Very good follow up to your Dispatch column, Father.
At my parish, we are getting good numbers of inquirers, catechumens and recent converts at Bible study and in reading groups tackling spiritual texts. Typically, these are led by a good priest who guides, rather than lectures. It takes us all deeper into the faith and the discussions are frequently enlightening.
Thank you, John, for your comment and kudos to your priest!
Taking people through spiritual texts is important. It is also much harder than lecturing people using notes from a seminary dogmatic theology class. The approach you mention is more personal. This means it won't scale.
I told someone this week that destruction is wholesale, healing retail. People come to us battered and broken. This is why the world always seems to have the advantage. We hear the bomb, we overlook the caress.
Our work as Orthodox Christians is, necessarily, more personal and intimate. We are all of us wounded, but wounded in our own way.
This means the work of healing what is broken is slower. I need to understand not just how the person was broken but the nature of their wounds. But while the world succeeds by violence, we can ONLY hope to succeed if we proceed by way of the freedom of the person. To travel freedom's road means our work is undertaken at the margins of society and even the Church itself.
This is what I am reading now:
Spiritual Awakening by St Paisios the Athonite
"Mostly, though, we need to read."
Very good follow up to your Dispatch column, Father.
At my parish, we are getting good numbers of inquirers, catechumens and recent converts at Bible study and in reading groups tackling spiritual texts. Typically, these are led by a good priest who guides, rather than lectures. It takes us all deeper into the faith and the discussions are frequently enlightening.
I remain optimistic.
Thank you, John, for your comment and kudos to your priest!
Taking people through spiritual texts is important. It is also much harder than lecturing people using notes from a seminary dogmatic theology class. The approach you mention is more personal. This means it won't scale.
I told someone this week that destruction is wholesale, healing retail. People come to us battered and broken. This is why the world always seems to have the advantage. We hear the bomb, we overlook the caress.
Our work as Orthodox Christians is, necessarily, more personal and intimate. We are all of us wounded, but wounded in our own way.
This means the work of healing what is broken is slower. I need to understand not just how the person was broken but the nature of their wounds. But while the world succeeds by violence, we can ONLY hope to succeed if we proceed by way of the freedom of the person. To travel freedom's road means our work is undertaken at the margins of society and even the Church itself.
As always, good to hear from you!
"destruction is wholesale, healing retail."
thank you, Father