Monday, May 23, 2005

You're a nihilist...I'm a nihilist...

And indeed the Christian is, in a certain sense--in an ultimate sense--a "Nihilist"; for to him, in the end, the world is nothing, and God is all. This is, of course, the precise opposite of the Nihilism we have examined here, where God is nothing and the world is all; that is a Nihilism that proceeds from the Abyss, and the Christian's is a "Nihilism" that proceeds from abundance. The true Nihilist places his faith in things that pass away and end in nothing; all "optimism" on this foundation is clearly futile. The Christian, renouncing such vanity places his faith in the one thing that will not pass away, the Kingdom of God. ... But it is a mere literary device to call the nothingness and poverty of the Christian "Nihilism"; they are rather fullness, abundance, joy beyond imagining. And it is only one full of such abundance who can squarely face the Abyss to which Nihilism has conducted men.
    Fr. Seraphim (Rose)

Sunday, May 22, 2005

You've no authori-ti...

The Innovator attacks the traditional values (the Tao) in defence of what he at first supposes to be (in some special sense) ‘rational’ or ‘biological’ values. But as we have seen, all the values which he uses in attacking the Tao, and even claims to be substituting for it, are themselves derived from the Tao. If he had really started from scrach, from right ouside the human tradition of value, no jugglery could have advanced him an inch towards the conception that a man should die for the community or work for posterity. If the Tao falls, all his own conceptions of value fall with it. Not one of them can claim any authority other than that of the Tao. Only by such shreds of the Tao as he has inherited is he enabled even to attack it. The question therefore arises what title he has to select bits of it for the acceptance and to rejects others. For if the bits he rejects have no authority, neither have those he retains: if what he retains is valid, what he rejects is equally valid too.
    C.S. Lewis

Friday, May 20, 2005

The five senses

Since in the crafts and the sciences there is a continuous development and perfection, they think that the same thing ought to happen in the Christian religion, that here too there should be a continuous revision, change, and replacement of the old by the new—in a word, "modernization." Looking at Christianity rationalistically, they misunderstand its revelatory character and demote it to the level of the systems which the mind of man has formed on the basis of reason and the observations of the five senses.
    Constantine Cavarnos

Thursday, May 19, 2005

The tyranny of words

Public discourse, the moment it becomes basically neutralized with regard to a strict standard of truth, stands by its nature ready to serve as an instrument in the hands of any ruler to pursue all kinds of power schemes. Public discourse itself, separated from the standard of truth, creates on its part, the more it prevails, an atmosphere of epidemic proneness and vulnerability to the reign of the tyrant.
    Josef Pieper

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

No dams here...

Those who speak about the insufficiency of life in the Church usually refer to the insufficiencies of church administration, the thousands of consistory papers and so on. For all those who genuinely understand Church life, however, it is as clear as God's day that all these consistories with their ukases do not affect the depth of Church life at all. The deep river of abundant, Grace-filled life flows increasingly and gives drink to everyone who wishes to quench his spiritual thirst. This river cannot be dammed up with "paper."
    St. Hilarion (Troitsky)

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

ecclesiology schmecclesiology...

In the ancient Church, whenever they talked about the body of Christ, or about Christ as the Head of the Church, they did not mean that Christ was extended to the entire world in a bodily (corporeal) fashion, having, as it were, his head in Rome, his one hand in the East and the other in the West.
    Fr. John Romanides

Monday, May 16, 2005

нельзя!

Since this is my first incredible quote post from Russia I thought it apropos that I post a Russian source. (As a side note: I went yesterday to Novo-Devichy monastery and in the Church they have an icon of St. Hilarion; while I was venerating I was yelled at by a wrinkly babushka [as if kissing the glass does any harm to the icon behind it]. I guess she takes the position that harm(?) done to the glass passes to the prototype; anyway...)
Tolstoy clearly demonstrated for us what results to expect from the absurd separation of Christianity from the Church and the negation of the Church in the name of imaginary Christianity. If one is to separate Christianity from the Church, then there is no need for the divinity of the Savior and the Holy Spirit is unnecessary.
    St. Hilarion (Troitsky)

Indulgence: Foolish or senseless behavior

Deacon Theophan and I illegally imbibed and consumed cheap food at Moody posing as representatives from an Eastern European evangelical church...

So that's what Daley's puting all that parking ticket money into...

As if being a (Frankish) priest is the only way to change the world...

Wednesday, May 04, 2005


Well on her way to being a junkie Anna is prepared with her needle disposal system....

boundaries...

For, according to the Apostle James (2:19), the devils also believe; as attested by the Gospel, they confessed their faith like the Apostle Peter did (Matt. 16:16;8:26; Mark 1:24; Luke 8:28). But do they belong to the one Church of Christ?
    St. Hilarion (Troitsky)

Tuesday, May 03, 2005

Incredible Quiz: Round 2

Translatumus: Cognosco tres homines, unum qui per crucem salvat, alterum qui per crucem salvatur, et alterum qui per crucem damnaur.

If I were a betting man I would go down to OTB and bet who gets this translation.... so he better not dissapoint me.

Your new superheros: the Originators

I think Laura would rather come back in the form of this "Origin" bottle than in spherical form.....

Monday, May 02, 2005

get your priorities straight.....

Which for us is more necessary and important: to strive for ecumenical communion and union with those who think differently and who remain in their different opinion, or to preserve catholic communion of spirit with those teachers of faith, lamps of faith [saints], who by their life and by their death showed faithfulness to Christ and His Church and entered into yet fuller union with Her Head?
    Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky

Lou Malnati's.... come here for an adventure in food service..... the pizza we waited an hour and a half for.....

I don't know which of these two statements is more outrageous....

back with the smack.....

I'm terribly sorry to my avid readers for my relative silence over the past week, I was basically living at Church on top of it being the last week of school, however, now I will be posting with a vengeance. I'm going to Russia on Thursday which will upset posting for a few days but after that I will be sending you indendiary remarks across the globe. I digress....on to fiery statements.

Not only do they need to make their "worship" contemporary they have to make their "eucharist" contemporary as well.....