![\"Man\u2019s](\"https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/Adam_Eve_Out_of_Paradise_01_900x495_bw.jpg\")
by Fr. Thomas Hopko –\nWe have abandoned communion with God and have gone off on our own, following our own ideas, enacting our own plans. <\/p>\n
by Fr. Thomas Hopko –
\nWe have abandoned communion with God and have gone off on our own, following our own ideas, enacting our own plans. <\/p>\n
And the result? Through our reckless wasting of the gifts given us by God, we have stripped ourselves of our original and fundamental dignity, glory, wisdom, beauty and strength: we have lost our legacy as God\u2019s children. And the whole cosmos suffers with us in our affliction.<\/p>\n
People feel unhappy and they don\u2019t know why.<\/strong> They feel that something is wrong, but they can\u2019t put their finger on what. They feel uneasy, confused, frustrated, alienated and estranged \u2013 and they can\u2019t explain it. They have everything and yet they want more; and when they get it, they are still empty and dissatisfied. They want fulfillment and it never seems to come. Everything is fine and yet everything is wrong. <\/p>\n Here in America, this is almost a national disease. It is covered over by frantic activity and endless running around; it is buried in activities and events; it is drowned out by television programs and football games. But when the movement stops and the dial is turned off and everything is quiet\u2026..then the dread sets in, the meaninglessness of it all, the boredom and the fear. <\/p>\n Why is this so?<\/p>\n Because, as the Church tells us, we are really not at home. We are in exile.<\/strong> We are alienated and estranged from our true country. We are not with God our Father in the land of the living. We are spiritually sick and some of us are already dead.<\/p>\n \u201cOur hearts are made for God,\u201d St. Augustine said more than 1500 years ago, \u201cand we will be forever restless until we rest in him.\u201d Our lives are made for God and we will be unsatisfied, unfulfilled, and frustrated until we find our home with Him. Nothing in this fallen world can, of itself, bring us the peace that we seek. God alone can do that because He alone is our home. And we are His.<\/p>\n The lenten and paschal season is given to us by the Church as the time for the conscious return to our true home in God, the God who has \u2013 in His amazing love for us \u2013 forgiven us and embraced us in the crucifixion of Christ Jesus our Lord and granted us the possibility of eternal life in His rising from the dead. by Fr. Thomas Hopko – We have abandoned communion with God and have gone off on our own, following our own ideas, enacting our own plans. And the result? Through our reckless wasting of the gifts given us by God, we have stripped ourselves of our original and fundamental dignity, glory, wisdom, beauty and strength: … [read more]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10,29,26,54,67,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity","category-moral-issues","category-orthodox-christianity","category-scriptures","category-theology","category-wisdom"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3377\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nAdapted from Father Thomas Hopko\u2019s book, The Lenten Spring<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"