"More tolerable is the sky without stars, or spring without flowers, than a person without faith and hope." Writing a little less than two decades before the turn of the present century, Fr. Daniel Gouvalis expressed this view of one of the most fundamental and critical problems of our time-namely, not only the dearth of faith in many people (or its weakness in those not lacking it altogether), but also the absence of hope that all too often accompanies its loss. Indeed, it is a condition that makes life intolerable for so ...
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"More tolerable is the sky without stars, or spring without flowers, than a person without faith and hope." Writing a little less than two decades before the turn of the present century, Fr. Daniel Gouvalis expressed this view of one of the most fundamental and critical problems of our time-namely, not only the dearth of faith in many people (or its weakness in those not lacking it altogether), but also the absence of hope that all too often accompanies its loss. Indeed, it is a condition that makes life intolerable for so many in an increasingly complex and pressurized world, rendering it devoid of its natural and proper joy and meaning. As Fr. Daniel so aptly put it, "Whoever is barren of faith becomes impoverished on all levels of life. His existence is rendered faint of heart and shriveled. His horizons become suffocatingly narrow. His perspectives are unimaginably limited. The oak tree is forced to develop in a flowerpot!" In The Miracle of Faith , Fr. Daniel draws on both the natural and the supernatural worlds to present a series of edifying, inspiring, and versatile homilies that are at once entertaining and thought-provoking, and which serve a vital purpose: to strengthen the "fire" of faith in the heart of the reader. Known and loved by thousands of Orthodox Christians in Greece, the Very Reverend Archimandrite Daniel Gouvalis of blessed memory was a close disciple of the recently canonized St. Porphyrios, and was the priest of the Church of Saint Paraskevi in Malakasa, Attica, Greece.
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