The problem with our society today is that we have gone down into the sewer as a culture and there are too many of us, even in the Church, who have gotten so used to the stench of that sewer that they don’t even smell it anymore. Why would you want to be entertained by that sort of thing? They prefaced their discussion by saying, “Well, if this kind of stuff is going to bother you, you probably don’t want to see this show.” The issue is that any Christian should be bothered by that enough to not want to watch it.
#Bad company ruins good morals series#
Just this week I heard a discussion by two Orthodox people in which they were talking about the artistic merits and the spiritual lessons to be drawn from a cable series that has frequent and extended pornographic scenes on a regular basis. They’re not living according to the Gospel, and in many cases, they don’t even seem to be aware of the fact that they’re not living according to the Gospel. We’re beginning to see all too many laymen living just like the devil. Unfortunately, I think that in our time we can begin to see that that’s not such a distant reality.
It’s not saying that everyone is going to be that way, it’s saying this is the way that it’s generally going to be. This saying shouldn’t discourage us, because it’s somewhat hyperbolic, as you often find even in Scripture to make a point. There’s a common Christian Gospel that we’re all supposed to live according to, whether we’re laymen or monks. This doesn’t mean that laymen have to live like monks in every respect, of course, but the spirituality of a monk is not fundamentally different from the spirituality of a layman. Moses the Ethiopian, one the great fathers of the desert.
We see that in the saint we commemorate today, St. Amen.Īn Athonite elder was asked by one of his spiritual children about the last times, and he was told, “Son, in the last times the monk will be like laymen and the laymen will be like demons.” Ideally, in the Orthodox Church, the laymen should be like monks, and the monks should be like angels in the flesh. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. The Parting of Lot and Abraham, Santa Maria Maggiore, mosaic in the nave.
0 kommentar(er)
