Category Archives: Church

A comprehensive reference book: The Rowman & Littlefield Handbook of Christianity in the Middle East, edited by Mitri Raheb and Mark Lamport. While expensive, this 600+ page book with over 50 contributors has much material difficult to obtain elsewhere. From … Continue reading →

THE SACRAMENT OF MATRIMONY 337. What is the plan of God regarding man and woman? 1601-1605 God who is love and who created man and woman for love has called them to love. By creating man and woman he called … Continue reading →

From the Compendium to the Catholic Catechism: THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT:YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY 487. What responsibility do human persons have in regard to their own sexual identity? 2331-23362392-2393 God has created human beings as male and female, equal in … Continue reading →

The Joyful Return of the Exiles 31 “At that time, says the Lord, I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people.” 2 Thus says the Lord:“The people who survived the sword    found grace in the wilderness;when … Continue reading →

Paragraph 4 of this homily includes this: 4. And I will speak of a fourth crown, arising for us out of this episcopate. What then is this? The fact that he was entrusted with our own native city [Antioch]. For it … Continue reading →

Prayer of St Ephraim the Syrian that we pray daily during Lent.

A paragraph, and a bit more, from the introduction of Khaled Anatolios’ book ‘Deification Through the Cross’ The third factor that I have suggested to be an obstacle to the contemporary appropriation of the Christian teaching on salvation is the … Continue reading →

“House blessings, baby blessings, tree house blessing, oh my! Maybe we need to start a Melkite mission in Placerville!” – Abouna Hezekias, pastor at St George Melkite in Sacramento.

I’m taking an ICC course on Catholic Political Thought, taught by Dr Chad Pecknold, with over 2500 participants from over 65 countries. Here are a few of my presuppositions: Somewhat related to this: Can a large organization do without one … Continue reading →

In the Melkite liturgy, as in Eastern Catholic liturgy in general, evening and morning prayer are well integrated into the regular worship of the parish. In the Melkite liturgy, here are the psalms which are chanted: Vespers Psalms: 103, 140, … Continue reading →

From the December 19th, 2022 Wall Street Journal interview with Jeff Slate, centered around Dylan’s recent book: The Philosophy of Modern Song. …. Is there a technology that helps you relax? For instance, do you binge on movies via Netflix, … Continue reading →

Gavin Ashenden writes: How might St Paul, the Archduke Ferdinand and the Catholic Church come together in a story set at the end of 2022? They might offer themselves as useful interpretative devices as the story of what is happening … Continue reading →

Here are some thoughts on fasting taken from Alexander Schmemann’s book ‘Great Lent’: It is important, therefore, to discern the uniquely Christian content of fasting. It is first of all revealed to us in the interdependence between two events which … Continue reading →

Vatican II kept me out of the Catholic Church for many years. Let me explain. I was baptized as an infant at Trinity United Methodist Church in Buchanan Virginia in 1950. However, I didn’t have a living faith in Christ … Continue reading →

Sirach is the last of the wisdom books in the Catholic canon of the Old Testament. As such, it may be regarded as a massive summation of the Israelite wisdom tradition–a meditation on the entirety of Israel’s Scriptures from the … Continue reading →

From the introduction in Tracey Rowland’s 2017 book “The Culture of the Incarnation: Essays in Catholic Theology”: This is a collection of essays that have previously been published in separate journals over the past decade. In one way or another, … Continue reading →

I find the Divine Liturgy at my parish to be very romantic, intellectually coherent, and incredibly beautiful. My love she speaks like silence Without ideals or violence She doesn’t have to say she’s faithful Yet she’s true, like ice, like … Continue reading →

It is hard to convey the beauty and goodness of God. Hence, on the one hand, the necessity of the Incarnation and on the other hand, ministers focusing instead on the much easier task of saying what folks should do.