Spirituality

Father Theophan blesses Pascha baskets. Courtesy/Father Theophan

By Father Theophan
Saint Job of Pochaiv Orthodox Church
Los Alamos

I’m taking a break from pottery for a while. This week is Holy Week for most Orthodox Christians. Easter was celebrated by the western churches a few weeks ago, but we “easterners” are still waiting.

First delegated to the Patriarch of Alexadria to compute, the date of Pascha (and Easter) is: the first Sunday, after the first full moon, after the vernal equinox. It is still computed the same way, both in the East and West.

So why is it sometimes the same, and other times Read More

By Fr. Glenn Jones:

While reviewing the “Good Shepherd” discourse of Jesus in John 10 the other day, I found myself hearkening back to yesteryear growing up on our little family ranch. Many a frozen morning Dad sent my brothers and I (grumble, grumble) to chop ice off of water troughs, toss bales of hay and take the count … to seek the lost lest they be in distress. Yet, especially in winter, every mooing face pleads in anxious anticipation, and their unspoken but evident joy of being fed is all the thanks you need. It is little wonder that so many dedicate themselves to helping desperately poor peoples Read More

By Fr. Glenn Jones:

I was watching “Saving Private Ryan” the other day—a movie which has become known as one of the best cinematic portrayals of war and combat. It is a tale of a small unit of Army Rangers sent to retrieve the surviving son—Private Ryan—of a family of four sons, this one in an Airborne unit behind enemy lines in D-Day Normandy, France. While successful in finding and saving Ryan, those Rangers are ultimately almost all killed in combat as a consequence. At the end of the movie, the scene fast-forwards to the now elderly Ryan visiting the military cemetery in France in which the leader Read More

By Fr. Glenn Jones:

You know … if snarling at other people was a virtue, these days our cup would runneth over with saints. In the press, on the street, in emails, and certainly in social media, is constant harangue: “The sky is blue!” “You moron; it’s turquoise!” “Fool! It’s azure!!” Or: “Nazi! How dare you disagree with me by making a wholly reasonable and logical argument!!” Sigh. Agreement seems as rare as a snowball in…August. And we wonder why we can’t achieve world peace. Duh.

Ah … peace; how desirable, yet how very elusive. We long for peace in our homes, at our work, in our nation, on earth. In Read More

By Fr. Glenn Jones:

Well, a very happy and blessed Easter/Easter season to all of you. Oh, how I miss having a parish at this time of year … the thrill of this holiest day of the Christian annual cycle as we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus, ushering in a blooming hope for eternity with Him and the Father in the eternal life that we are made for.

It’s always such a joy to see families in their celebratory splendor … the ladies in their spring finest, the little ones frantically seeking out the Easter eggs and other goodies lain out for them in the greening grass and blossoming flowers of the church Read More

By Fr. Glenn Jones:

And so … a great many Christians enter Holy Week this weekend (March 27-28), beginning with Passion (“Palm”) Sunday this Sunday (March 28), going into Holy Thursday, Good Friday and culminating in Easter Sunday. It’s “a great many” Christians because the Eastern Orthodox Churches celebrate Easter by the older Julian calendar, while denominations of most western Christian traditions calculate Easter using the modern Gregorian calendar, and as falling on the: 1) first Sunday 2) after the first full moon 3) after (or on) the spring equinox. We could also discuss the timing Read More

By Fr. Glenn Jones:

Well, happy spring everyone!—the equinox having been on March 20. Sure is a lot better than last year when the pandemic was just starting to ravage through the world’s populations. A lot of pain since that time, and we mourn with all those who lost loved ones to the virus. Know that thoughts and prayers are with you all. 

The pandemic sure opened a lot of cracks (or chasms) of division—to close or not to close, masks or no masks, travel or not travel, hoax or no hoax, Fauci or no Fauci, etc.—some such arguments still ongoing, both in the U.S. and overseas. One would think that something Read More

By Fr. Glenn Jones:

Well, now … Lent is halfway over. How we doing with those Lenten (or New Year’s, for that matter) resolutions, hmmm? Now, you know those things take effort and may have a periodic failure of weakness, so don’t give up. And if you have a “whoops”, be like a boxer and get right back up! Sadly, we tend to be like water, seeking the lowest energy level, and become spiritual couch potatoes if we aren’t careful and continually strive to better ourselves. Not just in prayer, but in those active works of service and charity needs that surround us every day.

This came to mind in the Sunday reading Read More