Christmas Eve Archives - Saint Sophia

The Fortieth Day of Christmas Advent. On the Eve of the Nativity of Christ

12/24/2025

~Sermon Preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, December 24, 2006 In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. Glory to Jesus Christ! St. Gregory of Nyssa writes that “even the pagans and the philosophers heard the thunder from Mt. Sinai.” From that dramatic and earth-shaking theophany came the Law, the Ten Commandments which were meant to curtail the barbarity of the people, to teach

The Thirty-Ninth Day of Christmas Advent. On the Feast of the Nativity

12/23/2025

~Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Christmas Eve – December 24, 2012 In the Western Rite on Christmas Eve the Prologue from St. John’s Gospel is read. It is a good choice for this night. Do you remember it? “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God…” “En arxn ain ho Logos…” John equates Jesus, the Son of God, with a word that came to

The Twenty-Sixth Day of Christmas Advent. On the Feast of the Nativity

12/10/2025

~Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Christmas Eve, December 24, 2013 I don’t know if you knew Professor Jaroslav Pelikan. He was a wonderful historian, a theologian, a Lutheran who converted to Orthodoxy in the last part of his life. He was an amazing man. He said something that I’ve kept in my mind since I heard it: that “the problem with the church is that we have lost a sense of the cosmic

The Seventh Day of Christmas. The Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ

12/31/2024

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes for the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ on Thursday, December 24, 2015. Listening to the hymns of the [Christmas] Vesperal Liturgy, the Royal Hours, and of Matins, I was struck by some extremely beautiful things, which spoke of the openness of God towards his creation; of his love and compassion for all his creation, for the entire universe, is wrapped up in the

The Fortieth Day of Christmas Advent (Christmas Eve): On the Feast of the Nativity

12/24/2023

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on the Eve of Christmas 2018 at St. Mary Orthodox Church in Cambridge, MA In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. St. John the Evangelist wrote three letters that appear in the New Testament. In his first letter, chapter 2, verse 21, he explains why he is writing. “It is not because you do not know the truth

Christmas Eve, the Fortieth Day of Christmas Advent. Making Sense of a Jumbled World.

12/24/2021

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, December 27, 2014 Listening to the Nativity collection of readings for the Vespers of Christmas Eve (there were eight of them), my mind drifted to the “jumbled mess” that is the Old Testament. We speak of it as if it were a single thing, when, it is many things (over 40), and some of those things are jumbled concatenations of other jumbled things. I can only imagine what someone coming to

The Eighteenth Day of Christmas Advent. It’s a Wonderful Life.

12/02/2021

Let us be signposts pointing toward a bright and happy future By Abbot Tryphon, November 26, 2019 One of the most beloved movies ever made was Frank Capra’s, “It’s a Wonderful Life”. Staring Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey, the movie tells the story of an ever optimistic man, who, while facing life’s hardships, set aside his own dreams in order to help others, only to witness a run on his bank. Feeling he’d failed his

Making Sense of a Jumbled World. Christmas Eve, 2019

12/24/2019

The Fortieth Day of Christmas Advent. Christmas Eve.

12/24/2018

A WOMAN I KNOW, whose family owns a retail business in a small town, once commented, “Christmas is not a pleasant time at our house.” I found this a sad commentary on what Christmas has become for so many of us: a time of increased anxiety and stress and discord. We lash out at loved ones because we’re spending money we can’t afford to spend, or, as with this woman, because Christmas is what makes

The Fortieth Day of Christmas Advent (Christmas Eve). Ecumenical Patriarch’s Christmas Message: Christ Conquers Violence and Evil through Love

12/24/2017

By His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I + BARTHOLOMEW By God’s Mercy Archbishop of Constantinople-New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch To the Plenitude of the Church: Grace, mercy, and peace from the Savior Christ, born in Bethlehem Beloved brothers and sisters in the Lord, “Christ is descending from the heavens; let us meet Him!” God has appeared on earth and, at the same time, we have seen the perfect man together with the inconceivable value of the

Archive

The Fortieth Day of Christmas Advent. On the Eve of the Nativity of Christ

The Thirty-Ninth Day of Christmas Advent. On the Feast of the Nativity

The Twenty-Sixth Day of Christmas Advent. On the Feast of the Nativity

The Seventh Day of Christmas. The Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ

The Fortieth Day of Christmas Advent (Christmas Eve): On the Feast of the Nativity

Christmas Eve, the Fortieth Day of Christmas Advent. Making Sense of a Jumbled World.

The Eighteenth Day of Christmas Advent. It’s a Wonderful Life.

Making Sense of a Jumbled World. Christmas Eve, 2019

The Fortieth Day of Christmas Advent. Christmas Eve.

The Fortieth Day of Christmas Advent (Christmas Eve). Ecumenical Patriarch’s Christmas Message: Christ Conquers Violence and Evil through Love

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