Frederica Here and Now

Frederica Mathewes-Green reads her essay, "Why They Hate Us."

Frederica Mathewes-Green shares the prayer titled St. Patrick's Breastplate.

Don't miss this rich and inspiring reading by Frederica Mathewes-Green of the entire Nativity Kontakion written by St. Romanos the Melodist and translated by Fr. Ephrem Lash. It was taken from the book On the Life of Christ: Kontakia, published in 1994.

So what about this star in the east? How important is it that we insist it be a real astronomical star?

Why does Jesus often tell people not to talk about their healings? I have a theory.

I believe that it's good to set yourself a prayer rule that you won't be able to fully complete.

St. Paisios has come reassuring comments about our struggle against sin. Here is the prayer that Frederica shares in this episode, "O Merciful Lord, you who are all-good and all-loving and patient with me, I know I have sinned; in word, deed, and thought, in knowledge and in ignorance, voluntarily and involuntarily. It is impossible for me to list all my sins, because of their multitude, and my forgetfulness, but especially because of my stony insensibility that prevents me from even noticing them. I truly repent of all these sins, including the ones I don’t remember or prevented myself from recognizing as sin. Please forgive me, you who love mankind, and help me to do better; make me your dwelling place, so that I will love holiness and pursue it more closely every day, until the day when at last I see your face."

How does practicing the Jesus Prayer differ from "mindful" meditation?

Why do we dislike living in peaceful times?

Frederica Mathewes-Green reads the first essay she ever published, a secular, feminist presentation of the pro-life cause.

Frederica Mathewes-Green explains that traditions can be beneficial for a family or community, and that all churches have their own “tradition.”

Frederica Mathewes-Green ponders the tremendous amount of work it took to weave fabric by hand, and how it felt to be clothed in someone’s labor; what we miss, by living entirely amid machine-made things.

The Mother of our Lord is often a stumbling block for Protestants who are exploring Orthodoxy. Frederica Mathewes-Green discusses how to disregard medieval excesses, and see how the early Christians saw her.

Frederica Mathewes-Green presents a Romanian elder’s take on the simple faith that is held by many Americans, and how God responds to it, and she also reports a prayer experience that conveyed the same idea.

Recently, I uploaded an old video to YouTube, of one of the strangest and funniest experiences I ever had with an interview. It was 1996. A producer for a viewer-call-in political talk show, "Capital Watch," phoned me about the work I was doing with a group called Common Ground for Life and Choice. We brought pro-life and pro-choice people together in dialogue, to get better understanding of each other's beliefs. (To get past misunderstanding so we could arrive at genuine disagreement, I used to say.) I put it on my calendar, and drove to the studio on Capital Hill. But while I was standing just off the set, waiting to be introduced, I heard the host say I was going to talk about common ground between Republicans and Democrats. I knew nothing about that. I didn't follow politics at all. But in a matter of seconds I had to walk on the set, sit down, and basically fake it for 20 minutes. I guess the producer had written "Common Ground" on the schedule without any further explanation, and that's what the hosts thought I was there to talk about. It's pretty funny. You can see me making guesses about what answer the hosts expected me to give, trying to sound like I actually knew something about the topic. Afterward I wrote a column about it, and how you can see someone on a talk show who appears to not know what they're talking about, "the idiot beside the potted plant." Well, that would be me. Watch the interview at www.youtube.com/watch?v=SneiaHIiogA. Read the column at: frederica.com/writings/whos-that-idiot-next-to-the-potted-plant.html.