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Daily Meditations

The Twentieth Day of Christmas Advent. Saint Barbara the Great Martyr

12/04/2018

During the reign of the impious Roman Emperor Maximian, there lived in the East, near Heliopolis, a wealthy, renowned nobleman named Dioscorus, by ancestry and faith a Hellene. He had a daughter named Barbara, his only child, over whom he kept watch as the apple of his eye. The maiden was exceedingly beautiful, and no girl or woman in the country could compare with her. Thinking baseborn, common folk unworthy to behold his daughter’s fair

The Nineteenth Day of Christmas Advent. Faith and Mystery.

12/03/2018

MATTHEW’S GOSPEL TELLS US about the centurion at Capernaum who asks Jesus to heal his servant in distress. “I will come and heal him,” says Jesus. To which the centurion responds, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant will be healed.” Jesus says the word and the servant is healed. Of the Roman centurion he then says, “Not even in Israel have

The Sixteenth Day of Christmas Advent. Apostle Andrew, the Holy and All-Praised First-Called

11/30/2018

The Holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called was the first of the Apostles to follow Christ, and he later brought his own brother, the holy Apostle Peter, to Christ (John 1:35-42). The future apostle was from Bethsaida, and from his youth he turned with all his soul to God. He did not enter into marriage, and he worked with his brother as a fisherman. When the holy Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist John began to preach, Saint

The Fifteenth Day of Christmas Advent. We are All Searching.

11/29/2018

WE ARE ALL SEARCHING, AND ULTIMATELY—whether we know it or not—we are searching for God. Ultimately, we are searching for the Ultimate, and the Ultimate is God. It is not easy, searching for God. Think about it. We can stretch our minds as high and deep and far as our minds can stretch, and at the point of the highest, deepest, farthest stretch of our minds, we have not “thought” God. There is always a

The Fourteenth Day of Christmas Advent. History of the Feast.

11/28/2018

History of the Feast WHEN SOMEONE WE LOVE COMES TO VISIT—when a child returns home for a holiday or an old friend from far away finally comes to town—we are full of anticipation and prepare to receive our guest with joy. We may even clean the house and polish the silver. So it is with Advent, the season set aside by the ancient Christian communities to prepare for the mystery we are about to celebrate

The Thirteenth Day of Christmas Advent. Birth.

11/27/2018

Birth, any birth, is our primary access to the creative work of God. And we birth much more than human babies. Our lives give birth to God’s kingdom every day—or, at least, they should. And Jesus’ virgin birth provides and maintains the focus that God himself is personally present and totally participant in creation; this is good news, indeed.  Every birth is kerygmatic. The birth of Jesus, kept fresh in our imaginations and prayers in

The Twelfth Day of Christmas Advent. Saint Stylianos, The Protector of Children

11/26/2018

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 never allowed desires to pollute his spirit and soul.

The Ninth Day of Christmas Advent. “Born of a Woman.”

11/23/2018

By stating that Jesus is “born of woman”—this Mary (as both St. Matthew and St. Luke attest)—St. Paul insists that Jesus is most emphatically human, the “firstborn of all creation.” That this Mary is at the same time a virgin prevents the birth of Jesus from being reduced to what we know or can reproduce from our own experience. Life that is unmistakably human life is before us here, a real baby from an actual

A Sermon for Thanksgiving Day, by Father Leonidas Contos

11/22/2018

“It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to thy name, O Most High; to declare thy steadfast love in the morning, and thy faithfulness by night…. (Psalm 92) I hope we are not willing to let Thanksgiving go so hastily, to let whatever feelings the day itself [generates] evaporate in a swirl of pre-Christmas frenzy…. The splendor of their Autumn vestments which the trees don so slowly and majestically; the

The Entrance of the Theotokos in the Temple

11/21/2018

The Feast of the Entrance of the Virgin in the Temple is believed to be not among the most ancient festivals of the Church. However, indications that the Feast was observed in the first centuries of Christianity are found in the traditions of Palestinian Christians, which say that the holy Empress Helen (May 21) built a church in honor of the Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple. St. Gregory of Nyssa, in

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