Hopko’s Maxims

I pulled out of my wife’s papers a note, translated by a friend of ours, entitled “55 Maxims of the Christian Life”. The maxims, which can be found on Google in their original language, were put together by Fr. Thomas Hopko in obedience to brethren who had asked him to write, briefly, what reveals that the Christian living is always possible to all people. Father Thomas, who talked successfully about obedience, has kept, in his maxims, to encourage the regularity in communal and individual prayer as well as in the reading of the Scriptures and wholesome books and in charity… However, he innovated in exhorting the faithful to be ordinary people, to be clean for instance, exercising regularly, and to be realistic… No one can claim that these maxims are integral. Nevertheless, we can sense in them the fragrance of a heritage passed down by the Fathers from generation to generation. Life in Christ, which aspires to eternity, concerns our entire life, here and now.