Blog Posts
"Who touched me?” Jesus said. He was walking through the city and crowds of people were following him eager to see this man, this healer and teacher who calms the sea and drives out demons.
Luke tells us the people were expecting him. His friends, the disciples, denied that he had been touched: they have no clue. Peter responds, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.”
But Jesus says, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.”
When I was Episcopalian and a member of the Cathedral Church of St John the Divine, I became a member of the healing ministry. We learned to be still, to hold our hands up to the head of the person before us, and feel the energy. We asked their name and what brought them to us. Then we laid our hands and said, “(Calling their name), I lay my hands upon you in the Name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, beseeching him to uphold you and fill you with his grace, that you may know the healing power of his love. Amen.”
Whenever I’m given a choice about reading one of the fifteen Old Testament passages during the Holy Saturday service, I always say, I’d really like to read #12! Is there any chance I could be assigned #12?
In the Eastern churches, that reading recounts the story of the Prophet Elisha and the wealthy woman who offers him hospitality, first giving him some food as he passed by and then building a guest room for him. (You can find it at 2 Kings 4: 8-37.)
The first time I met Empress Theodora was in Church History class. I found her fascinating, and I will show you why.
Empress Theodora is a saint in the Church, and her feast day is remembered on June 28 in the Syriac Orthodox Church. She was the wife of the Byzantine emperor Justinian. She lived during the sixth century and died in 548 AD.
There are two versions of her origin story - where did she come from and who were her parents? The Eastern Orthodox and the Oriental Church have differing accounts of her background.
Since praying is one of the cornerstones of Orthodox spirituality, we are always on the lookout for ways to get better at it. This week’s blogger developed her prayer rule in an unexpected place. She has found a practice that works for her even while she, like all of us, is confronting these uncertain times. Are there ideas here that could work for you?
On Thursday morning, June 18, I saw on the calendar that the Syriac Orthodox Church remembered the feast day of St. Moses the Abyssinian. This caught my eye especially because of the week the Axia Women Board was praying the Canon of Reconciliation every night. When I looked further, I realized that this was another name for St. Moses the Ethiopian or St. Moses the Black. I later discovered that “Abyssinian” is a former name of Ethiopia. However, this was not the first time I have heard of his name. I recall hearing his name mentioned when I was at seminary. In my first year, the students of St.
I first encountered “antidoron”—the bread distributed after Holy Communion— as a 17-year-old. I was spending the summer with the family of a priest in Patras, Greece, as an exchange student. He would bring home these big round loaves, stamped with an abstract design from his work at a local cathedral and they would slice it up and eat it with meals. It was blonde, rather coarse and dry, so I never asked for much. To me, bread was for toast or sandwiches; rice is what you ate with meals. But but this six-person family, living on a priest’s small stipend, were glad to have it and went through several loaves a week.