Interrupting the Silence

Category: Theology

  • Why Matter Matters – St. John of Damascus

    I do not venerate matter, I venerate the fashioner of matter, who became matter for my sake and accepted to dwell in matter and through matter worked my salvation, and I will not cease from reverencing matter, through which my salvation was worked. – St. John of Damascus Read more

  • Angelic Thoughts and Prayers on the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels

    Today, September 29, is the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels. With every liturgy we celebrate we “[join] our voices with Angels and Archangels and with all the company of heaven,” who are forever proclaiming the glory of God’s Name. The liturgy here on earth becomes one with the heavenly liturgy. The voices of… Read more

  • Making the Gospel Relevant

    “Christian faith is not about some god who is an abstract presence somewhere else but about the living presence of God here and now, in this world, in exactly this world, as we know it and touch it and smell it and live and work in it. That is why, incidentally, all the well-meant talk… Read more

  • WIlliam Porcher DuBose, Episcopal Theologian

    William Porcher DuBose (April 11, 1836 to August 18, 1918) was an American Anglican priest and theologian. He spent most of his life as a professor at the School of Theology, The University of the South, in Sewanee, Tennessee. In the Episcopal Church he is remembered on August 18. He was one of the most… Read more

  • The Feast of St. Mary the Virgin, Dormition, and Assumption

    Today, August 15, is one of the great Marian feast days. The Eastern Orthodox call it the Feast of the Dormition while Roman Catholics call it the Feast of the Assumption. They deal with the same event but the interpretation is a bit different. The Rev. Patrick Comerford offers the following distinction: The Orthodox Church… Read more

  • The Feast of the Transfiguration

    The Feast of the Transfiguration is celebrated on a fixed date, August 6. The transfiguration of Jesus is a visible image of theosis. In his homily on the transfiguration St. John of Damascus says, “What was human became divine, and what was divine human by mode of exchange and unconfused mutual coinherence and the strictest hypostatic… Read more

  • Theosis in the Episcopal Church

    In a previous post I wrote about theosis as the human vocation. Theosis, was a central concept and theme within the early church and remains so today in Eastern Orthodoxy. Was theosis lost by the west in the East-West schism of 1054? Where is theosis within the Anglican tradition and more specifically in the American expression… Read more

  • Theosis, the Human Vocation

    There are moments when the existential questions of life can no longer be answered, ignored, or denied by focusing on our careers, jobs, marriages, families, acquisitions, or accomplishments. We are, to paraphrase the opening of St. Augustine’s Confessions, restless until our hearts rest in God. Who am I? Where am I from? Where am I… Read more

  • The Choreography of Love – A Sermon for the Feast of the Holy Trinity, Matthew 28:16-20

    The collect and readings for the Feast of the Holy Trinity may be found here. The appointed gospel is Matthew 28:16-20. The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority… Read more