New Creation: Cosmic Life Transformation as seen through Holy Saturday

On Holy Saturday, the day between the crucifixion and the resurrection, we wait at the cusp of a new world order. It is the day between the seeming destruction of the crucifixion and the exultant resurrection. It is a state of being that is almost, but not yet. This sense of expectation can be and should be carried into our reflection of our personal lives and spiritual progress. After all, we too, are in a state of almost, but not yet. Something very real happens on Holy Saturday. This class explores how we can enter into that new reality and live the transformed life that it invites us into.

The Great Challenges of Great Lent

Great lent gives us the opportunity to take a radical sabbatical from our usual way of going through life.  We are given the chance and the blueprint to experience an alternative way of using time, food, the material world, and thoughts.  Will we meet the challenge?  What support can we receive for bucking the trend?  Please join Cynthia Kostas this Sunday to explore some not-usually talked about aspects of lent. By the end of the session you will have a map for your Lenten Journey and a plan for arriving successfully.

The Realities of Holy Week

Holy Week is a powerful experience in the life of the people of Christ, both personally and collectively. The solemnities of Great Week help us to enter and to penetrate the depths of God’s love for us. It is this incredible love that is demonstrated in His incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection.  The progression of the days mimics our own salvation process. But, how can we best access and appropriate the powerful truths of the services, the readings and hymnology?  Come explore together the themes of the six days of Holy Week leading up to Pascha in a class devoted to your experiencing the spiritual and physical realities of Great Week.

The Pentecost

God deals with His people through covenant. It is therefore important to understand how God covenants with His people, if we are to understand how He deals with us. God covenanted with Abraham in a reciprocal but unequal relationship. God’s second covenant with mankind is through His person in Christ. Christ promised to send us the Holy Spirit to teach and comfort us, but also to connect us to Him. Just as the Holy Spirit brought God into flesh through the cooperation of Mary, the Holy Spirit connects us to Christ’s resurrected body, to create "The Church" in the world. When the Holy Spirit anoints the apostles on Pentecost, God seals His New Covenant with us. How does this affect you, your process of Theosis, humankind, and nature?  Come learn more with Cynthia Kostas in a discussion that will awaken you to the incredible cosmic event celebrated at Pentecost.

Conversations with God

To pray is to be in conversation and relationship with God. However, too often, prayer becomes routinized, ritualized, or even non-existent in the course of our daily lives.  How do we revitalize and reconnect our life in prayer to the core of our being? How do we return to the joyful and rejuvenating experience of true connection to God in prayer?  Where do we find time? Does an Orthodox Christian pray outside of the Liturgy? Can an Orthodox Christian pray personal prayers apart from the prayer book? What does it mean to stand in silent prayer in God’s presence? This talk reviews the Orthodox Christian concept of prayer and provides practical suggestions to renew your life in prayer.