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Author page: Fr. Barnabas Powell

“I Love You 3000!”

"I love you 3000." This iconic bit of Hollywood scripting is such a powerful illustration of our current understanding/misunderstanding about love. The sentimental side of me sheds tears as a child tries to tell her daddy how much she loves him, and in her little head the number 3000 expresses a huge amount. But then…

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Are You Really Awake?

Socrates sees the wisdom in living a wakeful life when he says “ὁ δὲ ἀνεξέταστος βίος οὐ βιωτὸς ἀνθρώπῳ – The unexamining life is not worth living for a human being.” Notice the continual action implied in the original. This wisdom, planted in we humans by our loving Creator, is simply obvious but continually difficult. Our experiences,…

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How To Do Family And Society!

It’s no secret that family life is filled with challenges. To be honest, I don’t think we’ve seen the real fallout of all the societal experiments we Americans have engaged in since all these movements have been demanding this or that change in society. One of the interesting, if unintended consequences, of these movements is…

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Husbands, Love Your Wives!

To say that marriage is a hot topic today would be an understatement. But, you have to understand that the motivation for all this controversy about marriage today isn’t new. And it isn’t about equality or fairness or even compassion. It’s about attack. It’s about the real, yet unstated goal of some (after all, if…

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Not Many Fathers

"Father is not a title!" By now my parishioners and catechumens are sick of hearing me say this. But I say it so much because there is a real healing truth in this reality. The Church isn't some collection of "club members" or a "society for the preservation of baklava." No, the Church is a…

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Speak The Truth!

The great Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky rightly declared "Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth, nothing easier than flattery." And truth has always been the cry of despots, prophets, and politicians with varying degrees of honesty. The whole of the 20th century was dominated by the bastardization of Truth so that whole…

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Spiritual Deafness

“Um, sorry, what did you say?” That’s the response I get many times when I’m talking to my younger brother. His hearing took a beating years ago when he was working at a car body repair shop. The steady noise combined with his serious work ethic to damage his hearing, so now, I have to repeat…

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