Even in the best of lives, mistakes are made.
Joseph J. Ellis
truisms
...we in America have imported our sense of “democracy” into our liturgical sensibilities. We believe that nothing should be secret, nothing hidden, nothing marked off as set apart. We are a nation that witnesses people on Jerry Springer saying things that should only be said in confession. We have no shame.
Fr Stephen Freeman
Our nation very likely needs..<>...things that function in a way to help us know that the One whom we worship is holy. Knowing that, we know much more fully that the Holy One has condescended to our humanity and gives Himself to us in His humility. The loss of such distinctions has created the growing absence of reverence and even worship itself in our churches.
Fr Stephen Freeman
Yes, change is all around us. For some of us (especially those over 35), the ever-increasing rate of change in our lives sometimes makes us want to run and hide. We long for stability, something that we can count on to be the same, day in and day out. Thankfully, we DO have something, or rather someONE—our God.
Fr James Early
In the same way, the heavens and the earth, at least as we now know them, will be no more. Despite what Carl Sagan said, the cosmos is not all that is or ever was or ever will be, for there will be a day when the cosmos will grow old like a garment and will be folded up and then will be changed by its Creator. Heaven and earth will pass away, but our Lord and his word never change. I take great comfort in this fact, because I don’t have to wake up each day wondering if God is still going to be in control, or if he still loves me, or if his will for our lives will change. If you have read much mythology, you know that the pagan gods, regardless of the culture, were anything but constant. They were essentially glorified humans, fickle beings with ever-changing emotions and desire. But our God is not like that. As the author of Hebrews writes in another place, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (13:8).
Fr James Early
The fact that our Lord and God and Savior Jesus does not change is the reason why the Orthodox Church does not change. Many people in the world today say “the Church needs to keep up with the times and adapt its doctrine and worship accordingly.” But if Christ does not change, why should his body, the Church? Why should the Church adjust itself to the world? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?
Fr James Early
You see, Satan tempts us in different ways, depending on our individual weaknesses. For some of us, the temptation will come through lust; for others, greed; for still others, pride, and so on. But the devil never appears to us and says, “Hi, there, pious Christian. How would you like to throw away your salvation and come live with me in Hell?” Instead, he tempts us to commit minor sins, and only occasionally; then, he tempts us to go deeper and deeper into sin and away from God. The process of neglecting “so great a salvation,” as we read in verse 3, is truly a process of gradual drifting. As the demon Screwtape tells his nephew Wormwood in C. S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters, "The safest path to Hell is the gradual one."
Fr James Early