THE ORTHODOX FAMILY

“To become fully persons is to be truly united with Christ. Oftentimes, we’re tempted to define ourselves by our passions, by our struggles. You’ve heard people say, ‘I’m just an angry person’, ‘I’m just impatient’, yet we only see who we truly are when we’re transformed and no longer controlled by our passions . . . Saint John Chrysostom writes, ‘Virtue is according to nature, while evil is contrary to nature’, that is, it’s in our nature to pursue virtue. To become human means to pursue Christ – to be filled with Christ. Yet this creates in me a tension [between] who I am now is a broken, selfish and distorted dad, and who I’m called to become in Christ. This tension is creative, much like the tension between a husband and a wife, there is an internal tension between my fallen desires and my vocation to perfection. This is the path of the Cross and the Resurrection. Within this tension, we walk towards righteousness in faith.

So, our vocation as ‘priest’ is the context for us raising children, and only when we accept our priestly kingship, do we create a context for raising healthy children. And only when I accept my vocation as a ‘priest’ can I enter into a path of discovering who I really am and who I’m called to be in Christ. . . When I lose my focus on Christ, I then become enslaved to these passions which intensify these false desires. . .

We overcome sin through confession, allowing ourselves to be known, through communion, real Communion, real relationships within the sacramental life of the Church. We overcome this brokenness in Christ because we reorient our hearts to becoming fully human in relationship with Him and, in a sense, free to live as individuals created in the image of Christ. As we allow ourselves to be known, no matter where our deformations are, in the self-offering of Christ sacramentally as communities, we are enabled to be freed of these distortions and to pursue righteousness and life in Christ. And, in that senses, no matter where we come from, we enter into this path with Christ of being free to live.” (Excerpt from Sexual Passions and Addictions: Healing the Spiritual Wounds of Our Age, Dr. Philip Mamalakis, 1:25:00)