Over the past several years in talking to people about their growing faith, I have been asked this question countless times: “Does it get any easier once we are baptized/chrismated?” My response is always the same: “No…it gets even harder…and the crosses get heavier…but through the Church we are given the strength to bear them so that they don’t crush us.” 

So imagine if you will, for several hundred years, on the very spot that the True God gave His life for the human race, He had to watch from above as His own creation offered sacrifices to the Goddess of the Passions, just a few meters above the Cross of Christ! 

…If we turn our heads to the east, there is a faint light beginning to grow brighter…just below the horizon.  And what appears first in the midst of the dark sky?  The morning star, which heralds the coming of the Sun of Righteousness.

“If Father Gabriel took me and cloned me….If he were to take my level of fruit bearing, my level of worship, the amount of time I spend in Church and in prayer, the amount of effort I put into ministry and serving the Church, would this parish family…this vineyard…be stronger, or weaker? 

I think that sometimes, we fall into this trap of thinking that living our faith and developing a relationship with Christ is something that is external and intellectual.  We try to cram all of this knowledge in our brains about the faith and watch apologetical conversations on youtube.   We make sure we are checking labels on food items to see if they are fasting foods or not. We stand in front of our icon corners in the morning and at night, not to pray, but rather to fulfill some kind of external obligation.  In some cases, we see our orthodox faith through the lens of some kind of western moralism:  “Do the Right thing, don’t sin…maybe show up occasionally to Church…and you will get to a place called heaven where we can finally put our feet up.” …This is not Holy Orthodoxy.