PODCAST · religion
Praying in the Rain
by Fr. Michael Gillis, and Ancient Faith Ministries
Fr. Michael Gillis reflects on the inner life of Orthodox Christians. Drawing on the wisdom of both ancient and contemporary Church Fathers, Fr. Michael ponders the struggles, the ironies, and the disciplines of the spiritual life.
Episodes
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Saying and Doing Through Compunction
Compunction can guide what we do and say.
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The Form of Love
"The grace of God is not in the man who does not love his enemies."
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The Chief Hypocrite
It is time for a public confession from the chief hypocrite.
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Four Sources of Thoughts
The movement of thoughts in a man originates from four causes.
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Thoughts, Passions, Gardening
Someone recently asked me about how to understand the evil thoughts they experience.
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Death Does Not Come for Coffee
What will we finally say when death visits us - and not for coffee?
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The Problem With Vainglory
One of the problems with vainglory, according to St. Isaac the Syrian, is that “it hands that person over to” either fornication or pride. But before we can talk about how vainglory hands one over to either fornication or pride, we need to understand what vainglory is. Nowadays the word vain…
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The Art of Humility
There is strength in humility.
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How Could God Allow...
"How could God let his representatives get away with such things?"
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Same Sex Attraction and Three Desert Fathers
We live in a generation that has been taught to tie their personal identity to their imagined sexual preferences. Consequently, it is difficult to help people who struggle with sexual passions to find hope and repentance. However, the teaching of holy fathers such as St. Isaac the Syrian and St....
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A Bit on Illumination
"We have to read with discernment and humility."
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Forgiveness on a Snowy Day
Just about any discipline that has to do with the body, if you really think that discipline is important, is mostly just a matter of making yourself do it; but forgiveness is not merely a bodily matter. Forgiveness is a matter of the soul, of the heart. Forgiveness is not so easy. On its most…
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Theosis: Women Vs. Men
Is there a difference between men and women in regard to theosis? Short answer: No. Long answer: Every human being is unique. Gender is part of that uniqueness.
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Prostrations and Depression
Acknowledging the ugliness in our heart is like taking out the garbage. When we pretend it’s not there, it doesn’t go away. It just festers. But when we confess our sin by acknowledging before God the ugliness of our heart, a ray of light shines there and we take a step toward healing.
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For Beginners Only: Building Our Spiritual House
For those of us who are still working on getting that first few rows of stones around the foundation of faith, focusing on acquiring a little bit of every virtue helps us to keep picking up the stone (of virtue) that is needed at a given moment and putting it down at the correct place in our...
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Faith and Moral Freedom
Just as surely as there is a time of sowing, there is a time of reaping. God changes us and touches the hearts of others through our prayers, our giving and our service to others. Seeds become trees and trees change the environment. Sowing is hard. Trees grow slowly, almost imperceptibly. It...
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The Interactive Work Of The Holy Spirit
The work of the Holy Spirit in our lives always takes place on two levels, both on the level of what is outside us or what comes to us, and on the level of what is within us or how we receive what comes to us.
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Family Life and Spiritual Warfare
Fr. Michael Gillis answers the question of “how to overcome thoughts of pride in our hearts that inevitably come after labouring on good works for our families and people around us.”
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Good's Disfigured Face
Fr. Michael Gillis reflects on the life and writings of 20th century Catholic author, Flannery O’Connor. "Good in this broken world is always something under construction. The grotesque—physical, moral and spiritual—that presents itself to us as the terribly deformed face of a cancer ridden child...
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Take Heed: Part Five
Fr. Michael examines Jesus's exhortation to "take heed that you do not despise the little ones."
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Spiritual Zeal: What It Is and What It Isn't
Fr. Michael talks about the difference between inwardly-focused spiritual zeal and outwardly-focused emotional zeal.
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Arguing
In St. Paul’s famous passage about spiritual warfare in 2 Corinthians 10, he specifically mentions arguments as one of the high things that must be cast down because they exalt themselves against the knowledge of God. Arguments, St. Paul tells us, along with every other “high thing” must be…
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Two Rich Men
To begin with, we must remind ourselves that salvation is a mystery, and that discerning principles and rules in the scriptures and self consciously applying them to ourselves is no guarantee that we will find salvation. In fact, it seems that this approach to seeking to discover and apply the...
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The Muskox Response to COVID-19
Fear and anger, however, seem to trump common sense and faith in God. Fear and anger open in us a floodgate of animal passions making it seem appropriate to demonize (or de-humanize) those we disagree with. Fear and anger release our inner muskox ready to trample those who are less clear thinking...
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Self-Importance
Self-importance is a tricky disease to diagnose, not in others, but in oneself. The problem lies in the fact that often (but not always) those who suffer from the spiritual sickness of self-importance are in positions that are actually important. Those of us who teach and/or lead in the Church or...
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Love and Self Righeousness
I want to make clear to everyone that we will not be asking anyone about vaccination status. As in almost all matters, so with government health mandates, it is possible (probable) that very godly, intelligent and well-meaning people will disagree. Let’s not let self righteousness—and her…
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On Discernment
Here’s the problem: We so often set ourselves up for failure by thinking our best must mean that we should do what someone else, probably a saint, is doing or has done. And so, without discernment, we force ourselves to complete a rigorous prayer rule or fasting discipline, or to sleep very…
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Assurance about the Vaccine?
Our assurance must be in God Himself. Our assurance cannot be in being right, for we are human. Yes, being right is important, and we should strive for orthodoxy (ortho is Greek for ‘right’). We are the Orthodox Church, after all. However, we are also human. We are limited, do not know everything...
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Thanksgiving
Isn’t it strange how much easier it is to thank God when you have almost nothing, than it is when you have much more than you need? I have noticed this in myself. I am very thankful to God when I have a little bread (when I might not have any), but when I have bread going mouldy because I have so...
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Aceticism: Facing The Sun
Keep nurturing the disciplines and activities that tend to produce the fruit of the Spirit, and work to avoid the activities or relationships or situations that stir up your passions. This is what the Church calls asceticism.
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Love in a World of Uncertainty
Today we live in a time of uncertainty; but really, today is no more uncertain than yesterday nor the day or year or century before. Certainty is a kind of delusion. It is a delusion that conveniently forgets that there is much, much more going on in the world than we know and can see. How, then,...
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Peace in Chaos
There are many kinds of waves in the chaotic world we live in. Sometimes the waves are pushing to the left. Sometimes the waves push to the right. Really, there is no rhyme or reason to it. In fact, part of what can drive you crazy is how unreasonable life in this world is. Like the waves on the...
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Hiding in the Midst of Strife
I write a weekly letter for our community and this week I thought I would share this letter with a broader audience. We celebrated the Feast of the Nativity of the Theotokos this week. Mary the Mother of God was born into a world full of oppression and confusion, yet she was able to become the…
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The Wrath of God According to St. John Chrysostom
All suffering, however, regardless of its apparent immediate source, can be understood as the wrath of God. But we must never forget that we call it God’s wrath because of how we feel and how we experience it, not because God is at all angry or vengeful. Rather, God both allows and brings about...
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Christian Outrage?
After my last blog post, John commented that the burning of Churches in Canada calls for “Christian outrage” now, while love and forgiveness can wait until after the crimes have been investigated and resolved. I can honestly say that I know how John feels. In fact, I will go so far as to say that...
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Breaking the Cycle of Sin and Pain
Last night I attended a prayer service in the street in front of the Coptic Orthodox Church that was burned down early Monday morning. Although some evidence points toward arson, arson has not been proven and no motive has yet been identified. However, there has been a recent spike in violence...
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What Does Success in Bodily Warfare Look Like?
Even as we strive to please God by disciplining ourselves and obeying His commands, we know that God loves us. We know that God will accept our striving for righteousness, even if we don’t do it very well, even if we fail. God is able to fix our mistakes. Therefore, like children striving to…
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Just Waiting on God
Waiting involves attention. We have to pay attention to our thoughts. We have to notice what is happening in our minds and thoughts and feelings leading up to and when and after we sin. And learning to pay attention to our thoughts takes time. It’s something that we have to practice. It is, the...
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Beginning As A Sojourner
Fr. Michael Gillis builds off of last week's talk about the Great Reset on not getting attached to the comforts of this world. Someone asked about how to balance living in this world without getting attached to it. Fr. Michael talks about three things we can do to help us live as sojourners in…
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What Should We Do
Fr. Michael Gillis talks about what we should do about the Great Reset. About once a week Fr. Michael gets a message from one or another of my parishioners with a link to a video that he “has to see.” Many of these videos are of a monk on Mt. Athos (or a monk from some other place reputed for...
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Fleeing to the Desert
Is it possible to flee to the desert a little bit? No and yes. No, you can’t flee a little bit, for fleeing a little bit is not fleeing at all. But yes, you can flee a little bit, if that little bit is complete. Here’s what I mean. We are all called to flee the world, in the sense of fleeing the...
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How (Not) To Change the Corrupt World
Fr. Michael Gillis has us look at the world we find ourselves in. We are mentored by media that exploits and seduces us for its own profit, political leaders whom we know are lying, businesses that we know are cheating us and an educational system piloted by women, men and “others” who want to...
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Overcoming Temptations
Fr. Michael Gillis talks about how part of our problem with overcoming temptation is that we don’t understand what temptations are for, what they are meant to accomplish in our lives. We wrongly think that temptations exist to test us to see if we will be “good.” We still haven’t believed the…
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The Two Saints Pelagia of Antioch
On October 8, we commemorate two Sts. Pelagia of Antioch. The first is a virgin martyr, and the second is a repentant harlot, sometimes referred to as St. Pelagia the former courtesan of Antioch.
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Fighting Against Sin
Most of the time, caring for our inner garden is more a matter of attention than of effort. The weeds of sinful and passionate thoughts can be pulled out pretty easily by merely recognizing them as sinful and turning your attention to Christ in prayer. The Jesus Prayer is probably the most…
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The Mark of the Beast
It seems whenever there is a crisis, people begin to see possible predictions and warnings about such times in the scripture. And certainly Christ does warn us to be prepared for the End, and to recognize that various tribulations and “wars and rumours of wars” would be the ongoing signs that the...
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Why Do We Kiss the Cross?
When we celebrate the Cross, we are not so much remembering the Crucifixion of Christ, as much as we are remembering the salvation that Christ’s Crucifixion has brought us and all the ways that we too are crucified with Christ. You see Christ did not suffer so that we would not have to suffer....
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The Marriage Icon
In Orthodox Christian marriage, the wife is the queen, crowned and exalted at the head of the household; however, she is also the intercessor, standing submissively behind her husband, receiving his full attention and quietly interceding on behalf of the household. In this image is revealed the...
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Overcoming Sin By Not Hiding
Repentance is a matter of saying, that’s not me, that’s not who I am—even while all I can see is my failure and darkness. This is because who I am, who I am becoming, is hidden in Christ. When I turn my attention to my failure and darkness, all seems to become failure and darkness because guilt...
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Sinner vs. Sinning
Sinners are thrown utterly upon the mercy of God. For Sinners, “Lord, have mercy” means Lord, have mercy. For those who merely admit that they have sinned, “Lord, have mercy” may have very little meaning at all.
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Fr. Michael Gillis reflects on the inner life of Orthodox Christians. Drawing on the wisdom of both ancient and contemporary Church Fathers, Fr. Michael ponders the struggles, the ironies, and the disciplines of the spiritual life.
HOSTED BY
Fr. Michael Gillis, and Ancient Faith Ministries
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Praying in the Rain have?
Praying in the Rain currently has 214 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Praying in the Rain about?
Fr. Michael Gillis reflects on the inner life of Orthodox Christians. Drawing on the wisdom of both ancient and contemporary Church Fathers, Fr. Michael ponders the struggles, the ironies, and the disciplines of the spiritual life.
How often does Praying in the Rain release new episodes?
Praying in the Rain publishes regularly with 214 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
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You can listen to Praying in the Rain on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Praying in the Rain?
Praying in the Rain is created and hosted by Fr. Michael Gillis, and Ancient Faith Ministries.
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