~By Father Stephen Freeman, May 18, 2020 A few days ago, after hearing a very distressing bit of social news, I found myself saying, “I don’t want to be here anymore.” It was a voice of despair and sadness. The occasion had been a public altercation in which a stranger spat at a woman. It was the sort of thing that belongs among the lowest of human actions. But it happened. My topic is my
Sermon preached on Sunday, July 24, 2022 by Fr. Antony Hughes Light is a major theme in the Gospels as we know. Another theme connected to it is the ability or inability to see the light. It is true that not everyone can see it. In Mt. 6 Jesus develops this theme for us. “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body is filled with light.
Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, August 23, 2020 Forgiveness, offered, isn’t always accepted or passed on. The unforgiving servant is the New Testament version of the narcissist. Receiving extravagant mercy from his master and caring only for himself, he refuses it to his fellow servant. “Why ask forgiveness when I’ve done nothing wrong,” the narcissist asks? For such a person there are rarely second thoughts and no effective arguments. It is vain
~By Archimandrite Varnavas Lambropoulos On the eve of our entry into Great Lent, everything in church speaks to us of repentance. The wonderful hymns ‘robe’ the message of repentance in a poetic manner; the Gospel reading gives us the keys to open the gates of repentance; and the Epistle reminds us of one of Saint Paul’s most pressing admonitions: to call us to repentance. In essence the leading apostle repeats, in his own, graphic manner,
Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, February 5, 2022 The Odes of Solomon is a first or second century document known to the Holy Father’s and quoted by a few. Olivier Clement used it to great effect in THE ROOTS OF CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM. Here is the quote. “Blessed are the men and women who are planted…in your garden, who grow like trees and flowers grow, who transform their darkness into light. Their roots
FROM DARKNESS TO LIGHT Mary like any Christian contemplative had to learn to walk by faith. We can believe that the great faith she needed to give her fiat to the message of the angel had been prepared by series of acts of faith developed throughout Mary’s life as she contemplated God’s message unfolding in her life before the Annunciation. We see her deep spirit of contemplative faith when we examine Lk 1:37, “For nothing
Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, July 13, 2014 The reading is from Matthew 5:14-19 (Holy Fathers) This Gospel is used to point to the importance we place on sharing the message of Christ to the world. The Holy Fathers of the Fourth and all the other six councils met in order to ensure that the Gospel was understood correctly. The intimation is that the bushel with which we try to hide the
Sermon Preached by Father Antony Hughes on Sunday, May 23, 2004 In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. Glory to Jesus Christ! It is easy to get distracted these days. The world is changing before our eyes. Sometimes it is difficult to find solid ground, to find something firm to hold on to, something sure, something unchangeable, and something solid, something safe. Society is
Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, October 23, 2016 Darkness and light are not opposites. They are equally parts of life, rising and falling like waves from the same ocean. St. John writes so beautifully that “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” He speaks of the human experience. Darkness is as much a part of life as light is and just as the light shines in
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
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