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Understanding Christianity as a Way of Life - Sacramental Living is a series of podcasts by Michael Haldas about how to understand and live our Orthodox Christian faith in the context of real life and real world issues and continually grow closer to God.
Join Michael as he discusses how we are either living in repentance or rebellion at any given time in our response to God grace, and how this determines the quality of our existence both now and in the life to come.By Michael Haldas and Ancient Faith Radio
Join Michael as he discusses the failure of the first fast in the Bible and its implications to us; how fasting is not about food the way we typically approach it; and fasting’s corporate and communal nature and what it means to us as persons not individuals.By Michael Haldas and Ancient Faith Radio
Great Lent is a holy and sacred time of year yet we can turn it into a secular practice and experience if we are not careful. Join Michael as he discusses our understanding and participation in Lent, and how to avoid subtle ways that lead us to experience Lent less than how we should.By Michael Haldas and Ancient Faith Radio
So many people love a good conspiracy theory. But these theories do damage and harm to individuals, communities, and our society. Join Michael as he discusses the primary reasons people believe them and why doing so is antithetical to our faith.By Michael Haldas and Ancient Faith Radio
Cancel culture is a culture of hate, division, and destruction. Join Michael as he uses the Gospels and other scripture to show just how wicked this culture is; what the current culture is doing to us; why we are knowingly or unknowingly participating in it; and what we should do to combat it.By Michael Haldas and Ancient Faith Radio
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“Your Faith Has Made You Well” – Or Has It?
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Christ says “your faith has made you well” specific to three healings in the Gospel accounts. This phrase means much more than we think it does and understanding it in full opens our eyes to how we should be living our faith and why many of us are not. Join Michael as breaks this simple phrase down with all of its layers of meaning and what we shou…
What’s the difference between testing and temptation? How can we discern God’s at work in our lives versus the enemy’s attacks? Why does the Greek in the scriptures use the same word for testing and temptation? Join Michael as he addresses these questions and compares and contrasts testing and temptation.…
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Why Christians Must Acquire the Soul of a Poet
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St. Porphyrios wrote, “Whoever wants to become a Christian must first become a poet.” Most of us are not poets so does this preclude us from being true Christians? Join Michael as he explores God’s poetic and artistic nature and how to understand and connect to Him through the divine language of symbol, beauty, and our own personal artistry even wh…
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It is More Blessed to Give Than to Receive Except for Suffering
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Join Michael as he discusses the Book of Job as a case study in suffering and the importance of how we receive our suffering; how it is often what defines our salvation and belief in and relationship to God; what God gives and does not give to us in our suffering; and how our suffering can be a mystery and those closest to us can often create obsta…
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Our Thoughts (and Actions) Determine Our Lives
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Many of us have read the book Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives by Elder Thaddeus which is packed with holy wisdom. However, our thoughts gives rise to our actions, and our actions in turn reflect our thoughts. We are held to account by God for both what we think and what we do. Join Michael as he discusses the relationship to thoughts and actions, …
Join Michael as he offers a reflection on how and why the liturgical life of the church should be lived continuously both inside and outside of the church walls, how Christ teaches and demonstrates this in the Gospel, and how we can sometimes make our liturgical worship a requirement instead of a means to draw closer to Christ and love others.…
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Not Losing Heart in These Troubling Times
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Join Michael as he discusses what it really means “not to lose heart” according to Christ and St. Paul, examines the scriptures where these words are used, looks at their meaning in the original Greek, and why we actually have a responsibility to others not to lose heart.By Michael Haldas and Ancient Faith Radio
Join Michael as he discusses the danger of giving into the wrong desires, some of which seem benign but aren’t; the struggles we encounter on the journey from self-desire to self-denial; what authors such as Lewis, Tolkien, and others can teach us; and ways we can frame our thought to help us with this important struggle.…
Join Michael as he discusses what we should do when we feel like God is absent from our lives, and how we can overcome the tyranny of our negative thoughts and feelings that create this false sense of separation.By Michael Haldas and Ancient Faith Radio
Join Michael for an in-depth discussion of healing, what Christ demonstrates in the Gospels, and some surprising reasons why we are and are not as open to healing as we’d like to think.By Michael Haldas and Ancient Faith Radio
Join Michael in an in-depth discussion about the self-defeating voice in our head that makes us feel like imposters who we will be discovered a frauds, the internal and external influences that feed this negative self-talk, and how we can overcome it in Christ.By Michael Haldas and Ancient Faith Radio
Join Michael as he tells the story of a family who all contracted the virus, what they suffered, what medical experts and articles are saying about COVID-19 and PTSD, and how we can understand this spiritually.By Michael Haldas and Ancient Faith Radio
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Mary the Mother of God and the Value and Restoration of Women
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In celebration of Mother’s Day, join Michael as he explores the language of the Genesis creation stories and what they teach us about the value of women and the feminine and motherly nature of God. He then reflects on the Theotokos and how her life and Christ’s demonstrate the value of women established in Genesis, and how they restore women to the…
The circumstances of the coronavirus and the global pandemic give us an opportunity, amidst the suffering, to reexamine aspects of our faith, and refresh and renew our thinking and practice. Join Michael as he takes a deep dive of what it means to pray in the name of the Lord, especially during this time of great need.…
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The Office of the Child: Hope in Christ as the Eternal Son of God
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Retaining the hope of a child is not easy, especially in today’s coronavirus pandemic environment. Yet this is what Christ want us to do according to the Gospel. Using thoughts from Orthodox teacher and professor Vigen Guroian’s chapter on childhood from his book The Orthodox Reality: Culture, Theology, and Ethics in the Modern World, Michael explo…
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Panic, Fragility, and the Plight of the Immanent Man
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Inspired by the conditions of the coronavirus, but not about the virus itself, Michael reflects on why either our transcendent or immanent mindset makes a huge difference on how we cope with such trying circumstances.By Michael Haldas and Ancient Faith Radio
The St. Nicholas Orthodox Cathedral has been holding nightly classes/discussions, seven days a week at 7 PM EST. Led by Father George Kokhno and Father Valery Shemchuk, each night either one of them, or guest speakers such as Michael Haldas, Archimandrite Sergius of St. Tikhon's Monastery, Father Maximus Urbanowicz, and others have led discussions.…
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Capturing our Minds in a World of False Images
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By Michael Haldas and Ancient Faith Radio
By Michael Haldas and Ancient Faith Radio
Bondage to sin and wrong behavior and struggling with things we can’t seem to overcome plague us all to lesser or greater degrees. Join Michael as he talks about three typical forms of bondage that grip us and what we need to do to overcome them.By Michael Haldas and Ancient Faith Radio
