The Communion of Love

Publication Data: Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984
Format: softcover
Number of Pages: 234
Dimensions (l × w × h): 21.4 cm × 14.0 cm × 1.8 cm
ISBN: 0‒88141‒036‒5

   
Matthew the Poor
Fr Matta El-Meskeen
with a Foreword by Henri Nouwen

“All that Father Matta says is guided by the question, ‘How do I make God the center of my life?’ God is the core of every word in this text. That might seem quite ‘normal’ when stated abstractly. Yet these God-centered reflections deeply challenge us who continue to place our own preoccupations and concerns in the center. Over and over again we find ourselves trapped in questions such as: ‘How does this help me?’, ‘How useful is this to me?’, ‘How does this strike me?’, ‘What can I do with this idea?’ All these very acceptable and legitimate questions can easily become ways to avoid facing the truth that God is before we were, and that God and not our needs, desires, hopes, and expectations must be the guide of our thinking, speaking and acting. In our society—with its emphasis on the personal and interpersonal and its interest in emotions, passions, and feelings—Father Matta’s radical God-centeredness comes as a shock which wakes us up from a long dream.”
—“Foreword”

CONTENTS

Introduction
Preface
1. How to Read the Bible
2. Christ of the Old and New Testaments
3. The Christ of History: A Living Christ
4. The Hidden Aspect of the Nativity
5. The Righteousness of Humility
6. Repentance and Asceticism in the Gospel
7. Repentance
8. The Deep Meaning of Fasting
9. Gethsemane and the Problem of Suffering
10. The Passion of Jesus Christ in our Life
11. Resurrection and Redemption in the Orthodox Concept
12. Between the Resurrection and the Ascenion
13. The Ascension of Christ
14. Pentecost: The Promise of the Father
15. The Holy Spirit in Dogmatic Theology and in Ascetic Theology
16. The Holy Spirit in the Conflict Between the Enemy and the Kingdom of God
17. The Assumption of the Body of the Virgin Mary
18. The Virgin in the Theology of the Church
19. One Christ and One Catholic Church
20. Christian Unity