Category: ByzCath
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Byzantine
IT’S BEEN AN INTERESTING Year serving in a Byzantine Catholic Parish. There’s been a whole lot of learning – and some sadness. In 20 years as an Orthodox Christian, I was never once inside the Holy Place for the liturgy. Singing in choir was enough and – on those rare occasions (I can remember 3…
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Something Greater.
The Readings for the Sunday of St Mary of Egypt The Fifth Sunday of the Great Fast OUR HOLY MOTHER MARY OF Egypt, as she is called in the Great Canon of St Andrew of Crete, is perhaps my most-favorite of female saints. Her regular feast day is 1 April which is always in Lent…
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Of Incidents and Accidents.
The Readings for the Sunday of St Gregory Palamas The Second Sunday of the Great Fast AS THE Observance of the Great Fast evolved in the Eastern Church, each Sunday was assigned a special devotion: the Sunday of Orthodoxy, the Sundays of St Gregory, of St John, of St Mary, and the Sunday of the…
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Of Icons & Hosts
The Readings for the Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy The First Sunday of the Great Fast HEARING OF A BYZANTINE CATHOLIC podcast called What God is Not, I decided to give a listen to a ByzCath Nun, Mother Natalia, and Fr Michael O’Loughlin, a priest of the Eparchy of Phoenix. I was instantly drawn…
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The Parable of Rabbits & Pigs
The Readings for the Sunday of the Last Judgement Meatfare HERE IS A PRECES of our parable: Jesus says at the Last Judgement God will divide us as a farmer does the sheep from the goats. The sheep will find out that they have often fed, clothed, and cared for Jesus. And they will say…
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So this Guy’s got Two Boys, right?
Readings for the Sunday of the Prodigal: NOT THAT THERE’S Really this kind of ranking system, but I imagine that “The Prodigal Son” is one of the more well-known of Jesus’ stories. Perhaps equally as often what they know about this story is wrong. We use “prodigal” as a way to describe anyone who goes…
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Freedom is a State of Soul
Tuesday in the week of the Publican & the Pharisee: BETWEEN THE CFR Podcast and my own t0-read (especially Transformation in Christ and He and I) list I’m in the midst of a flood of thoughts about interior freedom. This is a specifically Christian conception, although it may have non-Christian predecessors in pagan philosophies. How…
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Publican and Republican
The readings for the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee: LAST NIGHT I attended the vigil service at Holy Trinity Cathedral (OCA), my former parish. Since my Byzantine Catholic Parish does not have vigil services, I think I may make a few trips over to the Cathedral this Lent. The Dean greeted me and…
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Thomas Hopko’s 55 Maxims
ALONG WITH THE “Rule” of the Late Fr Alexander Schmemann, which he wrote in his Journal on Tuesday, January 20, 1981 (see my copy here) the 55 Maxims of the Late Fr Thomas Hopko are, for me, a sure guide to living a Christian life as a single man living in the world. I can…
Orthoparadoxy 