defeat is pride. One of the hardest virtues to acquire is humility. Yet humility is an essential virtue, for without it, all that we do is worthless.
The devil’s first sin is said to have been pride:
Isaiah 14:12 “How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer , […]

Sometimes things get lost in the translation. For example, below are a few of the commonest phrases used in the Arabic language, translated literally into English. See if you can guess their original meaning…
“A Jasmine dawn”
“Every year and you are kind”
“From under to under”
When we read the Bible in a translated language (like English), a […]

I recently heard a talk on CD distributed by St Paul’s Outreach Service (you know, the service that sends them out to a mailing list) by an American convert to Orthodoxy called Francis Schaeffer. He seems to be a very eloquent and deeply thoughtful man. On this occasion, he was speaking about his experiences since […]

NAHUM 1:15
Behold, on the mountainsThe feet of him who brings good tidings,Who proclaims peace!
Often amidst the Books of the Prophets in the Old Testament one finds little sparkling gems in the middle of passages that are otherwise hard to draw a relelvant meaning from. This little excerpt from the Book of Nahum seems to […]

Reading the second chapter of Zephaniah, I found it interesting to see how the overthrow of the evil nations is often portrayed in the Old Testament as a victory for nature. The plants and the animals resume their domination of lands that once were ruled by mighty kings.
It implies that man is, after all, […]

How hard can it be, really?
As a priest, I often hear people complaining about others. For a multitude of motives, people will come to complain to Abouna, perhaps because he is ‘in charge’ at Church, or perhaps because they think he will fix the person up, or perhaps (I hope not) because they think it […]

What is it like to be one of those whose names are written in the Book of Life? The following is only a fictional metaphor of how I see it:
I found a golden chest one day, buried in the field. It was small and it was covered with grime, but in curiousity I dug it […]

Last night at the CCP we were talking about the nature of serving God and of the person who serves God when an interesting contemplation came up.
In the passage about the end of the world, in Matthew chapter 25, Jesus tells those on His right side, “I was hungry and you gave Me food, I […]