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Hidden Wounds

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, November 6, 2022 The woman with the issue of blood suffered with her ailment for 12 years. Jairus’ daughter died at the age of 12. That’s an interesting detail. Was it a deliberate move by the author or authors? Or a coincidence? Who knows? Whether one or the other the number twelve appears often in Holy Scripture signifying wholeness and the power and authority of God. Jesus,

Sunday of the Samaritan Woman: The Sixth Hour

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, May 14, 2023 When we are troubled, God draws nearer to us (if one can say God is ever not “near”) it can certainly seem that way. Actually, as Rebbe Barukh taught, “Faith and the abyss are next to one another.” Carl Jung added his two cents writing that mystics swim in the same water in which psychotics drown. Before the dialogue

The Second Wednesday of Great Lent: Depth Spirituality

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, October 25, 2020 Let me begin today by reading from Paul’s letter to the Galatians chapter 5, vs. 22-23: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” Let’s focus on self-control today since one of the hallmarks of what we call “possession” is the loss of it. Our Holy Fathers and Mothers were not acquainted as

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! The Second Tuesday of Pascha: The Invitation

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, December 11, 2016 Today’s Gospel reading reveals a great truth: salvation is about relationship. We cannot be saved alone. The Great Feast in the parable is a metaphor for this. It starts at the very beginning when God says, “Let us make humanity in our own image.” The Hebrew writer gloriously uses the plural: God speaking to God. And gradually the mysterious mutuality of God in Trinity

The Ninth Day of Christmas: A Time of Wonder

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, December 23, 2018 at St. Mary Orthodox Church in Cambridge, MA.  As the Lord Jesus, the Incarnate Christ, opened his heart to us, let us also open our hearts and in the same way love without limits or boundaries. For there are no walls that we do not ourselves create, no closed doors or windows that we do not ourselves fabricate. St. Paul writes in Ephesians that

The First Thursday of Great Lent: Depth Spirituality

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, October 25, 2020 Let me begin today by reading from Paul’s letter to the Galatians chapter 5, vs. 22-23: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” Let’s focus on self-control today since one of the hallmarks of what we call “possession” is the loss of it. Our Holy Fathers and Mothers were not acquainted as

He Went Up the Mountain to Pray

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, August 29, 2021. In our changing times when many are questioning the relevance of the Church, I was reminded of a quote by Carl Jung that sparked this meditation. “It is high time that we realize it is pointless to praise the light and preach it if nobody can see it. It is more needful to teach people the art of seeing.” How, then, do we teach

Christ and Nothing (Part II)

By David Bentley Hart, October 2003 Even our ethics are achievements of will. And the same is true of those custom-fitted spiritualities — “New Age,” occult, pantheist, “Wiccan,” or what have you—by which many of us now divert ourselves from the quotidien dreariness of our lives. These gods of the boutique can come from anywhere—native North American religion, the Indian subcontinent, some Pre-Raphaelite grove shrouded in Celtic twilight, cunning purveyors of otherwise worthless quartz, pages