More is More

I spoke briefly with our building’s handy-woman yesterday, and somehow the conversation meandered into Holy Week services. As I explained how many services we have at our parish (which are not all the services that can be done), and their length, I got that look that was a mixture of curiosity and disbelief. It happens [...]

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St Peter and the Betrayal

What must it have been like for Peter, the Chief of the Apostles, on that night Christ was betrayed? As Mark presents it, Jesus had recently, extravagantly, been anointed for his burial. Then, in Mark’s presentation, Judas agrees to betray Jesus. Peter, seemingly, walks through this unaware.

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Thoughts on Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ

This comes perhaps four years late. But such a tardiness is not without design. I have been quite resistant to viewing The Passion, to some degree from “purist” notions. Not purist in the sense of the silly spats among Orthodox as to whether such a bloody portrayal of the Passion was in keeping with “true” [...]

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Bright Monday Wrap-up of Pascha Sunday

This year I took Bright Monday off from work. I am very glad I did. One factor that differentiates Orthodoxy from modern-day evangelicalism is the fundamental tenet that faith necessarily involves struggle. Y’all work out y’all’s salvation with fear and trembling, says St. Paul. And to my knowledge only the Orthodox know what it’s like [...]

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Wow. (Or Sleepy Pascha Morning Thoughts on the Three Days’ Experience)

As I said to Anna on the way home from the breakfast this morning at about 3:30: “Pascha Sunday is the one Sunday we can sleep in guilt free.” What this means, of course, in a household of a one- and a three-year-old, is that when Daddy crawls into bed at 4:00 and the little [...]

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O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden

So, there I was, minding my own business, Johann Sebastian Bach’s St Matthew Passion playing softly in my work background, when I heard a familiar tune.  The words, however, were rather unfamiliar . . . at first. O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden, Voll Schmerz und voller Hohn, O Haupt, zu Spott gebunden Mit einer [...]

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