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The Seventeenth Day of Christmas Advent: You Are Not Alone – And Neither Is God

12/01/2023

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, November 16, 2021 I consider it both a strange mystery and a settled matter of the faith that God prefers not to do things alone. Repeatedly, He acts in a manner that involves the actions of others when it would seem, He could have acted alone. Why would God reveal His Word to the world through the agency of men? Why would He bother to use writing? Why not simply communicate

The Apostle Andrew: The First-Called of the Twelve

11/30/2023

At the very beginning of His ministry, Christ passed by two brother-fishermen casting their nets into the Sea of Galilee. He spoke very simple words to them: Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men (Matthew 4:19). They did just this, straightaway casting aside their entire former lives. These were Simon-Peter and Andrew. Why, then, has the Apostle Andrew – whose memory we celebrate today – received the title of the “first-called”? The brothers came

The Fifteenth Day of Christmas Advent: Physical or Spiritual Blindness?

11/29/2023

Published by Pemptousia Partnership on January 23, 2022 Protopresbyter Nikolaos Patsalos [It is the]14th Sunday of Saint Luke [this coming Sunday] and we’ve now entered the month of Christmas. Jesus enters Jericho and comes across a suffering person whose affliction is blindness. It’s a terrible cross for him not to enjoy the first and greatest of God’s goods: perceptible light. Apart from being blind, the unfortunate man in today’s Gospel reading is also a beggar. But it was

The Fourteenth Day of Christmas Advent: Embracing Indestructible Joy

11/28/2023

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, December 13, 2020 The Parable of the Great Banquet is a call to joy. We are all invited to it. In fact, the Banquet can be seen as a metaphor for the Eucharist, the Great Thanksgiving. Of course, not everyone comes when invited. Still God invites. He calls even those he knows will reject him. The verse “many are called but few are chosen” can be confusing.

The Thirteenth Day of Christmas Advent: Thanksgiving Communion

11/27/2023

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, November 29, 2020 Whom should I thank? The question is normally a matter of polite acknowledgement. A gift was given and received. Who gave it? Whom should I thank? It is inherently the nature of giving thanks that thanks must be given to someone. I cannot give thanks to nothing or no one. As such, the giving of thanks is an act of communion on one level or another. Fr. Alexander Schmemann, in

Saint Stylianos, The Protector of Children

11/26/2023

Published by Pemptousia Partnership on November 26, 2017 Archimandrite Charalambos Vassilopoulos (†) Saint Stylianos was born in Paphlagonia, Asia Minor, between 400 and 500. He was blessed even from his mother’s womb. As he grew up, by the grace of God he increasingly became a dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit. From childhood he displayed the rare qualities of his blessed life. When he was young and still an adolescent, although, of course, he was of the flesh, he

The Eleventh Day of Christmas Advent: St. Katherine of Alexandria, Virgin & Martyr

11/25/2023

NOVEMBER 25, 2021 It could have been a Washington story: she was young and beautiful, from a wealthy and influential family. She had received the best education that money could buy and her suitors were the most eligible bachelors from other leading families. She lived in tense times when it was important to be on the right side of the issues; it could be dangerous to challenge the authorities. But the story of St. Katherine

The Tenth Day of Christmas Advent: Thanksgiving as Mystical Communion

11/24/2023

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, November 24, 2021 “This is good. This is bad.” In one form or another, we divide the world into light and dark. It might take the form, “I like this. I do not like that.” What we find easy are the things we see as good and the things we like. If a day is filled with such things, we are likely to be happy. If the day is marked by

The Ninth Day of Christmas Advent: Happy Thanksgiving! Thoughts on Thanksgiving

11/23/2023

By Michael Haldas, November 23, 2017 “The chief purpose of life, for any one of us is to increase according to our capacity our knowledge of God by all the means we have, and to be moved by it to praise and thanks.” (J.R.R. Tolkien) “We must continually nurture the grace of gratitude in our hearts…A state of mind that sees God in everything is evidence of growth in grace and a thankful heart.” (Rev.

The Eighth Day of Christmas Advent: Detach and Follow

11/22/2023

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, September 22, 2019 The Gospel is according to Luke 5:1-11 Notice the way that Christ begins to teach Simon, James, and John the fishermen about the narrow path of self-emptying. He meets their needs and tells them what to do to find the fish that had eluded them all night. It brings Simon (later Peter) to a moment of self-realization. “Depart from me for I am a

Blog

The Seventeenth Day of Christmas Advent: You Are Not Alone – And Neither Is God

The Apostle Andrew: The First-Called of the Twelve

The Fifteenth Day of Christmas Advent: Physical or Spiritual Blindness?

The Fourteenth Day of Christmas Advent: Embracing Indestructible Joy

The Thirteenth Day of Christmas Advent: Thanksgiving Communion

Saint Stylianos, The Protector of Children

The Eleventh Day of Christmas Advent: St. Katherine of Alexandria, Virgin & Martyr

The Tenth Day of Christmas Advent: Thanksgiving as Mystical Communion

The Ninth Day of Christmas Advent: Happy Thanksgiving! Thoughts on Thanksgiving

The Eighth Day of Christmas Advent: Detach and Follow

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