Join Michael as he discusses what eros and agape really mean and why they cannot be separated, how growth in love is deeply linked to suffering, how disordered desire can grip us, how we never truly sin alone, and how it always affects both us and others when we act on our disordered desires.

Join Michael as he provides an in-depth discussion of the many spiritual aspects of patience that are critical to our salvation and the salvation of others, and how lacking this virtue is more spiritually harmful than we may realize.

Join Michael for a discussion on why forgiving ourselves is often so hard and what we need to understand and do to open our hearts to self-forgiveness.

Join Michael as he shows why restraint is Christ-like and liberating, and the path of ultimate freedom out of the self-inflicted tyranny of our own thoughts and behaviors.

Join Michael as he recounts a story of a good friend’s nervous breakdown and his experience of theophany, theosis, repentance, and God’s beauty amidst his trauma and suffering.

We live in a consumer culture. Businesses gather and sell data and information about us to target us as consumers. We are increasingly treated more like consumers than persons. The Christmas season for many has become nothing more than frenzied consumerism. John Michael as he discusses the human person in the context of consumer culture, comparing and contrasting the language of consuming used in our Liturgy and throughout the Bible with modern notions of consuming and how this relates to our love and growth as human persons.

Join Michael in discussion of what it means in the Liturgy when the Priest prays “And let us ask for a Christian end to our life, peaceful, without shame and suffering, and for a good defense before the awesome judgment seat of Christ” and how that should drive our daily behavior.

Join Michael in a discussion about what the Scriptures and our Holy Tradition teach us about the importance of clothing as it relates to salvation, communion, or lack thereof, and what our attitudes and actions toward clothing reveal about us individually and culturally.

Fr. Seraphim Aldea continues his series on fasting.

What would happen if we were all martyred for the Truth of Christ?

Don't look for the easy way out of pain. Do not deny the reality of your doubts, your struggles and your sins. Be who-you-are before Christ, so that He may save the truth of who-you-are.

We often gather our forces to fight our spiritual enemies at the wrong 'gate' of our being. Most frequently, evil enters our life through the gates of our mind and heart, not that of the body. We need to pay attention and learn the behaviour of the evil one, so we may guard well the fortress of our being. Once we learn to decode his behaviour, we can finally begin to plan a strategy to fight back.

We sometimes pray very hard for Christ to release us from our sin, but it feels as if He just looks away and doesn't want to help. Almost always, this betrays a much more serious sin in us, hiding underneath the one that troubles us. Pride, judgement, and condemnation of others can prevent Christ from releasing us from our sin.

No good can come from constantly re-assessing our decision to enter a marriage or monastic life. The time for assessing is before we enter the Sacrament; after that, we should allow Christ to freely use the 'tool' of the Sacrament to shape us into the Saints He created us to be.

Fr. Seraphim shares a message of forgiveness at Christmas.

We are broken and our prayer reflects that brokenness. But we are called to be one, to be simple with God's simplicity. As our prayer grows, we grow as well. As we spiritually heal and let go of our complexities and divisivenesses (which are results of our fallen nature), our prayer slowly lets go of its brokenness and becomes what it is supposed to be: a prayer beyond words, a silent prayer that is an act of being.

This video is part of a Lenten Retreat at St Seraphim's Cathedral in Santa Rosa, California. As we prepare to enter Great Lent, we might ponder on the impossible height to which we are being called—to be perfect with the Father’s perfection—an impossibility that becomes possible in Christ, as we open up to His presence. This paradox and the tension it creates in us keep our spiritual life safe from being reduced to empty piety and religiosity.

What has light to do with darkness?

Don't Hide You from Christ (w/ Fr. Seraphim Aldea)

True Christians Have No Enemies (w/ Fr. Seraphim Aldea)

The One True Christ... and the many false ones (w/ Fr. Seraphim Aldea)

Jesus Christ: The Only Path to Salvation (w/ Fr. Seraphim Aldea)

Reading versus Lived Experience of Jesus Christ (w/ Fr. Seraphim Aldea)

Can we reconcile the world's celebration of Nativity with our own? Yes! The Lord has the last word.

The Greek nun Irene Myrtidiotissa was visited by the grace of our Christ. But what is grace actually about?

The Gabby Petito case has connected with many people. What are we to think of it, and can we learn something from it?