What will we finally say when death visits us - and not for coffee?
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/57346/
One of the problems with vainglory, according to St. Isaac the Syrian, is that “it hands that person over to” either fornication or pride. But before we can talk about how vainglory hands one...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/57271/
There is strength in humility.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/57168/
"How could God let his representatives get away with such things?"
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/57110/
We live in a generation that has been taught to tie their personal identity to their imagined sexual preferences. Consequently, it is difficult to help people who struggle with sexual passions to...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/56043/
"We have to read with discernment and humility."
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/56040/
Just about any discipline that has to do with the body, if you really think that discipline is important, is mostly just a matter of making yourself do it; but forgiveness is not merely a bodily ...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/54100/
Is there a difference between men and women in regard to theosis? Short answer: No. Long answer: Every human being is unique. Gender is part of that uniqueness.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/53335/
Acknowledging the ugliness in our heart is like taking out the garbage. When we pretend it’s not there, it doesn’t go away. It just festers. But when we confess our sin by acknowledging befor...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/53023/
For those of us who are still working on getting that first few rows of stones around the foundation of faith, focusing on acquiring a little bit of every virtue helps us to keep picking up the s...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/52790/
Just as surely as there is a time of sowing, there is a time of reaping. God changes us and touches the hearts of others through our prayers, our giving and our service to others. Seeds become tr...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/52324/
The work of the Holy Spirit in our lives always takes place on two levels, both on the level of what is outside us or what comes to us, and on the level of what is within us or how we receive wha...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/51784/
Fr. Michael Gillis answers the question of “how to overcome thoughts of pride in our hearts that inevitably come after labouring on good works for our families and people around us.”
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/51587/
Fr. Michael Gillis reflects on the life and writings of 20th century Catholic author, Flannery O’Connor. "Good in this broken world is always something under construction. The grotesque—physi...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/51440/
Fr. Michael examines Jesus's exhortation to "take heed that you do not despise the little ones."
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/20101/
Fr. Michael talks about the difference between inwardly-focused spiritual zeal and outwardly-focused emotional zeal.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/20672/
In St. Paul’s famous passage about spiritual warfare in 2 Corinthians 10, he specifically mentions arguments as one of the high things that must be cast down because they exalt themselves again...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/50718/
To begin with, we must remind ourselves that salvation is a mystery, and that discerning principles and rules in the scriptures and self consciously applying them to ourselves is no guarantee tha...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/50474/
Fear and anger, however, seem to trump common sense and faith in God. Fear and anger open in us a floodgate of animal passions making it seem appropriate to demonize (or de-humanize) those we dis...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/50394/
Self-importance is a tricky disease to diagnose, not in others, but in oneself. The problem lies in the fact that often (but not always) those who suffer from the spiritual sickness of self-impor...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/50190/
I want to make clear to everyone that we will not be asking anyone about vaccination status. As in almost all matters, so with government health mandates, it is possible (probable) that very godl...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/50016/
Here’s the problem: We so often set ourselves up for failure by thinking our best must mean that we should do what someone else, probably a saint, is doing or has done. And so, without discernm...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/49909/
Our assurance must be in God Himself. Our assurance cannot be in being right, for we are human. Yes, being right is important, and we should strive for orthodoxy (ortho is Greek for ‘right’)....
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/49657/
Isn’t it strange how much easier it is to thank God when you have almost nothing, than it is when you have much more than you need? I have noticed this in myself. I am very thankful to God when...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/49432/
Keep nurturing the disciplines and activities that tend to produce the fruit of the Spirit, and work to avoid the activities or relationships or situations that stir up your passions. This is wha...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/49354/
Today we live in a time of uncertainty; but really, today is no more uncertain than yesterday nor the day or year or century before. Certainty is a kind of delusion. It is a delusion that conveni...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/49425/
There are many kinds of waves in the chaotic world we live in. Sometimes the waves are pushing to the left. Sometimes the waves push to the right. Really, there is no rhyme or reason to it. In fa...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/49304/
I write a weekly letter for our community and this week I thought I would share this letter with a broader audience. We celebrated the Feast of the Nativity of the Theotokos this week. Mary the M...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/49219/
All suffering, however, regardless of its apparent immediate source, can be understood as the wrath of God. But we must never forget that we call it God’s wrath because of how we feel and how w...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/48284/
After my last blog post, John commented that the burning of Churches in Canada calls for “Christian outrage” now, while love and forgiveness can wait until after the crimes have been investig...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/48857/
Last night I attended a prayer service in the street in front of the Coptic Orthodox Church that was burned down early Monday morning. Although some evidence points toward arson, arson has not be...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/48837/
Even as we strive to please God by disciplining ourselves and obeying His commands, we know that God loves us. We know that God will accept our striving for righteousness, even if we don’t do i...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/48836/
Waiting involves attention. We have to pay attention to our thoughts. We have to notice what is happening in our minds and thoughts and feelings leading up to and when and after we sin. And learn...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/48834/
Fr. Michael Gillis builds off of last week's talk about the Great Reset on not getting attached to the comforts of this world. Someone asked about how to balance living in this world without gett...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/48436/
Fr. Michael Gillis talks about what we should do about the Great Reset. About once a week Fr. Michael gets a message from one or another of my parishioners with a link to a video that he “has t...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/48435/
Is it possible to flee to the desert a little bit? No and yes. No, you can’t flee a little bit, for fleeing a little bit is not fleeing at all. But yes, you can flee a little bit, if that littl...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/48434/
Fr. Michael Gillis has us look at the world we find ourselves in. We are mentored by media that exploits and seduces us for its own profit, political leaders whom we know are lying, businesses th...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/48429/
Fr. Michael Gillis talks about how part of our problem with overcoming temptation is that we don’t understand what temptations are for, what they are meant to accomplish in our lives. We wrongl...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/48428/
On October 8, we commemorate two Sts. Pelagia of Antioch. The first is a virgin martyr, and the second is a repentant harlot, sometimes referred to as St. Pelagia the former courtesan of Antioch.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/48427/
Most of the time, caring for our inner garden is more a matter of attention than of effort. The weeds of sinful and passionate thoughts can be pulled out pretty easily by merely recognizing them ...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/48426/
It seems whenever there is a crisis, people begin to see possible predictions and warnings about such times in the scripture. And certainly Christ does warn us to be prepared for the End, and to ...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/48425/
When we celebrate the Cross, we are not so much remembering the Crucifixion of Christ, as much as we are remembering the salvation that Christ’s Crucifixion has brought us and all the ways that...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/48424/
In Orthodox Christian marriage, the wife is the queen, crowned and exalted at the head of the household; however, she is also the intercessor, standing submissively behind her husband, receiving ...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/48350/
Repentance is a matter of saying, that’s not me, that’s not who I am—even while all I can see is my failure and darkness. This is because who I am, who I am becoming, is hidden in Christ. W...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/48348/
Sinners are thrown utterly upon the mercy of God. For Sinners, “Lord, have mercy” means Lord, have mercy. For those who merely admit that they have sinned, “Lord, have mercy” may have ver...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/48252/
Fr. Michael Gillis reads a blog post from 2010, entitled "Choices and God's Will". "For the overwhelming majority of the people in the world throughout history, what they would eat, where they wo...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/47550/
I have found that it is usually better for me to say nothing at the beginning, at the moment I feel like saying something. At that moment, it is usually best not to say anything because if I say ...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/47547/
We have to remember the mighty things God has already done in our life. We have to remember that whatever good we may have done is also a mercy. We could have just as easily done wrong, just as e...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/47546/
For all that Christ accomplished for our salvation at Pascha, it remains still for us to receive it. And for us to receive the resurrected Life, we have to thirst for it. All of the blessings and...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/47545/
If we do not work on that relationship, if we do not nurture longing for God, if we do not take the time to nurture our inner life, then we also grow apart from God. We are still baptized, still ...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/47072/
Fr. Michael suggests that going to hell, or going to heaven, for that matter, will not be new or unfamiliar for most people.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/46945/
Fr. Michael presents the first of a series of blog posts that have not yet been shared as podcasts. Here he deconstructs the notion that choice translates into freedom.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/46920/
In homily 69, St. Isaac reminds us that temptations to sin come upon all people, even the “perfect.” Quoting freely from St. Macarius of Alexandria, St. Isaac reminds us that our inner state ...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/44469/
Some of us may be facing death at this time—just as Lazarus did. Some of us may have a loved one who has or will soon die—as Mary and Martha did. And some of us, most of us probably, are just...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/44457/
Luke 16 contains one of the most difficult to understand parables of Jesus. It is commonly called the parable of the Unjust Steward. For most of my life the parable offended me. Like the Pharisee...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/44450/
Fr. Michael Gillis uses a gardening analogy to discuss dealing with the deep-rooted sins in life.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/44449/
Fr. Michael Gillis reminds us, "Like the prodigal and the harlot and the publican, we bring nothing except failure and a strong sense that we are not worthy to be received. But we come nonetheles...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/39835/
Fr. Michael Gillis reminds us that our salvation lies in living humbly within our measure, pushing a little during lent, perhaps, but always judging ourselves unworthy of a higher or stricter mea...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/39834/
The following is my response to one of my catechumens to the question of why the Orthodox Church practices a closed communion: Basically, Communion creates and defines our community, our being on...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/35679/
And those who are outside the Orthodox Church, even those outside any kind of Christian faith whatsoever, what about these? Could these be the poor, the blind and the lame of today? As the Gentil...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/34191/
Indeed, from whence does the strength of God and the knowledge of God come? I think I have always imagined a kind of magic wand that God waved over those He loved so that they would be full of Hi...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/33427/
"And because such suffering is a temptation to sin, it is also an opportunity to deny Christ. It is an opportunity to curse God or curse man made in the image of God. It is an opportunity to beco...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/33315/
"The danger...is that any systemization of spiritual realities is both wrong and thus misleading. Systems, definitions and diagrams of the inner life are, in a sense, by definition wrong because ...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/33133/
Fr. Michael Gillis shares from St. Isaac the Syrian (homily 62), in which St. Isaac offers us the metaphor of a manuscript in rough draft to help us understand why on-going repentance is importan...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/38882/
"Those in the monastic life have spiritual fathers and mothers to help them in obtaining humility. We in the world have the very life in the world itself to humble us. "
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/38025/
Many holy fathers and mothers of the Church have pointed out that spiritual words are like powerful medicine. If taken inappropriately, what was designed to heal ends up causing harm.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/38024/
Those whose minds are set on the good and the holy, tend to see goodness and even the glory of God in just about everyone they meet. A holy man or woman feels compassion and love for everyone, ev...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/38023/
Fr. Michael addresses what the word "talent" means (and doesn't mean) in Christ's Parable of the Talents.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/23331/
A reader wrote to Fr. Michael Gillis that he had begun to discover himself through Buddhist meditation despite 25 years of Orthodox Christian practice. The reader asked for Fr. Michael's perspect...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/36751/
Fr. Michael Gillis shares about anger. "If I were to venture a guess as to the most commonly confessed passion that I hear in confessions, I would say that it is anger. Just about everyone is ang...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/36448/
Sometimes letters are sent to AFR addressed to no specific person. In such cases various authors, podcasters or bloggers are called upon to respond to the letter. The lot fell to me for this one....
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/34741/
Fr. Michael continues discussing the teachings of St. Maximus the Confessor.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/33796/
Fr. Michael begins a series discussing St. Maximus the Confessor's 400 chapters about love.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/33793/
The spiritual tools of prayer, fasting, and alms-giving are connected; they flow into one another. And all three have one goal, have one purpose, have one thing that they are supposed to do in ou...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/33228/
"The experience of forgiveness is much more organic, more relational. Forgiveness is actually something that grows. St. Theophan says that it is necessary to develop the hope that comes from work...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/32382/
Fr. Michael discusses how to relate our faith to those who need to hear it: spreading the crumbs that have fallen from our master's table (Mt. 15:27). How do we share our talents with those in ne...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/32242/
"In our awkward attempts to love the needy, we discover our own poverty. They may hunger for bread, but we hunger for righteousness. In clothing the naked, we see our own nakedness, our complete ...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/31643/
In the middle of Homily 54 of his Ascetical Homilies, St. Isaac gives specific advice on how to do this, how to take delight in psalmody. He begins by saying that one should disregard both the qu...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/31446/
You will often hear people speak of the importance of having balance in our lives. And generally speaking, it is a good idea to have a balanced life. This is especially true if by having balance ...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/31376/
If deception is so deceptive, how does one know if one is being deceived?
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/31175/
Spiritual Letters is a collection of letters written in the early part of the twentieth century by a Roman Catholic priest—and I highly recommend it to English speaking Orthodox Christians who ...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/30694/
"As Christians we are all called to be of one mind, but that one mind is not your mind or my mind or somebody else’s—no matter how holy or important that person is or how much authority he or...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/30308/
"Even if I feel I must oppose in some specific ways someone whose sin, for the sake of Christ, I cannot tolerate; still I must weep, weep as one who also is laden with sin—even if my own partic...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/30217/
Concern over God’s judgement has nothing to do with striving to be better. Concern over God’s judgement is to continually strive to enter God’s rest, to humble ourselves and feel sadness ov...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/30064/
What should lay people do when they have a priest whose words or behaviour is unworthy of the grace of the priesthood? What should any person in authority do to better hear the voice of those und...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/29841/
"Most of us most of the time will be attending to the first stage of the spiritual struggle: the purification of our senses through ascetic discipline, the control of the passions and developing ...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/29642/
It seems the future of the Church, the future of the next Great and Holy Council (or the continuation of the one that has already begun) depends mostly on us, the people: the moms and dads, the b...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/29472/
A very wise nun once said something like this: “If you have an evil thought, dismiss it; but if you can’t dismiss it, don’t dwell on it; but if you can’t stop dwelling on it, don’t spea...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/29406/
St. Isaac the Syrian refers to zeal as a guard dog. He refers to sinful and unwanted thoughts and impulses as birds that fly around our soul. Zeal is the guard dog that barks and warns us that th...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/29356/
If we are really interested in helping others who are sick, who are in sin, and who have fallen, then St. Isaac tells us, “know that the sick are in greater need of loving care than of rebuke.�...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/29277/
When I can just be at peace with the fact that I am a mess, but that I am God’s mess (God’s beloved mess), then I don’t have to prove anything. Rather, I can just be my broken self.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/29208/
We all benefit when we receive one another, when we recognize and encourage the strengths in others, when we submit to the maturity and giftedness of others, then the Church is the Church and we ...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/29132/
Too often we say that we love the sinner but hate the sin; however in practice, I don’t think the sinners can tell the difference. May God help us to care for the bodily needs and to lovingly h...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/29065/
Deciding to follow Christ or repenting from a besetting sin is only the first step in a very long journey. St. Isaac the Syrian likens this walk with Christ to a soft drop that hallows out a hard...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/28990/
"Within each person, each baptized, Spirit-filled, Orthodox Christian, there are angels and demons raging. We are, so long as we live in this body of flesh, at war."
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/28924/
I feel a little crazy sometimes, like an idiot—not a godly, holy idiot, just a plain, old-fashioned idiot: the kind that boasts of humility and speaks about the virtue of silence.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/28861/
I have a great six-year old German Shepherd named Kota. Kota is very obedient, most of the time. It’s the rest of the time, the time that is not most of the time, that you have to be careful ab...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/28613/
Every spring I muse on the weeds in my garden. A particularly demonic weed (from my perspective) is convolvulus arvensis: Bindweed. Once you’ve got it, you’ve got it. St. Isaac the Syrian spe...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/28567/
There are some in the Orthodox Tradition who have said that married couples should abstain from sexual relations during lenten periods. Some have gone so far as to say that this is the teaching o...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/28462/
Fr. Michael answers two questions about the passions.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/28386/
As we make our way through the ‘Great Arena of the Fast,’ let’s be careful how we suggest or inform one another about the ascetical practices and traditions that are provided for us in the ...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/28335/
As we prepare with God’s help to enter the arena of the Great Fast, let’s not mistake the means for the end. Let’s use the tools the Church gives us wisely. Let’s push ourselves. Let’s ...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/28254/
Fr. Michael shares from Homily 47 of St. Isaac the Syrian. "Knowledge is not something to be held in contrast to love; but rather, knowledge is the beginning of a process or journey that leads to...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/28160/
A couple of weeks ago, a disturbed young man got onto the metro train in Vancouver and began acting erratically and shouting and cursing. As people in the car began moving away from him, one woma...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/28098/
"St. Isaac the Syrian’s homily 44 is one of his several very difficult homilies. It is difficult not because it is hard to understand. Exactly the opposite is the case. It is quite straight for...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/28023/
In Homily 43, St. Isaac speaks of three areas of ‘discipline,’ or areas in which we must guide or rule our life. Proper discipline in these areas leads to purity. These three areas are bodily...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/27881/
Patience, according to St. Isaac the Syrian, can cut in half the adversity and affliction one experiences in trials, regardless of the source.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/27824/
Continuing in homily 42, St. Isaac gives us another warning. When you find unchanging peace, that is, when everything is going smoothly for you most of the time, then “beware: you are very far ...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/27707/
In Homily 42, St. Isaac the Syrian makes an interesting statement about spiritual guidance. He says, “Do not seek advice from a man who does not lead a life similar to your own, even if he be v...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/27653/
It seems as though the nearer I draw to God, the farther away I realize I am. The more I realize, the less I understand. People sometimes ask me about certainty: “How can you be certain about y...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/27594/
I was speaking to an eighteen year old recently who told me about her bucket list: things she wanted to do before she dies. At the time, I didn’t think much about it. In fact, it seemed rather ...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/27515/
Fr. Michael reflects on a sermon by St. Gregory Palamas about barbarian invasions and sexual sins.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/27427/
In an on-going discussion with my inquiring friend today, I respond to two questions. First, why do traditional Christians call priests father; and second, why do we pray to saints (i.e. why don�...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/27352/
A friend of mine who is an Orthodox inquirer resently asked me some questions about hell. My friend has been a paramedic for many years and has tried to save (sometimes succeeding, sometimes fail...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/27246/
Maybe it’s just the weather: Cold rain, wind and fog. Repeat. If there is any lesson I have learned while praying in the rain, while I have tried to pray in the damp, dreary mess that is my lif...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/27119/
Someone, apparently a young adult, wrote me recently and asked about prayer. This person was having a hard time discerning the difference between worry and prayer. He or she was wondering if pray...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/27030/
Repentance is a process by which we allow our minds to be changed and illumined which results in a change in our whole being: our transfiguration.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/26956/
A catechumen once asked what he could do to get victory over bad dreams: especially lustful dreams that roused his passions and often led him into temptation. I told him that this is one of those...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/26889/
What is the Kingdom that we are to pray come? In one sense, you can say that the Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom of Heaven in Matthew’s gospel, is the government of God: the fact that God is rul...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/26819/
I had a conversation recently in which I couldn’t explain very clearly a comment I made several times, and as a result there was a certain amount of misunderstanding. I realize that perhaps man...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/26734/
Fr. Michael shares his reflections on St. Isaac the Syrian's response to the question, "If, after a man has greatly toiled, laboured, and struggled, the thought of pride shamelessly assails him�...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/26638/
After the introductory address of “Our Father in heaven,” the Lord taught His disciples to make three commands.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/26567/
People sometimes flee the Church because they encounter abusive people or situations there. And yes, we need to love, minister to, care for and most of all be patient with those who flee the chur...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/26488/
The Orthodox Divine Liturgy presents an introductory phrase in the form of prayer—as is typical in Orthodox Christianity, there is the prayer before the prayer. It goes like this: "And grant, O...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/26407/
Over the past several months, I have been reading up on the Lord’s Prayer. Basically what I have been doing is reading homilies written by ancient and contemporary fathers (and in a couple of c...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/26336/
We don’t clean ourselves up before we pray—then we would never pray (or we would only pray the prayers of the Pharisees). We come to God in prayer bringing all of our weaknesses with us, even...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/26267/
As an Evangelical, I had been taught that everything that is really important (spiritually speaking) has to do introducing people to Jesus Christ. Presenting Christ was almost everything. I belie...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/26188/
One of the greatest frustrations in my spiritual life has been caused by a passion for certainty. You might call it a need to know, a need to know what God is doing in my life, a need to have som...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/26100/
Many of us have had mountain-top experiences at one time in our life or another. We have had times when God seemed right there, so close that, at that moment it seemed like nothing to offer God e...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/26039/
In 1851, an anonymous monk on Mount Athos wrote a book on prayer. The title of the book has been translated as The Watchful Mind: Teachings on the Prayer of the Heart. It is a book that I cannot ...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/25972/
"Truly, O Lord, if we do not humble ourselves, You do not cease to humble us. Real humility is the fruit of knowledge; and true knowledge, the fruit of trials." St. Isaac the Syrian Homily 36
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/25903/
Fr. Michael reflects on this quote from St. Isaac the Syrian (Homily 36), "A small affliction borne for God’s sake is better before God than a great work performed without tribulation; for affl...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/25829/
On the Last Day, it’s not what we have done for Christ that will matter. What will matter is that we have known Him. What will matter is that we have focused on the one thing needful, on the hi...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/25773/
It is frightening to be held up by God. It is frightening to look into the abyss of our own darkness and sin. It is frightening and it is glorious. Or at least it can be glorious, once you learn ...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/25716/
Young people, my daughters included, often say that there are no good candidates among the Orthodox Christians they know. I understand this problem. Often Orthodox Christian churches are small an...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/25642/
This morning my wife and I took one of our occasional half-day vacations. It’s a warmish 19 degree day (68 Fahrenheit) with the sun poking through the clouds. We walked a mile or so up a trail ...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/25574/
“So there you are on the heights, surveying the earth below and the sky above. Your intellect now begins to feel its freedom and wants to fly.” I enjoy reading spiritual literature from holy...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/25502/
Mother Alexandra, formally Princess Ileana of Romania, back in 1960 wrote a little booklet called “Our Father: Meditations on The Lord’s Prayer.” The booklet is divided into fourteen prayer...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/25429/
If we want to see God, where do we begin? Archimandrite Aimilianos says that we must begin with what we can do. We can seek; we can come to God with longing. In other words, if you want to see Go...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/25361/
In one of his talks, St. Theophan speaks of the glories of life in a monastery and then he makes a the following statement: “Of course, many inconsistencies occur here, too…” Ah, there’s ...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/25264/
Many people hit a roadblock in their relationship with God when the weight of their sins catches up to them, when they realize they are trapped in a cycle of sin or habit of ungodly behaviour tha...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/25192/
It is difficult for some of us who were raised on a theology of substitutionary atonement, those of us Protestant converts to holy Orthodoxy, it is difficult for us to accept that our final judge...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/25113/
“This is the fiercest struggle, the struggle that resists a man unto blood, wherein free will is tested as to the singleness of his love for the virtues….It is here that we manifest our patie...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/25060/
Archimandrite Aimilianos of Simonopetra Monastery, in the first half of a transcribed (and then translated) speech called “The Progression of the Soul” speaks of stages to the beginning of th...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/24902/
Fr. Michael shares on Thomas Sunday, "Those who doubt, those who fear, those who hide and shut the doors are not cut off from the One who appears in rooms with closed doors."
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/24734/
“What must I do to be saved?” This is a natural question when we reach the stage of our spiritual journey at which we begin to realize that something is wrong, something is wrong between me a...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/24663/
One of the perennial struggles I have in the spiritual life comes from a form of pride that is lodged fast in me and manifests itself in an "all or nothing" attitude toward spiritual life and oth...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/24604/
Probably the most controversial teaching of St. Isaac the Syrian is his teaching on Gehenna, or hell. Homily 27 begins with the following statement and explanation of St. Isaac’s thoughts on si...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/24545/
"In Homily 27, St. Isaac the Syrian speaks of two kinds of confidence. The first kind of confidence is what we generally mean when we say someone is confident. That is, the person is sure about w...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/24484/
Fr. Michael shares from St. Isaac the Syrian. "St. Isaac advises us that when we find ourselves confronting either tedium or despondency, we need to call to mind why we are doing what we are doin...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/24413/
Fr. Michael shares from Homily 24 from St. Isaac the Syrian. "“Everything that can be perceived by the senses, whether an action or a word, is a manifestation of something hidden within.”
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/24328/
"One of my big confusions during the first few years of my journey as an Orthodox Christian was caused by an assumption I had that words used by different Orthodox spiritual writers would refer t...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/24263/
Fr. Michael shares his thoughts about how Christians can respond to violence in our world. "One cannot help being deeply troubled by the latest wave of persecution against Christians perpetrated ...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/24206/
At this point in Great Lent, are you frustrated with your ability to draw near to God? Fr. Michael reminds us that we are not alone, and shares encouragement from St. Isaac the Syrian.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/24131/
Have you felt a lack of love from church leaders? Fr. Michael responds to a reader of his blog about a question related to his recent podcast about Abbess Thaisia: "I am struggling with much of t...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/24031/
Fr. Michael shares helpful words for the beginning of Great Lent from Chapter 21 of the Homilies of St. Isaac the Syrian.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/23969/
Fr. Michael reflects on the life and death, and continuing life, of Annie, the grandmother of one of his parishioners.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/23911/
Fr. Michael shares about the paradox of being sinners, but not sinning.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/23753/
Fr. Michael continues his discussion from last week. "We should not teach our children that anything outside us can defile us.... The defilement is already in our hearts and what we avoid, we avo...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/23636/
Fr. Michael shares his concerns with the familiar "Poop in the Brownies" story and offers some positive alternatives to talking about purity with children.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/23512/
Fr. Michael talks about the Orthodox Church understanding of Paradise and our encounter with Paradise.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/23411/
Fr. Michael shares from St. Isaac the Syrian, "How one speaks of spiritual things is perhaps more important than the very spiritual matters themselves."
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/23242/
Fr. Michael shares his reflections from Abbess Thaisia: An Autobiography. Visit his blog.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/23190/
Fr. Michael shares about lessons learned from a poem by author Beatrix Potter and why he doesn't have a bucket list.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/23136/
Fr. Michael concludes his reflections from his presentation on Theosis at the Orthodox Institute, held last month at Antiochian Village. This is Part 6. Here is a link to the written text of his ...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/23050/
Fr. Michael shares reflections from his presentation on Theosis at the Orthodox Institute, held last month at Antiochian Village. This is Part 5.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/22983/
Fr. Michael shares reflections from his presentation on Theosis at the Orthodox Institute, held earlier this month at Antiochian Village. This is Part 4.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/22860/
Fr. Michael shares reflections from his presentation on Theosis at the Orthodox Institute, held earlier this month at Antiochian Village. This is Part 3.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/22859/
Fr. Michael shares reflections from his presentation on Theosis at the Orthodox Institute, held earlier this month at Antiochian Village. This is Part 2.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/22789/
Fr. Michael shares reflections from his presentation on Theosis at the Orthodox Institute, held this past weekend at Antiochian Village. This is Part 1.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/22736/
Fr. Michael shares important things to think about in the quest for a spiritual father or mother.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/22629/
Fr. Michael talks about the changeability of our bodies in our endeavor to live in holiness. "We may be a mess, but we are God's mess, and He loves us."
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/22491/
Fr. Michael talks about the transition from fearing God to loving God.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/22327/
Fr. Michael follows up last week's podcast ("Error to the Right") with a discussion about the warning to the Laodicean Christians to not be lukewarm (Revelation 3). "We are all sick, blind, naked...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/22221/
Fr. Michael talks about the sin of becoming "too righteous."
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/22133/
Fr. Michael shares an article by Abbess Victoria of St. Barbara's Monastery (Santa Paula, California) on ways to handle worries and distractions while praying.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/22030/
Fr. Michael shares about his experience with the first ever Antiochian Orthodox youth camp in western Canada.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/21948/
Fr. Michael answers the familiar question, "If God is real, why isn't it obvious to everyone?"
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/21884/
Fr. Michael shares a quote and reflections from Jim Forest's book, Living with Wisdom: A Life of Thomas Merton, "I find myself traveling to my destiny in the belly of a paradox."
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/21822/
Fr. Michael talks about getting beyond "scribbling down lists of mistakes" to "allowing your reflection on your sins to break your heart" in preparing for the sacrament of Confession.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/21777/
Fr. Michael compares the weather of Canada's Pacific Coast to spiritual life.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/21723/
Enjoying a spiritual mountain top? Walking in a spiritual valley? Fr. Michael talks about to even out the ups and downs of Christian life.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/21665/
Fr. Michael reflects on a recent public-transit pilgrimage.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/21605/
Fr. Michael shares about discernment. "We all have to begin where we are, with the limited ability and grace we have.... If we follow what we know, maybe God will reveal to us some of what we do ...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/21543/
Fr. Michael uses the examples of the Prodigal Son and the Wise Thief to talk about unity and freedom.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/21483/
Fr. Michael shares an article about happiness he wrote for the Death to the World zine.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/21439/
Fr. Michael shares his thoughts, and St. Isaac the Syrian's thoughts, about theosis.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/21379/
Fr. Michael gives some answers to the age-old question of why life is hard.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/21298/
Fr. Michael concludes his two-part series on discussing the comparison between vocations: marriage, monasticism, and singleness.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/21238/
Fr. Michael begins a two-part series on discussing the comparison between vocations: marriage, monasticism, and singleness.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/21174/
Fr. Michael uses the illustration of rock climbing to talk about fear and freedom.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/21117/
Fr. Michael talks about charismatic Protestant Christianity.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/21066/
Fr. Michael talks about how we take on responsibility for fixing others. "Peace does not come once we figure out how to heal our problems and the problems of those around us. That's backwards. Ou...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/20995/
Fr. Michael talks about how our thoughts influence our lives. "This is success: to become by grace a God-filled human being, to become all that God has called us to be."
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/20924/
Fr. Michael addresses the passages in the gospels where Jesus instructs his disciples to buy swords, Peter's use of the sword, and our own response. "When you look at the Orthodox tradition, ther...
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/20867/
Fr. Michael encourages us to trust that God, as our coach, will teach us to float and to swim, knowing that He is our teacher, and His hands are beneath us.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/20804/
"What enraptures us today determines how we will experience the rapture of the last day no matter when or how that takes place."
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/20705/
Fr. Michael discusses fear of, and love for, God.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/20610/
Fr. Michael shares the song of the vineyard, from the Prophet Isaiah.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/20557/
Fr. Michael examines the Sermon on the Mount, specifically our faith and deeds done in secret.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/20498/
Fr. Michael addresses disappointment—what it is and how we should deal with it.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/20435/
Fr. Michael discusses "the dark night of the soul," an expression coined by St. John of the Cross, a 16th-century Spanish mystic.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/20352/
Fr. Michael explains that the Church provides a context in which what has been good before can become better—more deeply understood, more sanely practiced.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/20299/
Fr. Michael examines Jesus's exhortation in Matthew 6:1-3 to "take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men."
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/20220/
Fr. Michael examines Jesus's exhortation to "take heed that the light in you is not darkness."
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/20161/
Fr. Michael examines Jesus's exhortation to "take heed of the leaven of the Pharisees."
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/20044/
Fr. Michael examines Jesus's exhortation to "take heed how or what you hear" in Mark 4:24 and Luke 8:18.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/19964/
Fr. Michael examines Jesus's exhortation to "Take heed concerning covetousness" in Luke 12:14.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/19913/
In this debut episode, Fr. Michael begins a seven-part series on the warnings of Jesus.
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/prayingintherain/19840/