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My kids LOVE these podcasts!

Revisado: 05-03-24

Since discovering this podcast my kids ask for it constantly. Engaging saint stories told in dramatic fashion, and Q&A with a priest at precisely their level (they range in age from 2-10), we can't wait til more of these are made!

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Most Relevant Spiritual Book for Pregnant Moms

Revisado: 06-09-21

I'm about to have my fifth child and how I wish I'd read this with my first! This pregnancy I've listened to it repeatedly, because the ideas have such depth, to assimilate them bears ongoing effort. They have cast pregnancy, birth, and motherhood in a new and very positive light. I have never felt such strength of purpose in what I'm doing as a mom, as I feel when I'm listening to this book. And the reader is a delight to listen to!

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A Sense of Spiritual Wonder

Revisado: 01-07-21 El oyente recibió este título gratis

"The Scent of Holiness" is one of those books that just can't be long enough: because I couldn't bear for it to end, I've now read and listened to it six times. Yes, it's that good. So when Constantina Palmer released her second book, "The Sweetness of Grace," I couldn't wait to pick it up. Except as a mom of four (soon to be five) I can really only "read" audiobooks, so wait I did, an intolerably long period until the audio version came out.

Some books can probably be read by anyone, but I'm glad Palmer reads her own works. The warmth of her telling brings the personalities she describes to life. More than this, however, her work shines because of the sense of spiritual wonder it reflects, and that is most easily seen through her eyes and in her own voice. It's this sense of spiritual wonder and close observation coupled with keen reflection that makes both her works so unique and valuable. Readers will learn and be challenged spiritually, while also being comforted. I listened to this book during a time of spiritual dryness and fatigue, and while some kinds of spiritual reading can feel like an irritant or burdensome during such a time, this book managed to both uplift and give me some much needed rest and encouragement.
 
"The Sweetness of Grace" stands well on its own, but many characteristics of "The Scent of Holiness" are repeated to good effect as well. As she previously ordered anecdotes around the prayer rope, Palmer now orders the stories around the Beatitudes, giving the collection a purposeful and beautiful structure. I doubt the reader exists who will not take away some strengthening insight from this book.

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A Life Truly Given to Christ

Revisado: 05-07-20 El oyente recibió este título gratis

Three years ago my family and I moved from my native Oregon to NW Wisconsin. It's not much of a move compared to Fr Nicola Yanney's immigration from Syria to Nebraska, but in a small way I left everything I'd ever known, and when I heard about this book I really needed to read it. It told the story of another soul who not only left home and church and family, but who settled here in the American midwest.

 I'm sure it's a different place than when the Yanneys originally made their homestead, but in some ways we face similar obstacles. Out among the farms, Orthodox parishes are few and far between and usually small. A regular pastor might or might not be attached to a parish. The elements and the climate can be harsh and unforgiving. In rural America, people are still often monetarily poor.

"Apostle to the Plains" is the story of a man who, in the midst of all this rocky soil, not only sprouted, but in Christ bloomed and flourished. In a worldly sense he endured tremendous sorrow. As I listened, I found myself in tears approximately every forty pages, because of all the bereavement that was so common at the turn of the 20th century (which is a compliment I must pay the authors of this book - I don't recall the last time a historical autobiography engaged me on such an emotional level).  Fr Nicola bore every cross. He sacrificed everything most of us consider most valuable: family, honest prosperity, a home. But in the words of the Apostle Paul, "whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ" (Phil 3:8). Fr Nicola Yanney truly exchanged everything he had for the pearl of great price, and he continued to do so until he died.

On a wider historic level the book gives readers a glimpse into the foundations of Orthodoxy in America, and through Fr Nicola's eyes, a very personal experience of the struggles the church suffered in becoming established here.  I am a convert to Orthodoxy, and without people like Fr Nicola to shepherd Orthodox immigrants through those years, I wonder if an American Orthodoxy would've survived for me to be baptized into. On behalf of myself, my husband and my four children  (who were all baptized just after their birth) I feel deep gratitude to Fr Nicola and those like him who sacrificed so much temporal treasure for the sake of eternal gain.

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"Relevant" Worship

Revisado: 12-27-19 El oyente recibió este título gratis

What did worship in the early church look like? Which modern church reflects that worship the most closely? If Judaism is the mother of Christianity, why does so much modern Christian worship bear no resemblance to Jewish worship? At what point did things change so drastically? For that matter...what's the purpose of worship at all?

Modern Christians are either falling away from the church in droves or they are fighting tooth and nail to find their way back to a faith that looks more like what the Apostles experienced. Their struggle is often fuelled by the questions above. 

If you have questions like these, the book "Orthodox Worship: A Living Continuity With the Synagogue, the Temple, and the Early Church" is the text you are looking for.  In this book, Benjamin Williams and Harold Anstall explain how closely early Christian worship was intertwined with temple and synagogue worship, and they paint a picture of the early church. They flesh out the Gospel account of Jesus' worship as an observant Jew and describe how the Apostles and early disciples would have continued to practice their Jewish faith with the illumination or faith in Christ. 

Because early Christian worship was so intertwined with Jewish worship, they observe, it was liturgical in the same way, and Jewish liturgical  worship was revealed by God in the Old Testament as a reflection of heavenly worship. That leads us to the purpose of worship, its critical importance, and the root of a modern problem: the majority of modern Christian worship no longer follows a liturgical format, and it has thus lost its root as a reflection of heavenly worship.

If liturgy is so important, where do we turn? To the only church that has remained stubbornly faithful, throughout history, to its liturgical tradition: the Eastern Orthodox church. This church looks strange to many Western Christians, having grown out of a culture foreign to us. But it shares its culture and history with Christ and the Apostles themselves. In part one, the book explains how the Orthodox Divine Liturgy we see today developed from the original Old Testament liturgical worship, through the worship of the early Christians. In the book's second part, Williams and Anstall write a useful guide to the origins, format, elements and meaning of the oldest liturgy in Christendom, and show it to be unalterably relevant, as the inheritance of that heavenly liturgy first revealed by God to the Jews. Listen to this book and you will learn, in fact, how it is that liturgy includes not just the purpose of worship, but the meaning of life itself.

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Refreshing and humorous, but no laughing matter.

Revisado: 02-02-19

Ever start a book, only to be surprised by it? Here's one in that category!

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Will Change Your Understanding of Christianity

Revisado: 01-16-19

Since the book "Surprised By Christ" is an intensely personal account, I'll start my review on a personal level, and disclose that I am an Orthodox Christian convert from Roman Catholicism, into which I was baptized and raised from infancy. Because of this, I have always felt somewhat handicapped at understanding both Judaism and the Old Testament. I'm very aware that I can only view either through the lens of the Western Christianity I've inherited. I don't even know the right questions to ask. I was so attracted to Judaism that in my 20s I nearly converted, myself, and that journey caused me to approach Christianity differently. Christianity views itself as a descendant from Judaism, but as modern Christians, in a culture that has claimed Christianity for so long, how much do we really understand about the relationship between our faith (Christianity) and its mother faith, Judaism? (Not much, as it turns out, which is why this book is so illuminating.)

This is what I appreciated so much about Fr James Bernstein's approach to describing his transformation from a cradle Orthodox Jew into, ultimately, an Orthodox Christian priest (via a long trek through Evangelical protestantism). Recounted in first-person autobiography, throughout the story he shares the assumptions he inherited as an Orthodox Jew and the questions they generated as he approached Christianity. It's extremely revealing to hear his reactions as he learns about his new faith after converting. For instance, much of Western Christian salvation theology finds its basis in the idea of sacrifice, which we assume directly descends from Old Testament concepts of sacrifice. But do we have the remotest understanding of what sacrifice meant to an Old Testament-era Jew? Modern Jews have retained a sense of the significance - modern Christians clearly have not. And yet, it's integral to our understanding of our life in Christ and the identity of Christ, Himself. This is just one example in which Fr James brilliantly clarifies Christian theology through the light of his Jewish background.

Do not, however, assume that this book is any kind of dry theological treatise. Important as the concepts presented are (and richly supported through scriptural references and quotes from early Christian fathers), listening to the audiobook was more like sitting down to coffee in the company of a friend, and hearing a long, lovely and fascinating story. Fr James artfully weaves together his personal thoughts and questions, experiences of spiritual growth, and encounters with significant history (a front-row seat in Israel's 6-Day War, a narrow escape from Vietnam conscription, participation in the lively Berkeley culture of the 60s and 70s). The author reads the book at a leisurely pace, which enriches the story and also makes it easier to follow when he delves into rich theology and scripture.

This book is so multi-layered it will bear repeated listening. I am very grateful to Fr James Bernstein for having written it, because it presented answers to questions I didn't know I had, but that prove critical to my understanding of my faith. If you are already a Christian, this book will enrich your understanding of Christianity in unexpected ways: be prepared to let go of what you think you know. And if you aren't a Christian, enjoy a great story that will still enlighten you about parts of our cultural history that are, in general, meagerly understood. Fr James Bernstein brings an invaluable voice to the conversation of culture, history and faith.

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